I know you're going to be shocked, but I really liked this episode. It was the first one that felt like a real Doctor Who episode and not a Steven Moffat wank-fest.
Of course, I'm not thrilled how it starts out with the Doctor popping out of a cake at Rory's stag party, but only because it's a reminder that Amy kissed him. Blech. The Doctor takes Rory back to the TARDIS and, when Rory doesn't say, "it's bigger on the inside", learns that Rory has been reading up on crazy stuff like time travel. I think that he's impressed.
The three of them head off to Venice, and the Doctor expresses relief that Casanova hasn't been born yet, because he owes him a chicken. I did get a giggle out of this, because David Tennant played Casanova on the BBC.
They discover a man, Guido, trying to find his daughter among a group of school girls, and the Doctor immediately investigates. (We'd previously seen Guido sending his daughter off to school with Signora Rosanna Calvierri there.) He gets into the school and discovers a group of vampire-like creatures is living there. He flashes the psychic paper, and I had another squee moment; I hadn't noticed the first time around, but there is a picture of the First Doctor on the psychic paper, and he mutters something about a library card.
The Doctor, Amy, Rory, and Guido come up with a plan - they are going to get into the school via a trap door and save Guido's daughter, Isabella.
Amy goes undercover and enters the school using the Doctor's psychic paper. She unlocks the trap door, but then is abducted by Rosanna's henchmen. They knew she was different because they recognized the psychic paper. They explain to her that they drain her of blood and then replace it with their own, thus transforming her into a creature like them. And what kind of creature is this? Amy kicks Rosanna and she kind of ... flickers ... between Rosanna and ... some kind of alien fish thing.
Isabella gets Amy out of her restraints and they find the Doctor and Rory. They get out of the building, but the sun is too much for Isabella, and she is caught by Francesco. Rosanna has Isabella thrown in the canal, and she thrashes about and yells, "something touched me! It bites!" She gets eaten.
It turns out that Calvierri is from a planet called Saturnyne, and there is nothing left to the planet anymore. She tells the Doctor that they ran from the silence - there was a crack, and they could see other worlds, but they also saw silence. They managed to slip through the crack, which closed behind them, and Saturnyne was gone forever. She wants to colonize Venice. We later learn that she is going to sink Venice (how is that going to work?) so that she and her children can live there. She is converting the girls of Venice into fish creatures as well so that her son will have wives.
We also learn that she is masking her true form using a perception filter. She hasn't changed form, but the filter tricks the brain into thinking that it sees something else. When reflected in a mirror, the brain doesn't know what to think, thus removes the image completely.
As always, the day is saved. Rory battles Francesco and Amy kills him by flashing light onto him with her compact. The Doctor turns off the weather machine that is going to drown Venice. Of course, he has to make some noises like he has a mental deficiency or something, but he manages it. Rosanna throws herself into the river and is eaten by her own children. Amy asks Rory to stay with them, and the Doctor agrees.
Let's get on with it then, shall we?
Repeat Ideas:
1) The whole aliens taking human form idea. No, this isn't a Moffat thing, but the writer of this episode, Toby Whithouse, also wrote School Ties, where giant bat-things took human form.
2) Rory = Mickey. I'm not necessarily complaining, because I loved Mickey. But let's face it, Rory is essentially the same character. Amy treats Rory like dirt, just like Rose did to Mickey. Now, I loved Rose, but she was very unfair to Mickey, and he could have done a lot better. Rory also could do better than Amy, who really just seems to care about him when it suits her. It's like he's just there for her amusement. They're both slightly off, both are awkward, both are the tin dog, until they blossom and become their own character. Both have to deal with their girlfriend falling in love with time/space travel and leaving them behind. Although, in a new twist, Amy actually asks Rory to stay, whereas Rose didn't want Mickey along. So that's why I like Rory so much, because he is like the white Mickey.
3) Wikipedia has a whole list of repeats from one critic. I won't list them all here, but he's spot on. I'd love for someone to point out something like this all the time, because as you've seen, there are a ton of these instances throughout the entire Moffat series.
Dislikes:
1) After Amy gets bitten by Rosanna, she has bite marks on her neck. The Doctor heals those bites with his sonic screwdriver. His sonic screwdriver. That's a first.
2) The whole thing about silence is very important. However, I've already watched the first few episodes of Series 6, and the way that the silence is talked about in this episode annoys me in those future episodes.
3) Rosanna is wearing a perception filter. Her body hasn't actually changed form. So why, when she throws herself into the river, does she take off her outer garments first? That should be impossible, since she's not actually wearing any clothes.
4) Guido wears Rory's "Rory's Stag" shirt at one point. I love that clothes are never remarked upon in Doctor Who, but that shirt sticks out like a sore thumb - plus, Guido is about five sizes bigger than Rory, and the shirt he was wearing was tight, but certainly not four sizes too small.
5) When Isabella gets thrown into the river, why doesn't she just immediately get eaten? She keeps popping to the surface to shout out things like, "they bite!" It was so unnecessary.
Likes:
Really, I mostly liked this whole episode, so I picked my top three favorite things.
1) When the Doctor is trying to think, Amy interrupts him, so he puts his hand over her mouth. Then he does the same to Rory. Then, when Guido talks, he motions for Rory to put his hand over Guido's mouth. I got a huge kick out of that.
2) The Doctor yells at Amy to do as he says, and she runs away, clearly very upset. This was very reminiscent of the Ninth Doctor, so I liked it a lot.
3) Rory's speech when he's introducing Amy to the Calvierris is brilliant. I loved every second.
Enjoy!
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