The Vampires of Venice
May. 14th, 2010 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatMy initial thoughts after watching the Vampires of Venice was that it was a fairly run-of-the-mill runaround. It's never going to be one of the Doctor Who classic episodes, but it's enjoying itself doing a Hammer Horror rip-off and is lifted by Helen McCrory's sympathetic performance as Rosanna.
So this isn't really a review. It is merely masquerading as one. What I thought was the single most interesting part of the episode was the comparison between Arthur Darvill's Rory Williams and Noel Clarke's Mickey Smith. So I'm going to talk about that instead.
I assume the comparison is intended to be deliberate. We have scenes, such as the one where Rory, sat in front of several kegs of gunpowder, is clearly excluded from the Doctor and Amy's conversation which so closely mirrors a scene at the start of The Girl in the Fireplace that I can't believe it's coincidental. If you assume that we are being deliberately invited to make a comparison then Rory is, to a certain extent, either a criticism or a homage.
Initially, much of the dynamic between the Doctor, Amy and Rory looked like a mirror of that between the Doctor, Rose and Mickey. There was a hint of difference in the moment where Rory refuses to be over-impressed by the TARDIS interior but the real signal that this was a different dynamic was when Rory convincingly called the Doctor on the danger in which he places his companions.
On the whole then, I think Rory is intended as a criticism of RTD's Mickey character. That's very interesting, in and of itself, given the Stepford wife-like conformity with which those involved in the production of NuWho think all of it, without exception, is wonderful. Presumably it is also a deconstruction of the idea that the Doctor and "chosen" companion have to exist in this intense, exclusionary relationship. I loved the twist at the end of the episode in which Amy emerges as the dominant personality of the group, not the Doctor, more signs that this iteration of Who is far more genuinely interested in the companion than previous versions.
All that said, Amy and Rory have very little chemistry. As![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fififolle observed, Rory and the Doctor have more chemistry than Rory and Amy (although possibly Fifi would say that). Rory's moment of triumph was oddly under-whelming and no one really sold it as the moment when both Rory buys into the Doctor's lifestyle and Amy becomes confident about Rory.
We've already seen a very different take on the companion from Moffat's tenure. We're now seeing a very different take on an enlarged group and, in particular, we're seeing hints of something never before seen in Doctor Who, even in the early days of William Hartnell. A show in which, even though the Doctor is the hero, he isn't, always, the leader.
This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/6357.html.
So this isn't really a review. It is merely masquerading as one. What I thought was the single most interesting part of the episode was the comparison between Arthur Darvill's Rory Williams and Noel Clarke's Mickey Smith. So I'm going to talk about that instead.
I assume the comparison is intended to be deliberate. We have scenes, such as the one where Rory, sat in front of several kegs of gunpowder, is clearly excluded from the Doctor and Amy's conversation which so closely mirrors a scene at the start of The Girl in the Fireplace that I can't believe it's coincidental. If you assume that we are being deliberately invited to make a comparison then Rory is, to a certain extent, either a criticism or a homage.
Initially, much of the dynamic between the Doctor, Amy and Rory looked like a mirror of that between the Doctor, Rose and Mickey. There was a hint of difference in the moment where Rory refuses to be over-impressed by the TARDIS interior but the real signal that this was a different dynamic was when Rory convincingly called the Doctor on the danger in which he places his companions.
On the whole then, I think Rory is intended as a criticism of RTD's Mickey character. That's very interesting, in and of itself, given the Stepford wife-like conformity with which those involved in the production of NuWho think all of it, without exception, is wonderful. Presumably it is also a deconstruction of the idea that the Doctor and "chosen" companion have to exist in this intense, exclusionary relationship. I loved the twist at the end of the episode in which Amy emerges as the dominant personality of the group, not the Doctor, more signs that this iteration of Who is far more genuinely interested in the companion than previous versions.
All that said, Amy and Rory have very little chemistry. As
fififolle observed, Rory and the Doctor have more chemistry than Rory and Amy (although possibly Fifi would say that). Rory's moment of triumph was oddly under-whelming and no one really sold it as the moment when both Rory buys into the Doctor's lifestyle and Amy becomes confident about Rory.We've already seen a very different take on the companion from Moffat's tenure. We're now seeing a very different take on an enlarged group and, in particular, we're seeing hints of something never before seen in Doctor Who, even in the early days of William Hartnell. A show in which, even though the Doctor is the hero, he isn't, always, the leader.
This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/6357.html.