The Vampires of Venice (TV story)

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The Vampires of Venice was the sixth episode of Series 5. It was narratively tied to the final scene of Flesh and Stone, greatly furthered the Doctor-Rory-Amy romantic triangle subplot, and ended with Rory apparently joining the Doctor in his travels.

It was notable for being filmed in Croatia, and was thus the first episode of a Doctor Who universe show to be filmed in a formerly Communist country.

Synopsis

Dessicated corpses, terror in the canal and a visit to the sinister House of Calvierri – the Doctor takes Amy and Rory for a romantic mini-break, as the TARDIS touches down once again.

File:Series5vampires.jpg
Vampires converge
Vampires in the dungeon

But 16th-century Venice is not as it should be. The city has been sealed to protect it from the Plague, although Rosanna Calvierri may have other plans...

Plot

Following Amy's attempts to seduce him, the Doctor gatecrashes her fiancé, Rory's stag party and tells him the problem. Knowing full well that travelling with him has a habit of destroying his companions' lives and relationships on Earth, the Doctor decides to take Amy and Rory on a romantic trip to get their relationship back on track. The TARDIS lands in the city of Venice in 1580, but he quickly discovers all is not well, as according to the citizens, plague is running rampant, and the city has been placed under quarantine at the order of the city's patron, Signora Rosanna Calvierri.

The Doctor heads to the Calvierri's palazzo, where he discovers that Rosanna runs a school for the betterment of young ladies, which is highly sought after. However, as the Doctor watches, he sees a Venetian carpenter called Guido, who had entered his daughter, Isabella into the school several days before, trying to remove his daughter from the school. After Guido is turned away by the guards, the Doctor goes after him and learns that something evil is happening in the school, for his daughter didn't recognise him, and the girl who turned him away had a face like an animal...

Meanwhile, Amy and Rory, desperately trying to get along, hear a scream, and go to investigate, finding Rosanna's son, Francesco Calvierri, drinking blood from the neck of a flower girl. As Rory tends to the girl, Amy chases Francesco, only to lose him when he turns into an alley that opens onto the canal. Meanwhile, with Guido's help, the Doctor sneaks into the school, where he is ambushed by five beautiful girls. Upon noticing the girls have no reflections, and seeing their teeth are curved fangs, the Doctor quickly makes an escape and tells Amy, Rory and Guido the problem: there are vampires in Venice.

Needing a way into the school, Amy suggests that she pose as a destitute girl to gain entrance to the school, then open a way for the Doctor and the others to enter. Despite his distaste for the idea, the Doctor reluctantly agrees; however Amy is caught opening a trap door for the others and is taken to a chamber by Rosanna, Francesco and the other girl to be transformed. As they sneak into the school, the Doctor and Rory find a dessicated female corpse; the Doctor theorise that not all the girls survive the process of being turned into vampires, and Rory angrily tells the Doctor that the greatest danger he poses to his companions is the fact he drives his companions to put themselves at risk trying to impress him. Fortunately, the Doctor and Rory, with the help of Isabella, are able to rescue Amy and escape, though Isabella is caught and thrown into the canal, where something alive in the water drags her under.

The Doctor goes back to the school and confronts Rosanna. He identifies her as a Saturnynian, a race of aquatic beings. The vampiric traits displayed are a result of the natural teeth of the species, their natural aversion to sunlight (being deep-sea creatures) and a perception filter they wear to give themselves human appearance by manipulating brain waves which is rendered redundant when seen in a mirror, hence no reflection; the teeth emerge when attacking because, sensing danger, the human brain 'tweaks' the perception filter to see something dangerous. Rosanna explains that her people's planet was lost when "silence fell" and that they fell through a crack in time that sealed behind them, leaving the Saturnynians trapped in 16th century Venice. When the Doctor identifies himself as from Gallifrey, Rosanna proposes an alliance to restore their peoples together, but the Doctor refuses and departs after confirming that she doesn't even remember Isabella's name. Rosanna remarks that she will "bend the heavens" to save her people, then orders her girls to kill the Doctor and his companions.

At Guido's house, the Doctor realises that the Saturnynians are planning to make Venice habitable for their species by sinking the city. The purpose of Rosanna's school was to lure girls to the school that could be converted into female Saturnynians, since only Rosanna and her male offspring survived the fall through time. At that moment, the Calvierri girls, now fully transformed into Saturnynians, attack the house, but Guido buys the Doctor, Amy and Rory enough time to escape by detonating barrels of gunpowder he had stolen from his workplace at the Arsenal, sacrificing himself but killing the girls. At the same time, Rosanna activates a device that triggers an immense storm over Venice; the Doctor realises that the storm will trigger earthquakes and tsunamis that will sink the city; the Doctor tells her that all the female Saturnynians she has created are dead, and then with the help of Amy and Rory, deactivates the device saving Venice. Defeated, Rosanna throws herself into the water in human form to be eaten by her doomed offspring, but not before tormenting the Doctor with the knowledge he is now responsible for the extinction of two species: hers, and his own.

In the aftermath of the incident, Amy and the Doctor invite Rory to continue travelling with them in the TARDIS, but as the Doctor and Rory are about to enter the TARDIS, everything falls silent. Unnerved, the Doctor remembers Rosanna's words: "We saw silence, and the end of all things..."

Cast

Crew

General production staff

Script department

Camera and lighting department

Art department

Costume department

Make-up and prosthetics

Movement

Casting

General post-production staff

Special and visual effects

Sound



Not every person who worked on this adventure was credited. The absence of a credit for a position doesn't necessarily mean the job wasn't required. The information above is based solely on observations of the actual end credits of the episodes as broadcast, and does not relay information from IMDB or other sources.
          

According to a pre-launch press pack issued by the BBC, Patrick Schweitzer was actually the co-producer of this episode, but in the event, he was actually double credited — as both a full producer and a line producer.


References

File:DocLibraryID.png
The Doctor's library card

The Doctor

  • When the Doctor attempts to use his psychic paper, but instead pulls out his library card it has a picture of his first incarnation on it.
  • Amy describes her time with the Doctor as involving "lots of running."

Amy

  • When Rory asks why the Psychic Paper says he is Amy's eunuch (a man who's job it was to dress women and who had his testicles removed much like some choir singers), she says "I'll explain later"

Individuals

Races and species

  • The relationship between Calvierri and her son and their plan to convert people to become their species is similar to that of the Family of Blood who shared a close bond and took over individuals to go unnoticed.
  • When Calvierri commits suicide she asks The Doctor if he can carry another dead race on his concience, and to remember her, much like Davros did when he died.

Technology

  • Rosanna Calvierri uses a Perception filter. The perception filter is shown to have a self preservation loophole, making the teeth visible when the brain detects a threat.

Story Notes

  • A 90-second clip from this episode was aired during Matt Smith's appearance on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross on 26 March 2010.
  • The Vampires are not real vampires, but are of alien origin. They are fish-like alien creatures using Perception Filters to hide themselves to other people.
  • There was some initial confusion over the title of this story, with some media sources (as well as Matt Smith in a TV interview[1]) using the title Vampires in Venice.
  • In the Series 5 preview, one of the vampires leap for Rory, without any change. In the actual episode, he changes to his alien form. Differences like this have happened many times from trailer to episode.
  • The name of the species, Saturnynians, isn't spoken in the episode.
  • The Saturnynian are hiding from the Cracks and the Silence.
  • The Doctor mentions meeting Casanova. David Tennant had previously played Casanova in a television series written by Russell T Davies.
  • This is the first Doctor Who episode that, instead of having the last scene cut to the closing titles, the closing titles 'merge' with the scene. In this case, the camera zooms into the TARDIS keyhole, and through it, the Time Vortex is visible.

Ratings

To be Added

Filming Locations

  • Croatia was used as the primary location for the setting of this episode. It is the third episode of the revival series after DW: The Fires of Pompeii and Planet of the Dead to include major filming outside the UK.
  • Some filming took place in Caephilly Castle [1]
  • Scenes featuring The Doctor, Amy and Rory were filmed at Llancaiach Fawr [2]

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.

Continuity

DVD Releases

To be Added

External Links

To be Added

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Specifically, his late-March 2010 appearance on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross

Template:Series 5

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