"I'm a Time Lord. You're a fish. Think of the children."As a massive fan of Toby Whithouse (he of Being Human fame) I wasn't at all surprised to find that I really enjoyed this episode, filled as it was with appropriately mordant humour. The gist of the ep is that the Doctor takes Amy and her fiance Rory on a date to Venice, only to discover that it has been taken over by vampire-imitating metallic fish aliens from another dimension. (Why do I watch Doctor Who? Because there aren't enough vampire-imitating fish aliens from another dimension in other telly, that's why.) There's a lot of running around, Amy gets captured and strapped to a chair while wearing a floaty nightdress (cuing many a pubescent boy fantasy), somebody sacrifices himself heroically taking a bunch of vampire fish with him (I do like a heroic self-sacrifice, even if nobody seems too upset about it afterwards) and the Doctor gets to flirt (having figured it out since last week, apparently) with one of my favourite actresses, Helen McCrory, as lead vampire fish (question: why did only male fish and their mum survive dimension leap? Answer comes there none.) Rory is the wettest thing in the whole episode, which is surprising given that it is set in Venice and half the cast are fish, Amy appears to be a walking hormone bomb with very odd taste, and the Doctor commits genocide (again) because Queen Fishy can't remember that one of her zombie fish brides is called Isabella (I'm terrible with names, note to you all, never wager the future of humanity with the Doctor on my ability to place someone I've met at a cocktail party).
Next week's looks triffic. Crashing on.
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8 comments:
Yup. Enjoyed this one. As much as I'm enjoying Matt Smith, I am missing David Tennant this week. Imagine DT flirting with Helen McCrory. (Long pause for reflection.) The crack about Casanova and the chicken would have had extra zing as well.
Still, lots of fun. I'm with the Doctor for getting cheesed off at Rosanna for not knowing Isabella's name. If you're going to suck all a girl's blood out and make her into a daughter-in-law, you should at least be able to call her something. Besides "snack".
Next week's is by Simon Nye, about whom I know nothing except he wrote Men Behaving Badly, so I guess you know his work, Marie? The week after that, we have Chris Chibnall, so I'm dreading that...
I enjoyed that review nearly as much as the episode. I LOVED the Doc coming out of the cake and Rory's stag tshirts. I quite like Rory, but god knows what Amy sees in him...
Loved it. Great review Marie but it also unnerves me because I STILL haven't had chance to write up my own! Gah! Workload!
Persephone, as you know I have issued myself with a moritorium on commenting on Matt Smith as the Doctor or comparing him with David Tennant, so while you might say that, I couldn't possibly comment. But I think the terms of my agreement do allow me to say that I'd love to see DT and HMcC as romantic leads in something.
Best things in this one were the Casanova/chicken joke and Helen McRory. Rory was amusingly wet but I predict this will have turned into annoyingly wet by 2 minutes into the next episode.
This week I came to the decision that I don't like Matt Smith as the Doctor. Last week I thought it was just that he wasn't as good as DT, but as I confidently predict (especially after 'Hamlet') that DT is the Sir Ian McKellan of his generation, I didn't really think this was a fair comparison. (After all, we can only have one Greatest Living Actor at a time.) But this week I decided that MS is just not that good. There's no fluidity to the character; there's no sense that he is a real person. Whereas DT - and CE, come to that, on whom I had quite a little crush - were always utterly believable in their universes.
hey, it's not just pubescent boys who have the amy fantasy, but let's not linger. Let's also not linger on the fact that queen fishy was quite..... anyway - when did doctor who get all erotic????
Loved this one! Especially when Amy and the Dr were jumping up and down going 'vampires hurray'. The historical ones are almost always the most fun, despite the lack of sense.
A better episode but I still find MS's Doctor very patchily drawn. His portrayal (which I find irritating) obviously nods towards Patrick Troughton, with the almost flat delivery of many lines.
However, in 'The Vampires...' he at last showed a little more convincing emotion in his portrayal (other than 'angry'.)
Is this a step in the right direction? I think so, as in many of his past guises The Doctor has had a very mercurial character, with highs and lows of emotion.
DT..... so much better.
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