The Vampires of Venice

The current series of Doctor Who is almost half way through and last night I watched the latest instalment, The Vampires of Venice. Well, at least, I watched most of it. It was on stupidly early so I set the PVR to record it as I was getting the little two off to bed at that time. The BBC had advertised this as 18:00-18:45 and that's what it recorded - except that I appear to have missed the beginning and it cut off before the end. It looks like the episode is over 45 minutes but the BBC didn't advertise it that way. It's bloody infuriating. The BBC's timekeeping is atrocious but with accurate recording this shouldn't be an issue. Unfortunately, they don't seem to get this right and it seems to affect drama in particular. I missed the beginning of Ashes to Ashes on Friday night as well. It's either that or they foul up the end credits with continuity announcements. Why do they go to the trouble of producing quality programmes and then ruin them with shoddy transmission standards?

Anyway, the episode itself, at least what I saw of it, was an enjoyable enough 45 minutes diversion and was an attempt to apply yet another genre to the Whoniverse. In this case it was that old favourite, The Hammer Horror Film. Particularly, in this case, it was a great homage to the early 70's Lesbian Vampire movie. Yeah! No Peter Cushing this time - although Matt Smith camped it up in fine style. This was actually written by the writer of Being Human, which accounts for the light tone, but it still feels consistent with the rest of the episodes - I'm assuming that the Moff has a good deal of input.

Overall, this was a filler episode and intended as a bit of entertaining fluff after last weeks high drama with the weeping angels. On that basis it worked very well but it still had good dramatic moments with the Doctor showing himself to be somewhat removed from his travelling companions - very First Doctor, I thought (in fact he still has that picture on his library card). I also thought the character of Rory proved to be interesting. He seemed to have the mark of the Doctor and really challenged the motives of our eponymous hero. I'm thinking that there may be more to Rory. This was hinted at in the opening episode with the mysterious date on his hospital ident - does he know more about Amy than he is letting on?

Amy and Rory managed to get back together at the end of the episode - at least I'm assuming that they did. They were kissing when the recording cut out. I didn't notice any time cracks this week (although it was mentioned) - unless it was included in the few minutes that I didn't see. I've noticed that this is repeated on BBC Three in the week so I may catch the whole thing there (along with that ruddy pink station ident - sodding BBC). At the beginning of the series I did wonder whether the BBC budget cuts would show through but tonight was spot on, with fantastic location shooting and lush visuals. I also thought the CGI bits looked OK as well. I'm not a great fan of green screen technology but the current production staff seem to know when best to use it and when to stick with prosthetics and models.

Overall, it was a highly enjoyable episode and, maybe, by next Saturday, I will have seen it all.