I’ve been lazy and didn’t do a post for last week’s Doctor Who, Flesh and Stone. So this week I’m doing a read one (post) get two Doctor Who reviews. I’ll come to The Vampires of Venice soon but first Flesh and Stone and then at the end the Crack and River Song.
Second parts haven’t been the new Who’s strongest stories. Fortunately Flesh and Stone worked from start to finish. The escape by jumping onto the crashed space ships gravity. Having the Doctor use a gun as a tool to engineer the escape was a nice touch.
Amy’s spooky countdown was a nice play on the old countdown timer gimmick. The solution to the Angel inside her was clever and created another problem. That in turn set up the problem of her escaping from the angels and the crack with her eyes closed and walking like she can see.
The end of the episode caused complaints but nowhere near the same scale as the last episode. Interesting that the it’s a kids show and must be pure and nice with nothing adult mob didn’t even come close to the you spoilt our episode mob for numbers of complaints.
The Doctor had some nice snappy dialogue. He also got some nice monologues. Really liked the lines about the plan not being ready because he’d not finished talking yet and about having to trust him because he doesn’t always tell the truth. Personally I’d have left the nanight off his climatic comment about them having forgotten the gravity of the situation.
The Vampires of Venice: This week we got fishy, venetian vampires. I was hoping for the return of the haemovores from the Curse of Fenrick but it wasn’t to be. Lots of fun plenty of running around, an explosion, a sword fight and action but also a good building tension through the story.
The location worked wonderfully. The set dressing was beautiful and costumes. And there were the vampire girls. They made up for the lack of haemovores. Will the buxom, vampire girls get complaints to the BBC?
Overall, although I enjoyed it, I’d say The Vampires of Venice frothy a bit light.
Both episodes gave us more about the cracks. Flesh and Stone revealed the danger of the cracks as they destroy people so they never existed. Is the crack following Amy? The crack unwrites time. The crack can be fed to slow it down. The Vampires of Venice was more of a teaser than a revelation with the bits about silence.
Who is River Song? Who did she kill? I’m not convinced by the idea that she’s the Masters wife or that she killed the Doctor. The hints have been too broad and too obvious. If either of those were true I doubt Moffat would have given such big clues away already. Unless its more complicated and there is another layer to unpeeled below the hint. A twist or two yet to be revealed. Will she be back this season or are all the hints setting up for the long term?
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