Doctor Who Series 5, Episode 6: "The Vampires of Venice"

Another week, another adventure with the eleventh doctor and Ms. Pond! This time, forgotten fiancé Rory joins the group. The pretitles scene was a bit odd. Usually there's a semi-cliffhanger before the titles, but this time, it ended with the doctor in a somewhat awkward position. Basically, we left off last week with the doctor realizing that Amy's wedding day is the day the big event involving all those cracks happened. So, being the nice guy he is, he goes to take Rory and Amy on a vacation in 16th century Venice. Little did he know, Venice was infested with vampires, as you can tell by the cryptic episode title.

This being Doctor Who, there's more to the story. Now, I don't envy writer Toby Whithouse's placement in this series's order. How can one effectively follow the stunning two-parter with the weeping angels and River Song? Yet a series like Doctor Who can't just have a heavy arc-centric episode after episode without some nice, rather standlone episode. Some of the best episodes in past series, such as Blink or The Shakespeare Code, were standalones.

This week's episode was enjoyable, but is probably the weakest episode of the series so far, although it has some competition with The Beast Below. I liked how the story of the fish aliens tied in with the arc, but didn't heavily focus on it. We did get that bit of silence at the end, which was interesting. And there was that whole part about someone forgetting Isabella's name that I didn't quite follow. The doctor and everyone else sometimes just speak too fast, with that British accent, to understand. We need some subtitles.

The idea of the doctor dooming this race to save the other people in Venice, according to the fish queen, was intriguing. As was Rory's accusation that being around the doctor makes people dangerous. I usually don't like the boyfriend accompanying the doctor (basically Mickey Smith). But Rory seems alright, not as overtly whiny or clingy or whatever Mickey was. I still hope he doesn't stick around for a long time.

I wonder if other species in the galaxy are suffering from the same plight. Time is being rewritten, and who knows what's going on elsewhere in the universe. The silence at the end of this episode was weird though. Suddenly everything became silent. Was this due to Amy being there? We need more hints, but I'm glad this episode took a bit of a break from the arc. And, despite the fact that I don't really like vampire stories, this one was handled well.

So overall, this was an enjoyable episode, with a solid, if not overly creative plot. I'm still confused as to why Amy was all over the doctor last week, but I suppose it's really because she had such a near-death experience. I'm still waiting for that darned pandorica to open.

Next week: Dreams? Reality? What's going on?