Vampires! Venice!

[altariel]

Nobody on my flist has posted about "The Vampires of Venice". Are you all out agitating for Nick Clegg to deliver PR? Well I loved it. I thought Matt Smith sparkled and I think Arthur Darvill is smashing.

ETA, while watching Confidential: Matt Smith and Francesco da Mosto are together in a gondola! This is why I pay my licence fee.

Comments

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

I'd be very happy to discuss it if only my bloody, um, magical gift-bearing Internet fairy were a bit more reliable.

*glares at bit rate*

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Stupid interwebs!

[kendokamel.livejournal.com]

I'll be watching, later! (;

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Enjoy!

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen it yet either! I am watching episodes with an Americvan friend on a sort of fandom exchange arrangement we have going, and we've found it's more fun if the episode's new to both of us. So I'm not allowed to watch ahead of her.

I am really, really pleased with Matt Smith. Before the season started I was uneasy about my ability to accept a Doctor played by someone this young, but he had me at five minutes.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

That's a really good way of watching (and very restrained of you!). I am also loving Matt Smith.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I thought it was a lot of fun. There was some great dialogue. And did you notice the photo on the Doctor's library card? :)

I was weak-willed enough not to switch off before the trailer for next week, and I thought that it looked as though it could be very good,

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

The library card? Oh yes - cries of delight from the sofa, followed by First Small Person's baffled squawk of "What? Why are you laughing?"

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I thought that it looked as though it could be very good

It has Toby Jones in it! I love Toby Jones!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I did indeed notice the library card - brilliant!

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the episode enormously.

The actors are all excellent (some minor characters excepted), and the character development is excellent. Good story line. How much is owed to Jeanette Winterton? Or maybe I'm thinking of some other Venice story with web-footed women. I think there was a Calvino line or two. This is not to say that it is 'derivative' or any such drivel. It's sophisticated - it is written for an audience who are anticipated as enjoying multiple layers of suspencion of disbelief, recalling other tales and knowing them as tales as much as this is as a tale, but at the same time believing them all together because _that_ is Venice, and _that_ is history.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I love your insight into this episode. I haven't read The Passion, do you recommend it?

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

I have a dreadful memory for books read ... yes, I think it definitely left a (good) impression.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean :-) I'll keep an eye out for it.

[uitlander]

Mother talked incessantly throughout. It looked good, and I shall be watching it again without her once I have a chance.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you'll end up watching it in HD at some point...

[lonemagpie.livejournal.com]

I did...

Didn't see Confidential though

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Though as the episode pointed out, they weren't really vampires... and as the Confidential pointed out, it wasn't really Venice.

A genuine Helen McCrory, I think...

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

I've only just seen it because that was another thing about today where the timing sucked and so I wasn't back in time to watch the live broadcast.

Just about to watch the Confidential.

(Edited for typo.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

When I saw the episode's early start time I was cross on your behalf. Hope you were able to relax in front of it.

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

Give us a chance, dear, not all of us can manage to watch in real time! I posted as soon as we'd flipped over to Francesco da Mosto - he was on BBC4 later, repeating the Venice series! Are you saying I missed him on the Confidential?! Curses, curses...

I was thinking as I watched "altariel will be loving this," you old traditionalist, you... My inner eight-year-old enjoyed that, lots. So did First Small Person, though he did climb right into my lap when the "creepy ladies" got too close.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Confidential on HD clashed with the repeat of the Venice series, curses indeed! Yes, the lovely Francesco took Matt Smith and Toby Whithouse on a tour of Venice in Confidential. Surely it's on semi-permanent repeat on BBC Three?

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

Will have a look - in the past though they've only repeated the Cut-down Confidentials, not the full versions, not sure why.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Not sure why the fish needed to sink Venice when there were perfectly good canals an estuary and lots of ocean available...

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

They thought the architecture was wasted on air-breathing land-dwellers? (C'mon, wouldn't you want St Mark's Square?..)

[dewline.livejournal.com]

When I've got Sparks Street and the Cats of Parliament Hill?

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I thought that too. It rather undermined Queen Fish's plea for sympathy. But it doesn't do to examine Who plots too closely.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'm really glad you're liking Matt Smith. I think Rory's smashing.

[furius.livejournal.com]

That was a ridiculously wonderfully layered episode.

I love Rory who's a sort of a foil to Amy but still susceptible to the usual excitements!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I love Rory. I think he's adorable, and it's a super performance.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Colour me unimpressed. Nothing to do with the actors, who did a great job, and I like Rory a lot, but the writing/plot - ugh.

Terry Pratchett is right - it's deus ex machina every week. What the heck was with the gizmo on the roof thing? It made no sense. The connection between storms and earthquakes? No sense. And if they're not vampires, just alien fish with projectors, how is draining the blood and replacing it with their own supposed to turn people into alien fish?

I don't mind scientific 'magic' as an explanation in DW - that's the norm - but when it's scientific BS with no attempt even made to cover it, I get annoyed. Hey, BBC, your viewers are smarter than that.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Aw, it's a shame that it spoiled your enjoyment of the episode. I thought it was fun, all the performances were a joy to watch, and it all looked very pretty.

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying the new series, but I'm still not finding it as compelling as what went before.

That sums up my reaction in a nutshell. I was obsessed with Nine and Ten as character-driven (well, let's face it, RTD can't plot worth a damn) drama-with-fun-Who-stuff-attached.

Moffatt-Who is, so far, the fun-Who-stuff, without any of the Angsty Character Drama - taking the show much more back to its roots, really. My inner eight-year-old enjoys it immensely; my adult drama-watching head is not compelled, to the extent that if I miss an episode and end up catching up days later it doesn't seem to be the end of the world.

And my (real) six-year-old is loving it.

[manna]

I'm away from the internets (using free wireless in a Wetherspoons), or I would've posted. I thought it was okay.

(ETA: Apart from the plot, which was stupid.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Look away from the plot, look away!