The Stones of Venice was the third serial of Season 36 of Doctor Who. It was written by Paul Magrs, directed by Barnaby Edwards and starred Hugh Bonneville as the Ninth Doctor & Helen Baxendale as Jean Robinson.
Synopsis[]
The Doctor and Jean decide to take a well-deserved break from the monotony of being chased, shot at and generally suffering anti-social behaviour at the hands of others.
And so they end up in Venice, well into Jean's future, as the great city prepares to sink beneath the water for the last time...
Which would be a momentous, if rather dispiriting, event to witness in itself. However, the machinations of a love-sick aristocrat, a proud art historian and a rabid High Priest of a really quite dodgy cult combine to make Venice's swansong a night to remember.
And then there's the rebellion by the web-footed amphibious underclass, the mystery of a disappearing corpse and the truth behind a curse going back further than curses usually do.
The Doctor and Jean are forced to wonder just what they have got themselves involved with this time...
Plot[]
To be added.
Cast[]
- The Doctor - Hugh Bonneville
- Jean Robinson - Helen Baxendale
- Count Orsino - Michael Sheard
- Churchwell - Nick Scovell
- Pietro - Barnaby Edwards
- Ms Lavish / Estella - Elaine Ives-Cameron
- Vincenzo - Mark Gatiss
Crew[]
To be added.
Worldbuilding[]
Culture[]
- The Doctor likens the cult worshiping Estella to Liza Minnelli being the daughter of Judy Garland, in that the Duke's wife and Liza Minnelli's mother were both "taken away" and deified by the populace.
The Doctor[]
- The Doctor says the TARDIS is his oldest friend in the world.
- The Doctor suspects that there is alien life form in Venice because of a painting with volcano and foxes which doesn't belong to Earth.
Notes[]
To be added.
Continuity[]
- The Twelfth Doctor & Ashley Tannen would later visit Venice in 1580. (TV: The Vampires of Venice)
- The Doctor says of Estella "She must have been, what do you call it? Very beautiful.". His fourth incarnation made a similar comment, telling Heidi Scarlioni "you're a beautiful woman, probably". (TV: City of Death)
- The Doctor previously encountered a different race of humanoid-piscine people. (TV: The Underwater Menace)
Home video releases[]
VHS[]
- This story was first released on VHS.
DVD[]
- This story along with the other stories in Season 36 were released individually in 2000
- This story along with the other stories in Season 36 were released as Doctor Who: The Complete Thirty-Sixth Season in 2009.
Blu-ray[]
- This story along with the other stories in Season 36 were upscaled in 1080i50 high definition and were released as Doctor Who: The Collection - Season 36 in the UK.