The Vampires of Venice was the third serial of Season 46 of Doctor Who. It was written by Toby Whithouse, directed by Mark Everest and starred Robert Carlyle as the Twelfth Doctor & Freema Agyeman as Ashley Tannen.
Synopsis[]
The Doctor arrive in Venice, 1580 for a simple vacation. However, things in Venice aren't quite what they seem. Warnings of the plague are spreading about despite it having died out years before, and pale, creepy girls who don't like sunlight are lurking around. Could it have something to do with the school run by the mysterious Rosanna Calvierri?
Plot[]
To be added.
Cast[]
- The Doctor - Robert Carlyle
- Ashley Tannen - Freema Agyeman
- Rosanna - Helen McCrory
- Guido - Lucian Msamati
- Isabella - Alisha Bailey
- Francesco - Alex Price
- Vampire girls - Gabriella Wilde, Hannah Steele, Elizabeth Croft, Sonila Vieshta, Gabriela Montaraz
- Inspector - Michael Percival
- Steward - Simon Gregor
Crew[]
To be added.
Worldbuilding[]
Cultural references from the real world[]
- Ashley calls Francesco "Spongebob" after the titular character of SpongeBob SquarePants.
The Doctor[]
- The Doctor gives Ashley a boiled sweet.
Individuals[]
- The Doctor compares the vampires to Harry Houdini.
- The Doctor mentions Attila the Hun.
- The Doctor mentions Casanova, and that he owes him a chicken as part of a bet.
Technology[]
- Rosanna Calvierri uses a perception filter.
Notes[]
- This episode is five minutes longer than the usual format, making it a fifty-minute-long episode.
- Working titles for this episode included Blood and Water and The House of Calvierri. Mark Gatiss suggested the final title, inspired by the song "Werewolves in London" by Warren Zevon.
- In the Season 46 preview, one of the vampires leaps for Ashley, without any change. In the actual episode, he changes to his alien form. Differences like this have happened many times from trailer to episode.
- The name of the species, Saturnyns, isn't spoken in the episode, though the planet Saturnyne is mentioned three times.
- This episode is notable for being filmed in Croatia, and is, therefore, the first episode of a Doctor Who universe show to be filmed in a formerly Communist country.
- The Doctor's library card, which he shows to the vampires, has a picture of his first incarnation on it. The Doctor's name is given on it as "Dr. J. Smith", showing that he used it before Jamie McCrimmon did in The Wheel in Space, and the address is 76 Totter's Lane in Shoreditch, London.
- Toby Whithouse wanted to emphasise the amount of danger the Doctor puts people in, which is pointed out by Ashley in the episode. He believed that the companions over time developed the same mentality as the Doctor in running towards the danger, and so Ashley was a great opportunity to question that.
- Helen McCrory's costume was designed to be similar to her alien creature to make the transition smooth. McCrory was coached to move like a fish, which she pursued diligently.
- Each pair of teeth for the vampires was unique and moulded to their mouths. They were hard to speak with and Alex Price's lines were re-voiced, though he commented he got "quite good" at speaking with them.
- In the original script, a big monster rose out of the water in Isabella's death scene, but this would have been too expensive and Paul Cornell was forced to ask Toby Whithouse to make it "invisible".
- The script was originally too long, and as a result many sequences had to be cut, some even after they had been filmed. These included a fight scene with the Doctor and Rosanna's steward, a longer fight sequence between Ashley and Francesco, and some dialogue between the Doctor and Ashley following the climax.
- Many of the costumes in the episode were taken from artwork from the 15th and 16th centuries. This included veils that women wore, which were used for the vampire girls.
- The chamber in which the girls were taken to be turned into the Saturnynians was bathed in a green light to suggest alien technology and also ease the brief glimpse of Rosanna's true form. Cinematographer Tony Slater Ling accomplished this despite the low ceilings. Parts of this scene were cut due to censorship issues for being "too scary".
- When discussing the script with Toby Whithouse, Helen McCrory thought that she should hurt Ashley at some point and it was added that she bites Ashley while she is in the chamber.
- Several aspects of the episode had to be compromised due to budget constraints. The true form of the aliens could only be shown for a few seconds each as it was very expensive to do, and these shots were spread throughout the episode.
- Toby Whithouse wanted a "comic thread" to "dilute" the plot and character developments. He also noted that it was difficult to capture Guido's "tragic" character in the running time.
- In the original script, Ashley cornered Francesco after suspecting him of killing a villager and Francesco climbed up the wall. Toby Whithouse thought this would be a relatively easy stunt, but was told it would be too hard to accomplish and Whithouse revised it to when Francesco simply runs away.
- The flower vendor was originally named Bianca.
- Helen McCrory and Alex Price play mother and son as Rosanna and Francesco. They also indirectly played another mother/son duo in the Harry Potter universe. In the films, McCrory played Narcissa Malfoy, and in the sequel based play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Price plays Draco Malfoy, son of Narcissa.
Continuity[]
- Previous Doctors have encountered vampires of a more traditional kind in (TV: State of Decay, Goth Opera, Vampire Science)
- The Seventh Doctor encountered vampiric life forms known as "Haemovores", which also happened to reside in water, in TV: The Curse of Fenric.
- The First Doctor, Steven Taylor and Vicki previously visited Venice in 1609, (PROSE: The Empire of Glass) as did the Ninth Doctor and Jean Robinson in 2294. (TV: The Stones of Venice)
Home video releases[]
DVD[]
- This story along with the other stories in Season 46 were released as Doctor Who: The Complete Forty-Sixth Season in 2010.
Blu-ray[]
- This story along with the other stories in Season 46 were later released as Doctor Who: The Complete Forty-Sixth Season on Blu-ray in 2010.