Vampires of Venice reaction post

[dbskyler]

Hmmm. Well, it wasn't bad, but it's definitely not one of my favorites. It was just kind of there. I don't know, I might warm more to it after I've re-watched it, or seen more of S5.

I didn't quite get the logic of a few things. Since I haven't had the chance yet to go hunting through old reaction posts, can anyone enlighten me on the following?

-- Why were all of the Signora's children male? Was that explained and I just missed it? If you're going to save your race, and you need both males and females to procreate, you might want to bring along some of each (just a suggestion). Or did she just bring her own family, and she happened to have 10,000 sons and not a single daughter?

-- How exactly was fish-from-space species destroyed at the end? The Signora just jumped into the water, and presumably she can swim. Didn't the Doctor leave 16th century Venice with 10,001 aliens swimming around its canals? Or again, did I miss something?

By the way, this episode had a "Casanova" joke, and Victory of the Daleks had a "Paisley boy" joke . . . why do I suspect these episodes were written back when they still thought David might be continuing on as the Doctor?

Comments

[shadowturquoise.livejournal.com]

While they were sitting at the table trying to figure out how to get inside, the Doctor theorized that the Signora had left Saturnine with a full compliment of male and female children, but only the males survived the trip. Why the females didn't survive is not told.

[dbskyler.livejournal.com]

I had to go searching for it, but you're right, there is a line -- "Only the male offspring survived the journey here." I completely missed that, I think maybe because Matt says it quickly and off-handedly (and in a British accent, which yes, I do sometimes have trouble understanding the first time through).

Thanks for the help! I still wish it hadn't been a case of explanation-by-throwaway-line, though, given that it was central to the plot.