The Highlights of Doctor Who: The Vampires of Venice

I really enjoyed it, twas a fun little romp through Venice dealing with the vampire fish. The baddies weren't too special but they served their purpose, plus we learned more about this incarnation of the Doctor as he interacted with Rory and the evil mother.

With Rory and Amy you can tell that he wants them to be together, gone is the time of the Doctor wrecking relationships, or treated his companion's boyfriend like a dog (poor under appreciated Mickey). Rory is given respect for the most part, though the Doctor does try to over shadow him with his cool things. I especially loved the Doctor's reaction to Rory not being impressed by the TARDIS. And instantly agreeing to take Rory with him for several more trips at the end.

The Doctor's interactions with the alien mother were also telling. The Doctor is completely over being very emo when it comes to the Time War and the death of his people, she mocked him with it and he never flinched. The other strong bit was that he said he would stop her and her race for one reason, she didn't even know the name of the last girl she killed. It illustrated the Doctor's compassion even though he remains very alien in this regeneration.

The other major highlight of the episode had to be Rory. While the actor is a great comedic actor, and we had fantastically funny scenes with him (especially with Rory wearing the shirt with Amy and his picture that was later worn by the Venician they were helping) he also showed some very personally strong attributes. When they run across the flower girl who is attacked by the vampiric/fish son instead of going to chase after the fish alien like Amy, he stops to make sure that the girl is okay. He has a job as a medical professional, so it's great that he really cares about people and wants to make sure they are safe. Also while being justifiably freaked out, he also stood his ground the whole time, even trying to fight the son later on. Sure the fight was a bit comedic, but Rory isn't a fighter, he's no Jamie for sure, but he still ready to do his best immediately. Of course the standing up on his own also helped remind Amy why she loves him, the kiss afterwards and her asking to have him join the TARDIS crew were very sweet and nicely helped settle that Amy does love Rory, he's not a replacement for the Doctor or anything. I hope Rory remains a companion as long as Amy is around, they work very well together and with the Doctor in general.

The last big highlight of the episode was the mystery of the crack continuing. While in the previous two parter we got more information on how dangerous it was, this episode showed that it continued to be an issue as well as adding a new side effect of it being around too long. The crack forced the fish aliens off of their planet and they moved to Earth because of it, it also took the females forcing the murderous plot of turning human women into vampiric fish alien hybrids. Finally we got a new symptom, a silence, which is experienced in the final seconds of the episode. What caused the crack? Why is it following Amy? How exactly did the day of her and Rory's marriage cause it? What else does the crack take? Is the silence permanent in Venice now? Lots of questions to the building mystery, making it the best running background bit in new Who yet!