Line #2 Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho018TheStonesOfVenice


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/97a33bde207fe71440a92a2af1b1e606.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350: [[UsefulNotes/UlyssesSGrant Ulysses S. Grant]] once said, "Venice would be a fine city if it were only drained." If he were alive in 2294, he'd say, "[[IToldYouSo I told you so.]]"]]
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4	The Eighth Doctor and Charley 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. The TARDIS disagrees and plants them right in the middle of the final day of Venice, several centuries into the future.
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6	The local Duke has spent 100 years mourning his lost love, Estella, who cursed him to live a full century after he carelessly wagered her life in a card game. She also cursed the city to crumble and succumb to the water after 100 years.
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8	While the Doctor befriends the curator of the Duke's museum, Charley befriends a gondolier named Pietro, and the two groups are separated without even noticing it. Pietro convinces Charley (with the help of some hypnotic drugs) to impersonate Estella. He turns out to be part of a group of gondoliers who have developed gills over the centuries. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Pietro find Estella's tomb, but it's a bit empty. There's also a mad high priest who has started an Estella doomsday cult. The Duke, confused by all of the above, decides to play along with Charley's ruse, but a perfectly ordinary bystander turns out to be Estella in the end. She's also a vengeful alien who used alien technology, not some magic curse. The Duke convinces her to reverse the curse, which restores Venice, but sadly also costs both the Duke and Estella their lives. They embrace one last time and make a HeroicSacrifice.
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10	The Doctor thinks the whole thing was a great example of how silly humans can be. Charley disagrees and calls it a touching love story.
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12	!!Tropes
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14	* ActionPrologue: The Doctor and Charley escape from a revolution they caused in an opening that has nothing to do with the rest of the story, except that the Doctor gets the idea to visit Venice while being shot at.
15	* TheAlcoholic: The Doctor keeps getting referred to as a drunk, by Elenore.
16	* AncientTomb: The prison cells are within the same complex as a Mausoleum.
17	* AristocratsAreEvil: According to the [[UnreliableNarrator Gondoliers]].
18	* BackFromTheDead: The Duke and the Cult both hope to invoke this regarding Estella.
19	* BeliefMakesYouStupid: Belief in a divine Duchess. Both the Doctor and the Duchess herself call the cultists out on this.
20	* CityOfCanals: The TropeCodifier UsefulNotes/{{Venice}}, of course.
21	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: On the topic of Estella being worshiped, the Doctor goes into a rambling story about how hard it must be to be Creator/LizaMinnelli and have Creator/JudyGarland for a mom.
22	* ColdOpen
23	* ContinuityNod: The Doctor [[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E6Shada still loves gondoliering]], and tries a bit of it again after the day is saved.
24	* {{Cult}}: The Cult of the Lady Estella, which holds that on the hundredth anniversary of her tragic suicide, Estella will come BackFromTheDead and save Venice from its curse.
25	* {{Curse}}: Supposedly the reason that Venice will sink into the water. The Doctor doesn't believe in curses, of course, and eventually proves that it's just SufficientlyAdvancedAliens again.
26	* DecadentCourt: Duke Orsino presides over one of these, to the disgust of pretty much everyone who isn't a part of it.
27	* DeadpanSnarker: The Doctor
28	* {{Deathseeker}}: Charley sees the inhabitants of Venice this way, for not wanting to leave.
29	* DespairEventHorizon: The curse, for many Venetians.
30	* DramaQueen: Duke Orsino, Ms Lavish, and the cultists.
31	* EquivalentExchange: Estella explains that her "magic" works on this principle, that to get something, something else must be sacrificed. The "curse" that has been keeping her and Orsino alive for over a hundred years is thus what is causing Venice to decay at an advanced rate, and the only way to stop Venice from crumbling is for her and Orsino to thus commit a HeroicSuicide.
32	* FailedASpotCheck: Seems to be building up as an 8th Doctor trait, where something ''obvious'' is happening and the Doctor is lost in thought.
33	-->'''Charley:''' "They don't look happy with our help do they?"
34	-->''a minute of conversation later''
35	-->'''[[LateToThePunchline Doctor]]:''' "My, they don't look happy with our interference, do they?"
36	* FantasticRacism: The Gondoliers get some colourful language thrown their way.
37	* FisherKing: Charley accuses the Duke that the curse placed upon him has this effect on the land.
38	* FiveFingerDiscount: The Doctor swipes the Duchess's jewels from her supposed sarcophagus. This comes into play later, when the Duchess's true fate is revealed.
39	* ForDoomTheBellTolls: [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask On the Dawn of the New Day]]
40	* {{Foreshadowing}}: In the first conversation the first gondelier, Pietro says: "This city will belong to us again, when it sinks."
41	* GoingDownWithTheShip: Or rather, going down with the floating city as it finally sinks.
42	* HamToHamCombat: Most of the third episode and a good chunk of the fourth see Duke Orsino and High Priest Vincenzo competing to see who can chew more scenery. In the final act, Estella turns it into three-way combat as she gives them both {{The Reason You Suck Speech}}es.
43	* HeroicSuicide: Orsino and Estella, at the very end, burn TogetherInDeath to stop Venice from crumbling into the sea.
44	* HollywoodDrowning
45	* IdenticalStranger: Averted with Charley and Estella, as Charley is notably one of the very few companions who ''don't'' look like models. She wears a Venetian mask to play the part.
46	* IgnoredEpiphany: After everything is resolved and the city is saved, Vincenzo swipes the remains of the Duke and Duchess and runs off back to his catacombs to continue cultishly worshiping them. Churchwell and Pietro are stunned at this, but the Doctor muses that something as simple as undeniable evidence that everything he knew is wrong won't shake someone from a {{Cult}} mentality, and at least Vincenzo is a relatively harmless cultist, at this point.
47	* ImmuneToFate: Or as the Doctor says it "[[YouCantFightFate There's things that happen and things that don't]]."
48	* InnocentInnuendo
49	--> "C'mon Charley, I want to have a good poke around!"
50	* LargeHam: Both the Duke and the High Priest.
51	* LizardFolk: The Gondoliers are humans who have evolved amphibious traits, notably webbed hands and feet and the ability to breathe underwater.
52	* TheMagicGoesAway
53	* MasqueradeBall: In true Venetian tradition. It proves useful for disguising the fact that Charley and Estella are ''not'' {{Identical Stranger}}s.
54	* NoOntologicalInertia: Subverted. Orsino and Estella dying breaks the curse and stops Venice from sinking, but the parts that have already crumbled and sunk ''remain'' crumbled and sunk. Churchwell's first thought is to go back to check and see how much of the Duke's art collection has survived, as the Doctor points out that some of it will have certainly been destroyed, but ultimately he decides to stay, since the paintings aren't going anywhere now.
55	* NoSenseOfDirection: The Doctor.
56	* NoSocialSkills: The Doctor gets called out on his.
57	* NostalgiaFilter: Elenore is planning to look at all of Venice before it ends.
58	* PurpleProse: The Duke is extremely fond of it. Estella isn't. Writer Paul Margs never fails to include plenty of purple prose for the actors to deliver.
59	* Really700YearsOld: Or Really Over 100 Years Old And Unchanging So He Can Suffer The Curse.
60	* ReptilesAreAbhorrent: The Gondoliers have somehow mutated into amphibious creatures who are still mostly human, but who can live underwater. They're looking forward to Venice sinking so it will belong solely to them.
61	* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: Somewhat subverted. Some of the Gondeliers are content with just waiting for Venice to sink. Others... aren't.
62	* RightOnTheTick
63	* RoyallyScrewedUp
64	* SherlockScan: The Doctor performs one on Mr Churchwell. Or so he would have him think.
65	* ShinyLookingSpaceships: Charlie asks why all of the 8th Doctor's controls look so wooden.
66	* SlippingAMickey: How the Gondoliers conditioned Charley to impersonate Estella.
67	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: When her true identity is finally revealed, Estella takes time to chew out both Orsino and Vincenzo, the former for the betrayal that ended their relationship, and the latter for being dumb enough to lead a cult that worships her.
68	* TogetherInDeath: Orsino and Estella, reunited at last, performing a HeroicSuicide to restore Venice from its curse. The Doctor thinks it's a great example of how silly people can be, but Charley finds it very romantic.
69	* TrrrillingRrrs: The Duke inserrrts these every now and then.
70	* UnderwaterBase: The Cult of the Lady Estella has their hideout in a section of tunnel that has been below sea level for years.
71	* WhoWantsToLiveForever: The Duke is already sick of being alive after over a 100 years.

Context Recap / BigFinishDoctorWho018TheStonesOfVenice