Nightmares in nighties stalk our heroes in historical Venice...

What's the worst that could happen to a vampire? You've got the stake through the heart problem or the tricky issue of dodging the sun. But what about the indignity of a vampire creeping up to his or her victim and finding out that they'd lost their teeth? The shame – having to scrabble around madly for a pair of false gnashers is as low as a vampire can get, particularly if they're floating Albert Steptoe style in a glass of fizzy solution. Toothless Vampire would never be able to hold his or her head up in public again.

That's the same sort of indignity that hovers around the latest Doctor Who story, The Vampires Of Venice, like a particularly smelly clove of garlic. Vampire stories are not new in Doctor Who. Two notable examples of this genre are the 1980 E-Space brooder State Of Decay and the 1989 wartime epic The Curse Of Fenric. Despite the limitations of the small screen, both stories succeed in terrorising kids, thanks to well-written scripts, strong acting and some excellent effects (especially the disintegrations of The Three Who Rule or Jean and Phyllis).

Reviewing all of these Doctor Who stories in order however, inevitably means that my expectations are always heightened when coming to a similar type of tale. So I expect The Vampires Of Venice to be as dramatic and scary as State Of Decay and The Curse Of Fenric. Which unfortunately it isn't. It's very well made and reasonably entertaining, but for scare scores, Vampires Of Venice gets Nul Points. OK, let's be fair, there are some attempts at scaring the kids – there's the usual shorthand of sharp teeth and hissing, and luckless victims getting eaten in water. But it's strictly generic, by-the-book horror, which means that the end product's maybe about as scary as an episode of Moschops.

Doctor Who has always possessed that eerie, unnerving streak – the weird kind of surreal horror that can't be replicated, whether it's the unusual, off-kilter monsters, ordinary people getting possessed or the long list of grisly deaths. Even in the new reboot of Doctor Who, the Russell T Davies years contains its fair share of horrible demises, possession and off-kilter monsters. Inexplicably, the terror factor plummeted down to the lower echelons for Matt Smith's first season. Sure, the Weeping Angels sequel nearly hits the mark, but beyond that, hmmm, I'm struggling to think of any small example that belongs in the cobwebbed Hall Of Scary Fame.

"The problem is the vampires don't look terrifying at all – instead they look like they're queuing up to be in the Halloween issue photo-shoot sessions of Maxim magazine"

Admittedly the initial premise of Venice is quite intriguing. The Doctor and Amy (now with Rory in tow – groan) land in Venice, so that Amy and Whassisface can enjoy a quiet romantic break (after Amy previously thought that getting all hot and bothered with The Doctor was a good idea). However, they stumble across the machinations of one Signora Rosanna Calvierri, who's in charge of one of those finishing schools for young ladies. In fact, there's very little evidence of the sort of poncy betterment that you'd expect to find in these establishments. The ladies don't walk around with dusty Rosemary Schrager cookbooks on their heads. They don't learn how to talk all posh like. And neither do they learn how to sip tea in the proper fashion (apparently, you're supposed to stick your little finger out while supping – and therefore making yourself look like a complete fool). Instead, the gals are more interested in learning the art of sticking teeth into necks, for they are in fact – gusp! Vampires!

So that's a reasonably interesting set-up, and owes more than a little debt to those old 1970s horror movies starring the likes of Ingrid Pitt or Yutte Stensgaard. There's plenty of shots involving the female vampires sauntering around in nighties, but the problem is they don't look terrifying at all – instead they look like they're queuing up to be in the Halloween issue photo-shoot sessions of Maxim magazine. Ditto Francesco, the son of Rosanna, and the successor to Battlefield 's Mordred as Prissy Mummy's Boy Of The Year. Francesco may be a dab hand in a fight, but that still doesn't alter the fact that he's nowhere near as scary an opponent as Aukon or even Jean and Phyllis.

Plus, to my bleary eyes, he looks like Moe from The Simpsons, which doesn't help.

Matters get even more fishy when it turns out that these vampires are actually creatures from a planet called Saturnyne. Turns out that they are actually aquatic beings but with handy perception filters that make them human in form – and hence the lack of reflection, see? OK, so this is a fairly neat take on the traditional vampire story, and adds that all-important sci-fi element, but there's still lots to argue with this point. If I was to say to you that here's a Doctor Who story written by Toby Whithouse about an alien race taking humanoid form – well, you'd be hard pressed to work out where School Reunion ends and The Vampires Of Venice begins.

What's even more suspect is some of the plotting. For example, if Rosanna says that her big master-plan is to convert humans into what's known as 'Sisters Of The Water', well, why on Earth does she activate a handy gadget that will cause earthquakes and floods to rock Venice to its very core? Surely the Saturnyne creatures will perish in the process? Similarly, there's that bizarre sequence at the end when Rosanna decides to apparently end her life by jumping into the canal – um, even though the creatures are exactly the same as her, so why would they eat her? Stupid all round really.

This isn't the first example of lazy plotting this season, and in fact, The Vampires Of Venice showcases the two main problems with Matt Smith's début season. The Vampires Of Venice is enjoyable enough, but it's disappointing in that it feels like it should be so much more. The plotting, when looked at in detail, is sketchy at best, and the episode never feels as scary as it should. The deaths are pretty lacklustre, with zero tension or build-up, and the overall concept of fish things masquerading as vampires fails to inspire. The other big grumble I have about The Vampires Of Venice is that this is where your friend and mine, Rory Williams comes on board for a bit.

"It just feels like a pretty one-sided relationship given that all Amy seems to do is hector and yell at the spineless Rory on a seemingly non-stop basis"

I've mentioned Rory a bit in The Eleventh Hour review, so apologies in advance for more Williams-bashing. The idea of a third male companion isn't new – going way back, we've had Ian and Jamie. Come to think of it, since the 1970s, there's been a steady quota of ineffectual third-wheel men. Harry, the dashing UNIT doctor actually turned out to have a tendency for putting his foot in it at regular intervals. Turlough revelled in his own cowardice. And as for Adric – well, you know the story. Even Mickey Smith started out as a pratfalling comedy buffoon. Rory does pretty much the same thing, but the real gripe I have with this is that his inadequate bumbling is magnified a thousandfold. Throughout the story, he's walking around with the perpetually worried face of a man who's misplaced his car keys, constantly flying in the face of The Doctor's derring-do suggestions and shuddering at the thought of attempting to thwart the bad guys and gals - “This whole thing is mental,” he trembles. “They're vampires, for God's sake!” Not only that, but he's constantly on the receiving end of withering put-downs from Amy. “Why did you make the sign of the cross, you numpty?” she scowls after Rory's nearly come to grief at the hands of Moe The Barman. OK, so he gets his reward with a full-on Amy tongue sandwich, but still – it just feels like a pretty one-sided relationship given that all Amy seems to do is hector and yell at the spineless goon on a seemingly non-stop basis. I don't think that any self-respecting bloke would put up with being treated like a doormat, no matter how good the kisses are.

And there's the rub – the Amy/Rory dynamic never really seems to change. I'm writing this days before the second half of the new season goes out, so maybe their relationship may take a turn for the better. But so far, the impression I've got is that Rory just seems to mope around and feel like sloppy seconds, whether Amy's championing her Raggedy Doctor or worrying about her pregnancy. Even after his Auton self guards over Amy for umpteen years, a couple of adventures later, he's still back to feeling like a spare part. There's been no real progression with Rory so far – while he admittedly has a bit of canny insight in this story about The Doctor's bravado (“It's not that you make people take risks – it's that you make them want to impress you”), to me, it feels like Rory's still stuck in his wimpy, self-pitying rut. Mickey grew in confidence during his time with The Doctor to the point where he accepted that there was no place for him in Rose's life. Turlough turned out to be a bit of a hero in Planet Of Fire , even admitting to The Doctor that he'd learned a lot from him. And hey – Adric? Well, he sacrificed himself to save Earth. But with Rory, it just feels like we're stuck with a useless cartoon – despite the best efforts of Arthur Darvill.

"This is director Jonny Campbell's first foray into Doctor Who, but you'd never guess from his artistic, lavish visuals."

Where The Vampires Of Venice does win out though is again in its presentation. Whoever came up with that old cliché of Style Over Substance must have had some sort of premonition of the fifth NuWho season. The episode contains some truly stunning visuals, with some lovely filming in Trogir, Croatia, which convincingly doubles for Venice. Given its Renaissance and Baroque architecture from the Venetian period, it's little wonder that Trogir was chosen as the location for this story (it would also be used as the location for the later Vincent And The Doctor) to make the most of an overseas shoot in the winter of 2009. This is director Jonny Campbell's first foray into Doctor Who, but you'd never guess from his artistic, lavish visuals. There's an unwritten rule at the Beeb that period dramas always look sumptuous, and The Vampires Of Venice is no exception, from the location filming through to the designs and the costumes.

Campbell's guest cast is pretty good too. The best of the lot is probably Helen McCrory as the sultry Rosanna. McCrory is probably better known as Mrs Malfoy in the Harry Potter films (in which she hovers behind a man who has the haircut of a 13-year-old girl), but she makes a good job of being the lead villainess here, adding a twisted nobility and icy detachment to the part. Lucian Msamati is also good as the brave Guido, adding strong support as a staunch ally of The Doctor's. The leads also do well, although again the stage belongs to Matt Smith, who not only provides a greater deal of swashbuckling heroism to his goofy alien persona, but adds a nice dose of humour – in particular, in the pre-credits teaser in which he pops out of Rory's giant cake: Possibly one of the funniest scenes in Doctor Who ever.

See, just here and there, there are still dashes of inspiration in a pretty run-of-the-mill script. The Vampires Of Venice is by no means a disaster, but it's a shame that it doesn't aspire to be so much more than a pretty runaround. It's easy to follow (even with yet another reference to The Crack), occasionally witty (The Doctor hushing Amy, Rory and Guido is another good moment) and it looks great on screen. But with a greater emphasis on scares and a much tighter, original plot, this could have been a real masterpiece. So long and thanks for all the fish, I guess.

John Bensalhia limbered up for this mammoth task with a full four-series review of Blake's 7, and writes professionally and recreationally all over the web. Check out his portfolio of work here.

Check out John's previous Doctor Who review, The Time Of Angels

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