This'll be short. Not because I hated it -- I actually really liked it -- but because I'm in a hurry and have mismanaged my time once again. I think I'm coming down with something, and I've got a train to catch. But at least I am in a good mood. Which is funny, because this is exactly the sort of lightweight episode that would have once enraged me, but for some reason -- possibly the simplicity of the story, possibly the fact that there actually is a story -- I am charmed.

So in 1580 Venice, this dude brings his late-teens daughter to a lady's school and has decided that she suddenly has no prospects because he is a boat-builder. They are both black for no reason, and the music is super-hype Godfather-type stuff, for at least two reasons. Now, I like this episode, but already you have several concepts going that need explaining before the first line has gotten finished being uttered. Apparently this is 1580 Venice, plus black people, plus the fact that they never found out about how the Black Plague ended like three hundred years ago, because this lady that runs this school has decided that they shouldn't know about that. How many lines does that entire alternate-history thing -- which pretty much derails most of human thought -- take up? One. Maybe it all goes back to the duckpond and the whole forgotten CyberKing thing, I'm not sure.

"There's no future for us," he begs the main lady. "No future but you." Which is what she wanted, is for everybody to think that she's the boss of them and their mommy. She drags it out for a while and then finally accedes. He falls all over himself with gratitude, which kind of tripped me out because it's like, yesterday: No problem. Today, though, huge problem! So they're like, "Say goodbye to Isabella," and then all of a sudden she's a member of the school. Which seems like the Veelas in Harry Potter, as most of their "classes" are like Marching Through The Streets Wearing A Veil, Swanning About In Your Underwear 101, and Being Creepy In Basements. They don't say the main lady's name like the entire episode, but it's Rosanna Calvieri, and she is awesome.

So they kick dad out of there, and everybody sort of stares at Rosanna because her dress is so amazing, and her wormy son/boyfriend takes a big old sniff of Isabella, and acts totally dorky, and swishes around all over the place and then suddenly he's got a million teeth, like a barracuda. Isabella is screwed, forsooth. Her scream turns into...

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