Doctor Who S32E3 "The Curse of the Black Spot" [spoilers]

[NecronLord]

Objective Interim Spoiler Policy: All prior episodes of Doctor Who up to and including this one may be discussed without spoilers. Recent EU publications and upcoming episodes must be spoiler tagged and labelled. Previews (as released on BBC, website, etc) are not spoilers, nor is speculation derived from them.

Two of today's quotes come from the Big Finish adventure "Doctor Who and The Pirates"

[Crazedwraith]

Are we not allowed to vote lower than 3?

[NecronLord]

Are we not allowed to vote lower than 3?

No. It is forbidden.

Either that, or I hit submit instead of preview. I leave it up to you to decide!

[HMS Sophia]

It was... alright?
It wasn't particularly engaging. There was stuff happening, but it wasn't very interesting really... Spoiler

I guessed it was a doctor as soon as they were on the spaceship

It just felt like a bit of a cliched story... In fact it is, the Spoiler

future doctor on old earth

has been done by doctor who before.

Next week looks kind of interesting with the ood back though...

[Crazedwraith]

Pretty mediocre all things considered. Nothing very wrong with it but nothing very right either. Also the last scene was almost identical to the final scene of the last episode. We do still remember Amy's shroedinger pregancy thanks.

They didn't exactly try very hard to save any of the infected did they? Should have been a clue they were alright. Of course the kid 'dying' was also a big big clue there.

Don't get why they could get off the ship. Most of them only had pin pricks after all.

[Bedlam]

I cant say I was impressed. They seemed to be constantly changing the rules, the siren comes from water, no wait its reflections, she kills people no wait she teleports them, all without much evidence. It seemed to me that they basically all commited suicide when they decided that maybe the siren teleports although I supose that matches Amy's Choice last year.

I dont get why they couldn't save the crew either, most people just had small cuts I dont get why taking them off the life support would kill them, Ok the boy might have had TB but everyone else should be fine. Maybe a few extra lines about the doctor not understanding human biology and having removed their lungs or something and not gotten round to Rory yet might have helped.

Also Roy basically got better by himself, Amy stopped trying to recusitate him and them he came round.

One of the pirates just disapears as well, the one cut by the boy in the powder room just vanishes, I assume he got got by the siren and the scene was cut.

The final scene was basically 'previously on doctor who' just at the end rather than the beginning, I fear we might get a similar scene in each episode of the whole series. Another quick bit with the one eyed woman, I wonder whats going on there.

On the plus side I liked the effects on the siren, the change from green to red was nice. The ship was good as well although it was a bit TARDIS like the outside was realisically small but the inside was far to big.

[Revy]

Not bad. Not fantastic, but not terrible. Maybe I'm just tired, but I don't have any major complaints with this one. Not clicking my heels either, but still good. Really looking forwards to the next episode.

[2000AD]

Average episode, nothing special overall.

Eye patch lady looking through a slot again, looks like she might be popping up every episode now.

[Drooling Iguana]

Some neat ideas in this episode, and I'm sure if I just saw an outline of it it would've looked like the best Doctor Who episode ever, but things just didn't quite click at the end.

Maybe it would've worked better as a two-parter, with the characters slowly piecing things together throughout the story instead of being completely clueless for most of it only to have all the exposition dumped on them once they get onto the spaceship. Seems a story like this could've benefited from oldWho's more deliberate pacing.

[kaeneth]

I voted 4....but only because this is Doctor Who, and not some other television show. Compared to other Who epi's it is a 2.

I'm glad it wasn't at two-parter, I'd have been bored out of my mind.

Eye patch lady makes me wonder if this is a 'universe in Amy's head' somehow.

[evilsoup]

I have a theory: the Doctor has met a future version of Rory (and probably Amy). So, as soon as Rory was kersploded, the Doctor knew that the Siren wasn't killing people. This could also explain why the Doctor didn't really seem to give a shit about Rory being injured - he knew it would all turn out well in the end. Likewise, Amy has seen his (the Doctor's) death, so she knows he's not going to die on the ship ... which would explain why they go through with an otherwise idiotic plan (the captain was in shock, so just did as he was told).

The music actually annoyed me in this one. In the pre-credits, when the first sailor has the black spot, it could have been very creepy just to have the Siren's song ... but nooo, we needed 'DANGER DANGER WILL ROBINSON' music blaringly ruining what tension could have been had.

As for the episode itself ... well, nothing really happened, did it? I quite liked the Doctor constantly having to come up with new hypotheses about the Siren, but the story just kind of ... well, what story, exactly?

On the other hand, now I get to add SPACE PIRATES to my Doctor's Daughter fanfic.

[PREDATOR490]

4

Siren was suitably cool but I kinda pegged the fact she wasnt killing people the moment she was going after those with injuries. No bodies - vaporisation and she seemingly wants blood. Sorry, major bullshit detected.

TARDIS disappears - What the fuck ?
That just seemed massively contrived as a means of blocking anyone saying 'Just go to the TARDIS' - Fair enough but WHY did the TARDIS go somewhere on it's own ?
At first I thought it could be the TARDIS was injured or WENT somewhere with a purpose.

Rory - Give me a fucking break. Oh no, Rory is going to die *POOF* oh look he just got better.

Doctor - The Doctor dosent know CPR or have ANY technology available to help save lives... I find that exceptionally hard to believe. Even without that. Your in a fucking TARDIS.
Solution: Leave Rory, Get equipment, Come back, Save him.
Solution: Take Rory, zip the TARDIS to a hospital, Save him

As for the Siren / Ship: Find equipment / programming for the Siren and save them.
Although I dont understand how the hell the crew were on deaths door anyway given their minor injuries. Only two of the folks there were officially 'fucked'.
The setting and general interactions kinda carry this episode but the story is woefully lacking and weak.

Ending - Clearly Amy's 'Pregnancy' is jumping back and forth as an indication that time is in 'flux'. Either events leading to the pregnancy havent occured yet or alterations are being made that would prevent it.

Lady with Eyepatch - High chance Amy is going to end up being locked in a cell with that lady looking in. Either a 'mind fuck' episode where she thinks she is crazy or as an actual prisoner

Personnally: I think the time gaps in the opening episodes will be covered later with some cross time play. Seems to be something of a theme they are going for with the new Doctor Who. I guess River Song gave them ideas about how to mess things up with the Time Travel dynamic.


Next Week:

Ood with bad eyes - More electric deathballs ?
Deep 'Evil' Voice - 'Satan' coming back for a cameo or was it the Doctor that trapped him in the first place
Another Timelord alive - Master, Rani or his mother, End of Time coming to deliver perhaps.

Could be interesting or potentially stupid for how they bring about ANOTHER Timelord that just happens to have survived without being detected.

[DaveJB]

Eh... for me, this episode had the same problems as The Beast Below last year. It had an intriguing start, but started to lose momentum at about the halfway mark, and just sorta fizzled out near the end. The scenes aboard the pirate ship were pretty well-produced, but the spaceship at the end looked as if it had been thrown together with some spare change.

Overall, an okay enough episode, but I doubt it's one I'll be in a hurry to watch again when I pick up the Blu-Ray set.

[CaptainChewbacca]

So at the end they become 'STAR PIRATES'... nice.

[FaxModem1]

I put a 2. It was a meh and could have been better.

[Hillary]

What a pile. I can't begin to say how bad that actually was. The Doctor in the most advanced travelling machine ever built, with more knowledge than any other living being and he stands helplessly watching Amy administer CPR on her own. Just utterly unbelievable.

A 17th Century pirate captain able to pilot a starship with his young son. WTF?

In any case, the Doctor can't cure TB (really, TB incurable?) or a cut on the hand so has to leave a bunch of pirates in charge of the spaceship in the first place! You mean he can't negotiate with an advanced computer so he can rescue the pirate crew? This is the Doctor, yes? Most intelligent being in the universe - he didn't even try. What a pile.

The original crew of the spaceship die from common human viruses - and the siren doesn't appear to be able to even get them to the medical centre before they die (although can sweep up the humans in another universe easily and quickly enough). Why?

The aliens are dead long enough to decompose, yet their snot hasn't dried up yet?

Amy being a master swordsman. Amy being put in a prison which contains the crew's swords. I'll buy that.

They also didn't explain how anyone with a slight injury suddenly became deleriously attracted to he siren. How does that work?

Any mirror is a window to the other universe. Yet it only works one way - you can't see from the pirate ship into the spaceship. Why?

Why does the siren allow the TARDIS to be removed if she won't let anyone go near the patients?


There is a limit to how far suspension of belief will stretch. And it's not as if it particularly moved any of the series' themes on either. Amy loves Rory, there's a weird woman with an eyepatch pestering amy who has a schrodinger embryo inside her.

I guess we may encounter the pirates again - introducing them for later is the only excuse for giving this story the green light imo.

I really loved the opening 2-parter. I feel utterly let down by this one.

[Hillary]

One of the pirates just disapears as well, the one cut by the boy in the powder room just vanishes, I assume he got got by the siren and the scene was cut.

It wasn't cut. He was quite clearly shown looking at the shiny crown and we cut to where a green light was seen under the door whilst the Doctor and the captain were trying to get in - plus a scream to indicate he'd been got (let's ignore the fact that when you saw the siren get her man, no screams happened at all). This was how the Doctor worked out it was reflections and not water.

[Crazedwraith]

No, that's a different pirate. There were two in the powder room with Rory/Amy/The Boy. The Boy cuts one with a cutlass, the other one escapes, steals the crown, burns himself and is taken.

The other one, the cut one, stays in the powder room and is never seen again.

[NecronLord]

What a pile. I can't begin to say how bad that actually was. The Doctor in the most advanced travelling machine ever built, with more knowledge than any other living being and he stands helplessly watching Amy administer CPR on her own. Just utterly unbelievable.

The Doctor has been poor at medicine and even first aid since the 60s. The only time he ever studied as a physician was under Edward Jenner. It's not new that he needs someone to do this, he has always sucked at first aid.

[Big Orange]

The aliens (who looked like a cross between dwarfs and crocodiles) had fresh snot on their rotting skulls likely because they were killed very, very quickly by the ordinary Earth microbes that had a similar effect on their flesh as Ebola, so virulant to their completely unprepared physiology, it presumably ate their dead skin and organs away within hours.

I gave this episode a "4" when I really should've gave it a "3". This story had "watchable filler" all over it, with story concepts too similar to Moffat's medical nanogenes doing their job too well without sufficient programming and the Daleks transmatting people away as if they've been disintergrated. And the relative cheapness of the episode can easily be attributed to this year's budget being more concentrated on Moffat's two parter and the upcoming Gaiman episode.

[J Ryan]

No, that's a different pirate. There were two in the powder room with Rory/Amy/The Boy. The Boy cuts one with a cutlass, the other one escapes, steals the crown, burns himself and is taken.

The other one, the cut one, stays in the powder room and is never seen again.

Maybe he was eaten by the Silence?

The other thing that bothered me was anyone else taken by the siren (even those fit and healthy bar a minor cut) are immediatley attached to surgical beds. Doctor, Amy and Captain? They're left to wander the ship of course.

[NecronLord]

Amy being a master swordsman. Amy being put in a prison which contains the crew's swords. I'll buy that.

That bugged me. It would have made massively more sense for that to have been Rory; given that Rory was programmed with the experience of a Centurion in the Roman army, not inconsiderable in itself, and then lived through the next eighteen hundred years, which is plenty of time to learn every single sword technique ever.

And yet they felt the need to have Amy do the swashbuckling?

They also didn't explain how anyone with a slight injury suddenly became deleriously attracted to he siren. How does that work?

That one's quite straightforward to explain, but you're right, they should have done that.

Any mirror is a window to the other universe. Yet it only works one way - you can't see from the pirate ship into the spaceship. Why?

Fuck knows. That at least, isn't new; the Human 51st Century ship in The Girl in the Fireplace could do that too.

I really loved the opening 2-parter. I feel utterly let down by this one.

I'm hoping this episode was mostly done for money-saving using period costumes and sets the Beeb already had or something...

Even so, disappointing.

[Broomstick]

I dont get why they couldn't save the crew either, most people just had small cuts I dont get why taking them off the life support would kill them, Ok the boy might have had TB but everyone else should be fine.

Look at the final scene again - the boy is still on life support, but the crew that appears behind him and the captain aren't anymore. I guess they convinced the doctor-thing humans can heal small cuts on their own.

What jars with me is that everyone else who was teleported wound up, essentially, tied to a bed except the final three, who were free to run about.

[LadyTevar]

One reason that the Pirates may have been trapped in the beds? Simple ill health from a lifetime of poor diet and hygiene. Scurvy is only one of the things these pirates might have been suffering. The Siren/doctor was trying to save them from the results of their environment.

[Drooling Iguana]

Amy being a master swordsman. Amy being put in a prison which contains the crew's swords. I'll buy that.

Amy wasn't a master swordsman. She only did as well as she did because the crew was afraid to get near her knowing that the slightest cut would mean death.

And putting the swords into the brig would also make sense in that, when the crew realized what was happening it would be pretty logical for them to want to lock their swords up in the most secure room they had available.