jason stives reviews the third episode, “The Curse Of The Black Spot” …
Well kids, it’s that time of the season for another standalone episode. After two breathtaking episodes in its premiere, the proceeding with a jaw-dropping cliffhanger, we are treated to light-hearted fan fare with “The Curse Of The Black Spot,” — it’s the Doctor, Amy, and Rory on the high seas … with pirates!
To be fair (but still critical,) it was still an entertaining story and while I would like to treat every story in a season of Doctor Who as important to further events, this one wasn’t. Still, this was a good opportunity to slow down the momentum and still keep the audience interested.
The Who writing debut of Steve Thompson (who also wrote for Moffat’s critically acclaimed first season of Sherlock) brings a lot of adventure and flare from the first swashbuckle. A pirate ship, looming in dark waters under a distant moonlight, is practically cursed from maiden voyage. Crew members are suddenly coming up with a mysterious black spot on their palms, only minutes before an eerie song pulls them towards their untimely demise. Of course, it is upon seeing one of their own crew disappear that they discover the TARDIS crew stowed away in the bawls of the ship. Easy setup, I know, and because of that no time is wasted in plunging one of the TARDIS crew’s own into the fatal trapping of the black spot (Rory again, for shame, the Kenny of DW).
The sadness of a story like this, which through and through has some clever plot wrap ups regarding the mysterious Siren creature (played hauntingly by Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus’ Lily Cole) and her haunting of the ship’s crew, things seem to be set up quickly before being explained almost haphazardly. While I love the idea of the Siren being not a killer but a doctor who puts the dead in a temporal living stasis, it’s only explained in a matter of seconds leaving little time to wrap the idea around the viewer’s head. It’s these quick fixes that make it difficult at times to watch standalone Doctor Who episodes in its latest form, not enough time to set all the pieces right, even if it’s in a confined area like a pirate ship, or the Siren’s space ship later on (surprise, she’s an alien, folks).
Still while it seemed almost momentary for the Doctor to be able to figure out what the Siren’s purpose was, it’s not all perfect for the Gallifreyan this time around, and for good measure. This season has shown many cracks in the Doctor’s demeanor, and this week showed the man’s ability to be wrong, and more than once, as his rush to solve the problem leads to many wrong conclusions that ultimately don’t win him over with the crew of the doomed pirate ship.
While the visual aspects of the pirate ship are well placed, the actual execution of its setting wasn’t nearly as brooding and suffocating as one would hope. A magazine room should greatly be claustrophobic and intimidating by appearance, instead its rest quarters, so the execution of space wasn’t really in the director’s corner. Since Doctor Who hasn’t done a pirate-based story since the mid-’60s, and with the burst in popularity in the past 10 years thanks to the Pirates Of The Caribbean films, I was hoping 21st century Who could bring it justice. Unfortunately, the fight sequences, and the two dimensional crew men make it seem almost staged and play-of-the-week like, never really showing its full potential but at least giving the audience enough to set the mood for themselves.
There are two things to consider that almost salvage the lack of theatricality in the pirate setting. For time sake, much has to be established and with the plot based around the marking of many of the crew for death, time to savor the surroundings and the back stories is not available. The one back-story that is available, and is done so well is that of actor Hugh Bonneville as Captain Avery. Sure, Captain Avery is given a throwaway father-and=son storyline, but the best supporting characters in Doctor Who episodes tend to be tough around the edges with a twinkle in their eye. Bonneville pours it on as a man hiding from his parenting because of a sinister past, but slowly and quite obviously, his lust for glory is diminished by a sick child and life he never had.
At episode’s end, no revelations exit the final moments of “Curse Of The Black Spot.” Amy is still pregnant, but she isn’t, or at least the TARDIS doesn’t know for sure. So needless to say, just as it were so in the third episode of the last season, we have reached, as of right now, the weakest link in Doctor Who’s sixth series, or its first half at least. While it was still a fun adventure, with great plot elements and a rather touching story development for the married couple of the TARDIS, I don’t see this episode reaching too many peoples top 10 lists by the time the season ends in the fall. No matter, next week we return with a review of the hotly anticipated episode by prolific comic book writer Neil Gaiman called “The Doctor’s Wife.”
Rating: 6.5 Out of 10
All Photos Credit: BBC America
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