{"id":337,"date":"2011-05-09T13:00:46","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T20:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=337"},"modified":"2011-05-08T20:15:06","modified_gmt":"2011-05-09T03:15:06","slug":"mark-watches-doctor-who-s06e03-the-curse-of-the-black-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2011\/05\/mark-watches-doctor-who-s06e03-the-curse-of-the-black-spot\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches &#8216;Doctor Who&#8217;: S06E03 &#8211; The Curse of the Black Spot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Georgia} li.li1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Georgia} span.s1 {letter-spacing: 0.0px} -->In the third episode of the sixth series of <em>Doctor Who<\/em>, the TARDIS is marooned on a pirate ship. HOW HAS NU-<em>WHO<\/em> NOT DONE PIRATES YET? The episode is largely an entertaining and humorous chunk of filler until WHAT IS THAT LAST THIRD. What?!?!?! If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re intrigued, then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch <em>Doctor Who<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Ok, confession to start off: When I watched the small preview for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Curse of the Black Spot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at the end of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Day of the Moon,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d all my brain could think was YAWN <em>WHO CARES<\/em><strong><em> THE DOCTOR IS GOING TO DIE<\/em><\/strong>. After coming off of one hell of a series opener, how on earth do you transition to an episode about <em>a pirate ship<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>Question: This is how you do it.<\/p>\n<p>That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not to say that I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have loved to seen a fully serialized <em>Doctor Who<\/em>, a thirteen-part story if you will. But enough of what I watch and read is that way, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nice to have a story that, UNTIL THE END, is largely disposable to the mythology. I add that qualification at the end to make sure it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that this episode itself is <em>not<\/em> disposable as a whole, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not something a person will probably <em>need<\/em> at the end of series six. Dramas like this need down time in a way, and the tone of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Curse of the Black Spot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d mixes fairly well between intrigue, tension, and plain goofiness.<\/p>\n<p>Really, I just wanted to see the three of these characters SMILE. After that double-parter, I just needed some joy for a second.<\/p>\n<p>Right from the start, with the Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ill-used \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yo ho ho!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as our time traveling heroes burst out of the belly of the ship, I could tell that the tone of this episode would be a lot lighter than what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d just experienced. The story itself is familiar: a beautiful siren is taking pirates about the ship to their graves with her, marking them with the black spot in their palm to signify that they will be taken next. Proving yet again that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all in the details, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the smaller changes to this story that make it work; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s those small changes to the myth that also keep the Doctor on his toes.<\/p>\n<p>We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen the Doctor out of his element before (\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Lodger\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for instance) (Could Craig Owens please come back?) (I know his story is done, but he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so awesome and I just want to see more of him.), but Steve Thompson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story is more about the Doctor being <em>wrong<\/em> over and over again. The mistakes he makes along the way inevitably get the passengers aboard the ship zapped into nothingness by the siren and, along with the visual cue of the spots, help to give this episode a running tension. (Plus, not being able to have reflections around? Must <em>every<\/em> inanimate object be used for terror on this show?)<\/p>\n<p>The story itself only really becomes fascinating to me at the very end, aside from my desire to figure out <em>what<\/em> the siren is. Again, this is perfectly fine for me, as it was nice to sort of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153turn off\u00e2\u20ac\u009d while watching the episode. If anything, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Curse of the Black Spot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was a bunch of tiny moments of joy tied together for half an hour. These moments included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Amy finding the swords down below the deck, donning an outfit (because seriously, what <em>else<\/em> would you do?), and then becoming a badass swashbuckler in sixty seconds.<\/li>\n<li>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Look, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I want to say multi-dimensional engineering, but since you had a problem with sensors, I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go there. Look, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m the Doctor. This is Amy. Rory. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re sailors! Same as you. Rawr! Except for the gun thing. And the beardiness.<\/li>\n<li>Amy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s insistence that she did <em>not<\/em> kill one of the pirates just because she cut him. Do you know where my brain went immediately during this scene? \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a flesh wound!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/li>\n<li>The Doctor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s slight obsession with pirate laughter. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true, though. Only pirates laugh like that!<\/li>\n<li>Watching Arthur Davrill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brilliant turn of acting when he was stricken with the black spot and immediately turned into a boisterous, brag-happy Rory. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Cuddle me, shipmate!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/li>\n<li>The Doctor met Freud. God, I really do love the <em>tiny<\/em>, minuscule details like this.<\/li>\n<li>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well thank God we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not in the middle of the ocean.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Because sarcastic Amy is a beautiful Amy.<\/li>\n<li>The introduction of Toby, and his subsequent \u00e2\u20ac\u0153disappearance.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I almost said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153death,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but we now know that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the case. The thing that this episode does well, albeit a bit sparsely, is introduce the son, set him up to be heartbroken, do that, and then KILL HIM IN FRONT OF HIS FATHER. I mean, we do get the very basic elements to that story and nothing terribly in-depth, but I liked it. It was something to add a bit more emotion to Captain Avery\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s efforts to save his ship and himself. And I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t commented about him yet, so allow me to do so now: I LOVE HUGH BONNEVILLE. I feel like he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been in <em>EVERYTHING EVER<\/em>, so I loved that he finally appeared on <em>Doctor Who<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>I noticed that the dynamic changed here just a bit. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re used to Rory being so worried about Amy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s feelings towards another person, and for this episode, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Amy who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the one who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bit freaked out by Rory. Granted, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s under the spell of the Siren, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not quite the same, but a great deal of this episode is about the strength of the Pond relationship. (That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Rory Pond. DEAL WITH IT.) (No, seriously, not only is this canon, but I saw a few fuckheads on Tumblr trying to whine about how this is unrealistic and ridiculous and HEY SHUT YOUR FACE. For once, a woman gets to keep her last name in a marriage on television. <em>YOU HAVE EVERY OTHER HETEROSEXUAL MARRIAGE <\/em><strong><em>EVER<\/em><\/strong><em> ON TV FOR YOU TO DROOL ABOUT<\/em>. Now, just bring back Canton Delaware III and his hot boyfriend and queer up this show now, please.<\/li>\n<li>Bringing Captain Avery aboard the TARDIS: Unexpected and pleasant, especially for the way Steve Thompson parallels the two \u00e2\u20ac\u0153captains\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and their ships.<\/li>\n<li>Rory, please write a pirate phrase book.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is essentially what my brain did: I made bullet points of all these funny lines or fascinating scenes and realized afterwards that a largely mysterious plot was what was holding it all together. There weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t too many (if any at all) overarching themes about hope or loss or scary mythological villains to harp on. (There was one thing, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll get to that at the end.)<\/p>\n<p>So when the Doctor announced that he believed he could reason with the intelligent being that caused all of this, I figured that this is exactly how the episode would end: He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d give some big speech to the Siren. The Siren would relent and give up Rory or some <em>deus ex machina<\/em> would save them all and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d part ways.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I like <em>Doctor Who<\/em> so much, and why this episode got saved from being entirely forgettable, aside from some cute lines and scenes: <em>This shit is fucking weird<\/em>. At no point was I thinking, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh shit, this is an episode about parallel worlds colliding in the same point in space!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Not once. When Amy, Captain Avery, and the Doctor woke up aboard what they thought was the same ship as before, I was now more confused than ever. For me, it was just so <em>AWESOME<\/em> when they realized they were aboard <em>another<\/em> spaceship. (A small part of me suddenly thought <strong>WHAT IF THIS WAS ANOTHER ONE OF THE SILENCE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SHIPS<\/strong> but then I had to calm down again.)<\/p>\n<p>That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the real beauty of this show, of the world that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re allowed to build time and time again. Something like this might have problems with its own internal logic, but not once do we, as the viewer, think that <strong>THIS IS AN OUTRAGE AND NOT POSSIBLE<\/strong>. The Doctor is just going to <em>go<\/em> to weird places and find weird things and weird creatures. It had never even occurred to me that the Siren could have been acting entirely out of a desire to care for the people she was taking.<\/p>\n<p>It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of those things where we just get a hint of another world and a whole set of characters, complete with their alien boogies, that we may never revisit again. We only get enough for the story to make sense, and then the shows moves on. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll probably never find out what those original creatures were or what sort of technology created that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153doctor.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s perfectly fine, because we get a poetic story about a father accepting the fate he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been dealt and staying with his son to take care of him. (Plus, his entire crew is returned to him! That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty cool, too!)<\/p>\n<p>In the case of Rory, who was drowning when the Siren saved him, yet another being finds their life in the hands of Amelia Pond. (Does the Doctor not know CPR? Also, do writers not know that CPR isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really used in the way it was used here?) Again, as I said earlier, parts of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Curse of the Black Spot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d acted as a way to show us just how much Rory and Amy Pond love each other. As they take the risk, with Rory\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trust completely in Amy, the Doctor and Amy bring Rory back to the TARDIS and she tries to save his life.<\/p>\n<p>Steve Thompson, HOW DARE YOU MAKE THIS SCENE LAST SO LONG. Did anyone else think they were going to <em>actually<\/em> kill Rory <strong>again<\/strong> in some way? For maybe three or four seconds, I started freaking out because the scene of him not breathing went on WAY TOO LONG. WAY WAY WAY TOO LONG. And then the Doctor got that look on his face, that awfully sad face he gets when he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s given up, which is like NEVER, and I nearly started tearing up.<\/p>\n<p>BUT JK JK JK HE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S ALIVE! Ugh, I would not have forgiven this show had they killed him TWICE in just a year. PLEASE DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T, THANK YOU.<\/p>\n<p>So, while the whole \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pregnant\/not pregnant\u00e2\u20ac\u009d think is certainly intriguing, we really do need to talk about one thing:<\/p>\n<p><strong>WHO THE FUCK IS THAT WOMAN WITH THE EYE PATCH AND WHY DID SHE APPEAR IN THIS EPISODE AND TELL AMY THAT SHE WAS DOING JUST FINE.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>What?!?!?!?!!?! <\/em><\/strong>I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand it AT ALL. AT ALL. Is she <em>monitoring<\/em> Amy? What the fuck for? Before, she said that she believed Amy was dreaming. Ok\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.is Amy actually asleep somewhere else? I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T UNDERSTAND THIS.<\/p>\n<p>(Just a reminder: <strong>No spoilers are allowed on this site<\/strong>. If you decide you want to talk about theories of your own, please start your comment off with <strong>THEORIES ABOUND<\/strong> so you can warn those who do not wish to read theories. Thanks!)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the third episode of the sixth series of Doctor Who, the TARDIS is marooned on a pirate ship. HOW HAS NU-WHO NOT DONE PIRATES YET? The episode is largely an entertaining and humorous chunk of filler until WHAT IS &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2011\/05\/mark-watches-doctor-who-s06e03-the-curse-of-the-black-spot\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[55,48,54,9,18,52,31,17,22],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-who","tag-arthur-darvill","tag-featured","tag-karen-gillan","tag-mark-watches","tag-mark-watches-doctor-who","tag-matt-smith","tag-steven-moffat","tag-tardis","tag-time-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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