Doctor Who Series 6.3 'The Curse of the Black Spot' SPOILERS

[AfroTree]

YAY

OOD <3 I love me something ood :3

Interesting. Another appearance by that strange face with an eyepatch in the wall.
Decent episode, nothing really mind blowing though. Pirates are cool.

Next week looks VERY interesting though!
"There's a living Time Lord out there"

When was eyepatch woman in it?!?! I must have blinked at that bit....grrrrr.
Also, "You're just worried because i'm wearing a hat"
Twas indeed a good episode, Who else is wishing that the space pirates come back at some point?

And me! me sir, me!

And I wonder why a complex doctor AI couldn't fix a small scratch. ._.

She did. She fixed everyone except Rory and the boy. As Rory and the boy were the only ones with their lives in danger. You see at the end that the rest of the crew are unplugged from the machines, hut the boy isn't because he has Typhus or something fatal. And Rory was near death because of him drowning.

...Good eye, never caught that, thank ya :3

 

[Plinglebob]

I liked that episode. After the double episode introduction with all the mystery and un-attached plot threads, it was nice to have a fun, self-contained episode where nothing was too serious. I also liked the fact that they again showed how devoted Amy is to Rory despite her wearing the trousers in the relationship and *fingers crossed* that will help to stop any theories about the Dr being the Dad. I thought the idea of the episode using the Siren myth, but I felt the resolution was a bit weak.

Good Points:
Amy in a pirates outfit!
Nice and easy to watch. No thinking involved which is exactly what I need on a Saturday evening.
AMY IN A PIRATES OUTFIT!!!

Bad Points:
Poor resolution to the monster. I liked how the story ended (place your bets now for when they'll return), but I'm sure there was more they could have done re: the Siren.
Showing us a trailer for what looks like what could be a very nice episode next week written by a brilliant story teller and then forcing us to wait 7 days before we can see it. I hope the stuff with Rory and Amy running around is inside the Tardis (looked like the doors shut with them inside) as we never see more then the control room and it would be really cool to see it.

 

[Loop Stricken]

And I wonder why a complex doctor AI couldn't fix a small scratch. ._.

Well at the end of the episode everyone who wasn't drowned or had Typhoid looked like they were up and about just fine to me...

 

[Wes1180]

On topic though, did anyone notice how that crewmember who got cut with the cutlass like, dissapeared? He was supposed to have not left the powder store, but we don't see him for about 25 minutes until later on board the spaceship. Maybe he fainted or something... But it bothered me.
Overall, I've found the most recent three episodes to be quite dissapointing, partially because the first episode (In my opinion) lacked pacing.

I had noticed that as soon as they went back in there, I was wondering as to where he had gone.

I get the feeling that amy's pregnancy is gonna come back alot.

Is the eye-patch woman gonna be this series' bad wolf, torchwood, cracks etc? (I preffered the bad wolf torchwood ones as they were more subtle)

Time-lord DNA, jenny perhaps?

 

[Spikkle]

Yeah, the Doctor breifly explained in his ramblomatic way that it knew how to stablise them but couldn't fathom human biology totally, and so didn't know how to 'fix' them, only mindlessly copy and sustain that (hence its humanoid form).

 

[Sam G]

Man, that was just... that episode was just bad! There was so much wrong with it; it's Doctor Who plus pirates! How d'you screw that up that badly?

Like, right at the start, where Amy pulls a sword and fights off all those pirates; there is, of course, the obvious question as to how she attained the necessary swashbuckling skills to fend off a band of seaward vagabonds, but there was also the more obvious, glaring contradiction of "why didn't they just shoot her!?". Granted, this isn't the only work of fiction where that's come into play [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhyDontYaJustShootHim], but that doesn't change the fact that it doesn't particularly make sense for a gang of pirates to rush the woman with a sword with frickin' brooms when they've just been shown to have handy gunpowder-shooters at their disposal.

And a bit later, when those two pirates got siren'd; they didn't have that much trouble holding Rory back, but when the pirates were walking to their deaths the gang were just like "no, wait, don't... ah, he's gone, never mind." I actually came up with a couple of theories as to why the Doctor let the second one happen:

1. He's actually a far more morally vague character than the series makes him out to be, and he needed him dead so he could do the screwdriver thing on his hat to determine the origins of his foe, or

2. He just really wanted his hat.

Furthermore; when the Doctor suddenly decided "ooh, maybe when she vaporizes people she doesn't actually kill 'em! Let's test this theory out!" Like... what if she did kill 'em? That was an immensely stupid move on his part.

And my final qualm... why is it that everybody else got transported to the hold, but the Doctor, Amy and Barbossa didn't? They got taken not a minute after Rory and the kid, so it wasn't an issue of getting them there taking a long time; it was just a glaring plot hole!

Don't mistake me for a "hater" - hell, I actually enjoyed Love And Monsters - but I've got to say, this is my least favourite episode of Doctor Who in due memory. And I was really looking forward to this one...

 

[Spikkle]

I get the feeling that amy's pregnancy is gonna come back alot.

I wonder about that - is the pregnancy test that the Doctor is running inconclusive? Or is it that she's carrying a time paradox in her belly and the positive/negative scramble is a result of a Schroedinger's-cat-style ambiguity?

 

[Cpt Corallis]

Man, that was just... that episode was just bad! There was so much wrong with it; it's Doctor Who plus pirates! How d'you screw that up that badly?

Like, right at the start, where Amy pulls a sword and fights off all those pirates; there is, of course, the obvious question as to how she attained the necessary swashbuckling skills to fend off a band of seaward vagabonds, but there was also the more obvious, glaring contradiction of "why didn't they just shoot her!?". Granted, this isn't the only work of fiction where that's come into play[/i], but that doesn't change the fact that it doesn't particularly make sense for a gang of pirates to rush the woman with a sword with frickin' brooms when they've just been shown to have handy gunpowder-shooters at their disposal.

This bit at least, they didn't want to draw blood for fear of drawing the siren, hence the recoiling and avoiding doing any damage. Also, not shooting.

 

[Wes1180]

I get the feeling that amy's pregnancy is gonna come back alot.

I wonder about that - is the pregnancy test that the Doctor is running inconclusive? Or is it that she's carrying a time paradox in her belly and the positive/negative scramble is a result of a Schroedinger's-cat-style ambiguity?

Its probably more likely the second one as i'm sure it would have just said inconclusive, and schroedinger's baby is more fun

 

[Loop Stricken]

And my final qualm... why is it that everybody else got transported to the hold, but the Doctor, Amy and Barbossa didn't? They got taken not a minute after Rory and the kid, so it wasn't an issue of getting them there taking a long time; it was just a glaring plot hole!

We don't know that they did. They'd only been scratch whilst Rory was drowning; mayhaps he was sent straight there under a type of emergency protocol.

 

[TimeLord]

I get the feeling that amy's pregnancy is gonna come back alot.

I wonder about that - is the pregnancy test that the Doctor is running inconclusive? Or is it that she's carrying a time paradox in her belly and the positive/negative scramble is a result of a Schroedinger's-cat-style ambiguity?

Schroedinger's baby more like!

 

[Wes1180]

It's nice to see the ood back again next week, although this time they are being possessed by the colour green ;D

 

[FinalDream]

As I also recorded the episode, here's an image of the eye patch lady

Spoilers!

Spoiler: Eye Patch Lady

 

[Daffy F]

On topic though, did anyone notice how that crewmember who got cut with the cutlass like, dissapeared? He was supposed to have not left the powder store, but we don't see him for about 25 minutes until later on board the spaceship. Maybe he fainted or something... But it bothered me.
Overall, I've found the most recent three episodes to be quite dissapointing, partially because the first episode (In my opinion) lacked pacing.

I had noticed that as soon as they went back in there, I was wondering as to where he had gone.

I get the feeling that amy's pregnancy is gonna come back alot.

Is the eye-patch woman gonna be this series' bad wolf, torchwood, cracks etc? (I preffered the bad wolf torchwood ones as they were more subtle)

Time-lord DNA, jenny perhaps?

Possibly, possibly.
I have to agree that the whole Bad Wolf thing was incredibly subtle, it was really well done and I loved it.
Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed the episodes - by the end I'm usually contented and happy enough to not be annoyed - but the beginnings are either totally bewildering (the first double episode) or horribly cringy (More specifically, the doctor's first line of the most recent episode).

 

[TimeLord]

"I give self-confessed murderous pirates spacecraft. Murder is cool."

Considering how the entire schtick of Doctor Who is supposed to be time travel and causality I'm having real trouble with the Doctor's morality these last few episodes.

I would have thought the Captain would have learned that murder and stealing treasure is bad as it almost took his son from him. Also, how long can technologically inept pirates last in deep space without crashing into a sun, really?

 

[FinalDream]

"I give self-confessed murderous pirates spacecraft. Murder is cool."

Considering how the entire schtick of Doctor Who is supposed to be time travel and causality I'm having real trouble with the Doctor's morality these last few episodes.

Not seen much of the older series (like pre 1980's) then? There's a lot of 'questionable' actions performed by the Doctor in the past.

 

[Count Igor]

Too many holes in it, I think.
And too guessable.
Oh well, it wasn't bad.

 

[TimeLord]

Not seen much of the older series (like pre 1908's) then? There's a lot of 'questionable' actions performed by the Doctor in the past.

I've watched quite a few episodes but there's a seemingly endless number of them so I can't claim to have seen them all. What gets me is that 11's actions seem to be motivated more out of a lack of foresight; something the Doctor is supposed to be really good at. I don't mind the Doctor being morally grey but his recent actions are seemingly the product of rank idiocy (well, for him) and I'm just having trouble with him being like that. He's supposed to be lordly and morally ambiguous, not incompetent.

I would have thought the Captain would have learned that murder and stealing treasure is bad as it almost took his son from him. Also, how long can technologically inept pirates last in deep space without crashing into a sun, really?

Probably not long, though it's hardly worth the risk it would seem to me.

I know why they ended the episode like this; Doctor Who is a children's show and kids love pirates but I always think of Confused Matthew's review of Pirates of the Caribbean. He basically points out that pirates are criminals and that it's hard to root for them when they're thieves and murderers. The captain in this episode has easily racked up a higher kill count than most of the non-Dalek villains but, pirates being cool, they're allowed to walk.

And yet, the Doctor allowed the Captain to stay so his kid would not die back on their old ship. This way the kid would live and get to stay with his father. Ok so he may never be able to leave the ship but it was his fathers choice.