The pirates (and time travelers) who don't do anything

[door_nob]

Well that was pretty terrible. I was so disappointed in this episode, and not just because I had impossibly high standards. It looked to be a really interesting and fun episode, I was so looking forward to swashbuckling Amy and Hugh Bonneville in a beard, but I was just… bored.

Literally I stopped the ep at one point to get a drink, and I came back and saw that there were 20 minutes left and I nearly gave up. I’ve never been so tempted to stop watching an episode of Doctor Who. Ok that’s a lie, I was totally ready to give up on “The End of Time” by the time the opening credits rolled on. And I usually go back through an ep immediately upon finishing to enjoy my favorite parts again.

So I’m going to try and break down the many things I disliked about the episode.





Plot:

• It made absolutely no sense.
• I normally love Doctor Who stories that deconstruct myths. I was waiting for the Siren to be a really cool alien bent on subjugating the human race by abducting scruffy pirates.  I can see the appeal of wanting to make the “villain” someone good, but it felt so sloppy and hackneyed.
• If the Siren was a doctor why couldn’t she save the original crew? If she were an intelligent AI system, she would surely know or learn how to save Rory beyond putting him in stasis. And when is a cut a fatal injury? Smart doctors can tell the difference between a gut wound and a paper cut, thank you very much.
• In the myths, sirens attract only men (we assume, there aren’t any stories about women interacting with sirens), and Amy is very obviously unaffected by Lily Cole’s buggy face. Why???????
• One of the pirates just disappeared from the gun magazine with no explanation. I was distracted for the rest of the episode b/c I kept wondering where he’d buggered off to.
• Why were the pirates on a lifeboat at the beginning of the episode? They’re becalmed in the middle of the ocean, were they trying to find a triple A?
• So at the end, Avery, his teeny son, and scruffy crew have been set upon the galaxy in a space ship? They're so gonna die.
• The woman with the eyepatch is setting up to be one of my least favorite arcs. They use her too heavy-handedly. The crack wasn’t subtle, but it was intriguing. I think arcs are better if they’re concepts or words, so you’re always looking for clues or mentions. This is so obvious you couldn’t possibly miss it.
  
• Did the boy really stow away on the ship for weeks without anyone noticing? Implausible.
• I’m super tired of “alien tech misfires” story lines.

Characters:

• Really? Another Rory death scare? Although it was touching to see the Doctor and Amy so terrified for him, I want the writers to leave poor Mr. Pond alone. Also, why did they have to drag Rory into the TARDIS first? Why didn’t the Doctor help Amy?
• Amy had a relatively small role in this one. I’m actually hard-pressed to think of stuff she did, besides waving around the cutlass (AWESOME) and the lovely scene at the end where she’s so tempted to tell the Doctor about his future.
• I think Hugh Bonneville was really phoning this one in. He’s a wonderful actor and capable of showing a great range of emotions, but this was not his best performance. Father-son issues should be heavier on the angst.

Miscellaneous:

• How dodgy was the CGI this week? I really hated the effects of the Siren emerging from the ocean.
• Everything was dark and grungy, I really had to turn up the brightness on my screen.
• Do Amy and Rory not have any shirts that aren’t plaid?

The short list of things I liked:

• Doctor/TARDIS. I loved how in the sick bay scene Captain Avery runs to his son, Amy runs to Rory, and the Doctor sprints to the TARDIS.
  
• Small Eleven moments, like the “comfy sofa” moan of pleasure. Loved it.
• Rory acting like a fool was very funny, as was Amy’s attempts to keep him away from the Siren.
• There was one pirate with really cool pointy eyebrows.
• I do like eps that don’t begin from the Doctor and companions’ perspectives.
• The trailer for next week looks… interesting. Please don’t disappoint me, Gaiman!

Final verdict? Not as bad as “Fear Her” or “The Idiot’s Lantern” or any of the specials, but worse than “The Doctor’s Daughter” and “Victory of the Daleks”.