Review: The Curse of the Black Spot
The Curse of the Black Spot is the third episode in Season Thirty-Two of Doctor Who
Well, here we are again at episode three of a new Doctor Who season and here we are again with something that’s less than stellar. “The Curse of the Black Spot” is supposed to be a pirate romp combining both time and space but ultimately the cool special effects and the attempt at taking it all seriously just don’t work - and in one case, Rory’s death, it fails spectacularly.
Pirates are always good fun. If the success of everything pirate-y related from Captain Hook to Jack Sparrow tells us anything, it tells us that. So it’s no surprise that Doctor Who attempts a pirate theme. Pirates are fun. Doctor Who is fun. This should be fun, right?
Wrong.
Oh so wrong. It’s not quite as bad as episode three of the previous season, “The Victory of the Daleks” - that still remains the all-time low of the Eleventh Doctor’s tenure to date - but it’s not far off.
Mostly, it’s the failure is down to the somewhat insipid plot which has the Doctor and his Companions turning up to help out the becalmed pirate ship. Of course, it turns out that the ship is stuck because it’s merged somewhat with another becalmed space ship and that space ship’s Emergency Medical Hologram is kidnapping injured shipmates and putting them into the infirmary. Alongside this is a rather tedious father-son bonding plot between the Pirate Captain Avery (played by Hugh Bonneville) and his son (Oscar Lloyd).
The revelation to the main plot is somewhat interesting and if the idea of an EMH isn’t exactly original (Star Trek: Voyager for one), the slightly psychotic nature of her is. Personally I loved Angry!EMH with her red demonic eyes and blasts of fire rather than the enchanting greeny-blue Siren!EMH. The special effects for her were fabulous throughout. Actually all of the special effects were nicely done including the TARDIS disappearing and the walls between the two worlds (very reminiscent of Steven Moffat’s outstandingly good “The Girl in the Fireplace” [28.04]). But special effects and great costuming (the pirate outfits were very cool) cannot an episode make and the plot just isn’t that engaging before the big two ships occupying the space revelation. Or after it come to that.
The other two elements of the plot Rory-in-danger and the father-son bonding are also not that interesting. The latter is very tiresome as it tries to inject some emotion into the story. Hugh Bonneville does his best to play the role of the dead-beat Dad, lured by his love of gold into piracy, but who ultimately loves his son and does the Right Thing In The End. But even Bonneville (a really, really great British actor) can’t save the horrendously clichéd approach to it all.
Talking of horrendous clichés, let’s talk about Rory’s death. Yes, yes, Rory dies again! Briefly, until somehow - despite stopping the clearly fake CPR (I’ve just gotten my First Aid training certificate and I can say with certainty she wasn’t doing the compressions hard enough nor enough of them which was very distracting since that whole scene was supposed to be very angsty and moving) - he’s suddenly alive again! He’ll be beating Daniel Jackson’s (Stargate SG-1) record at this rate. I don’t deny that having Rory as the damsel in distress is a change from having Amy as the damsel in distress (and I did love Amy coming to the rescue with a cutlass and a pirate hat at the beginning of the episode) but dying again? Seriously?
The cast do their best to try to look suitably heartbroken (Amy), distraught at being the wrong kind of Doctor (the Doctor), or I-was-dead-but-I’m-alive-again (Rory). The combination of Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill continues to be a joy to watch.
So, yes. That’s pretty much all I have to say about this particular episode. I’m shocking myself with my brevity but there you go. A plot riddled with clichés; not so much pirate fun as pirate boredom, but good acting and special effects. Yep, that sums it up.
“The Curse of Third Episode” strikes again. I’m hoping the fourth gets us back on track.
Originally posted at GeekSpeak Magazine
Well, here we are again at episode three of a new Doctor Who season and here we are again with something that’s less than stellar. “The Curse of the Black Spot” is supposed to be a pirate romp combining both time and space but ultimately the cool special effects and the attempt at taking it all seriously just don’t work - and in one case, Rory’s death, it fails spectacularly.
Pirates are always good fun. If the success of everything pirate-y related from Captain Hook to Jack Sparrow tells us anything, it tells us that. So it’s no surprise that Doctor Who attempts a pirate theme. Pirates are fun. Doctor Who is fun. This should be fun, right?
Wrong.
Oh so wrong. It’s not quite as bad as episode three of the previous season, “The Victory of the Daleks” - that still remains the all-time low of the Eleventh Doctor’s tenure to date - but it’s not far off.
Mostly, it’s the failure is down to the somewhat insipid plot which has the Doctor and his Companions turning up to help out the becalmed pirate ship. Of course, it turns out that the ship is stuck because it’s merged somewhat with another becalmed space ship and that space ship’s Emergency Medical Hologram is kidnapping injured shipmates and putting them into the infirmary. Alongside this is a rather tedious father-son bonding plot between the Pirate Captain Avery (played by Hugh Bonneville) and his son (Oscar Lloyd).
The revelation to the main plot is somewhat interesting and if the idea of an EMH isn’t exactly original (Star Trek: Voyager for one), the slightly psychotic nature of her is. Personally I loved Angry!EMH with her red demonic eyes and blasts of fire rather than the enchanting greeny-blue Siren!EMH. The special effects for her were fabulous throughout. Actually all of the special effects were nicely done including the TARDIS disappearing and the walls between the two worlds (very reminiscent of Steven Moffat’s outstandingly good “The Girl in the Fireplace” [28.04]). But special effects and great costuming (the pirate outfits were very cool) cannot an episode make and the plot just isn’t that engaging before the big two ships occupying the space revelation. Or after it come to that.
The other two elements of the plot Rory-in-danger and the father-son bonding are also not that interesting. The latter is very tiresome as it tries to inject some emotion into the story. Hugh Bonneville does his best to play the role of the dead-beat Dad, lured by his love of gold into piracy, but who ultimately loves his son and does the Right Thing In The End. But even Bonneville (a really, really great British actor) can’t save the horrendously clichéd approach to it all.
Talking of horrendous clichés, let’s talk about Rory’s death. Yes, yes, Rory dies again! Briefly, until somehow - despite stopping the clearly fake CPR (I’ve just gotten my First Aid training certificate and I can say with certainty she wasn’t doing the compressions hard enough nor enough of them which was very distracting since that whole scene was supposed to be very angsty and moving) - he’s suddenly alive again! He’ll be beating Daniel Jackson’s (Stargate SG-1) record at this rate. I don’t deny that having Rory as the damsel in distress is a change from having Amy as the damsel in distress (and I did love Amy coming to the rescue with a cutlass and a pirate hat at the beginning of the episode) but dying again? Seriously?
The cast do their best to try to look suitably heartbroken (Amy), distraught at being the wrong kind of Doctor (the Doctor), or I-was-dead-but-I’m-alive-again (Rory). The combination of Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill continues to be a joy to watch.
So, yes. That’s pretty much all I have to say about this particular episode. I’m shocking myself with my brevity but there you go. A plot riddled with clichés; not so much pirate fun as pirate boredom, but good acting and special effects. Yep, that sums it up.
“The Curse of Third Episode” strikes again. I’m hoping the fourth gets us back on track.
Originally posted at GeekSpeak Magazine