The Curse of the Black Spot (3203)

[Teddybrown]

1. First impression, Dr Who does pirates.

2. Second impression, Siren is from an alternate dimension.

3. Could a 21st century woman really duel effectively with 17th century pirates?

4. Could 17th century pirates fly a spaceship?

OK but not awesome.

Yeah, I thought that, but as pbellosom said, they were scared of drawing blood...

[jameshawking]

Good episode, but I'm annoyed by how the smacked us upside the head with a quick recap of the plot so far.

Guys, it was only a week ago. Seriously.

Also, I just noticed something:

David Tennent started as Casanova, and Matt Smith owes Casanova a chicken.

Yes, I am slow.

Frankly, this episode was interesting, but it unfortunately got sandwiched between the first two-parter and the....seemingly much more epic episode next, with Time Lords, the voice that killed hundreds of them, and badassery abounding.

Side-note: could these pirates be the forebearers of those in "The Coming of the Terraphiles"?

[rosey_angel]

awesome episode. i too noticed the mysterious disappearing pirate and was wondering about the sword fighting, but it makes sense that they wern't fighting hard because they didn't want to get too close to her coz then they'd die.

i like the idea that the eye patch woman is amy's future/present midwife, i didn't even think of that! top banana

[Teddybrown]

Just thinking about the first time we saw eye patch lady, and the idea of her being Amys midwife, why would she say 'No, I think shes just dreaming'?, would a midwife say that? What would that mean?

[Ian-S]

I'm also sure she said something like "Stay calm and you'll be fine", I don't remember her saying anything about needing to push?

Maybe the disappearing pirate ended up on the cutting room floor (old techy speak for the scene being cut) something as simple as that, last time The Moff made a continuity error was the photo's on the wall in Amy's bedroom that changed halfway through a scene.

[jameshawking]

Also:

Anyone else think that it would be pretty cool for this episode to have at least had a reference to "Sister of Mine"?

[sparklegem]

Also:

Anyone else think that it would be pretty cool for this episode to have at least had a reference to "Sister of Mine"?

Yeah, that would have been really cool.



Just rewatched the episode, and I have to say, despite all the practical and logical problems, the last 5 minutes of the episode have to be some of my favorite of Eleven, Amy, and Rory's so far in terms of character moments. Despite Rory's dying being repetitive at this point, I was much more worried about Rory here than in Amy's Choice or the Silurian episode just because the emotion (for Amy and the Doctor) and cinematography was done so much better in this instance.

Also, the little exchange they all have at the end was to die for (the whole "Good night Amelia" "Good night Doctor"). They were all so perfectly in character: the loving playfulness between Amy and Rory, the familiar formality between Amy and the Doctor, the cross fatherly aloofness of the Doctor toward Amy as he tries to figure out what's wrong with her behind her back...

If we could have more character moments like this, I would be in heaven.

[Replicator Todd]

Loved this episode. Pirates in Doctor Who is fantastic. I loved the Siren idea, she looked really cool (kinda reminded me of the White Witch's appearance in Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie for some reason). Her face sure grew distorted when she was angry! Cool to see the pirates(apparently) in space in the end. Would be neat to see them again far down the line.

The eye-patch lady is very odd. But I'm trying not to guess who she is as I want to be completely surprised.

Next week looks like another winner!

[Crlx]

In my opinion i think the little girls is the Doctors daughter.
but the Tardis say's she is and she isn't so this could mean It may happen or not just a guess. time isn't always set, it's always changing you never know. so far the season is looking good

[Admiral Mappalazarou]

W're not talking about him. We're talking about the other one, the one who Toby cuts and thus has to stay in the (at the time believed to be safe) powder room. He just disappears and then crops up again in the final scene as if he'd been taking by the Siren, but it was never even implied that happened.

I agree. It's a bit plotholey.

[Admiral Mappalazarou]

Also:

Anyone else think that it would be pretty cool for this episode to have at least had a reference to "Sister of Mine"?

Could have done with a reference, not that anyone other than the Doctor and the audience would have got it (although he did repeat 'Are you my mummy?' whilst wearing a gas mask in the Sontaran two-parter in Series 4). Also remember that Sister of Mine wasn't imprisoned in the mirrors until the early 20th century. This episode is set 300 years prior.

[ijffdrie]

Frankly, while I enjoyed the episode, I had some troubles with a few points with the plot. The one I was the most annoyed by was the fact that when first entering the space-ship, the doctor is able to throw something through the window which lands on the boat, despite there being no reflective surface on the deck of the ship
The props for the jewelry were subpar, normally something which I'd be okay with, but in this ep, they were clearly not reflective.
Some dude vanished. Poor soul.
Amy does about a minute of cpr at the ending before giving up. This despite Rory having lain in the water for less than a minute before getting picked up by the siren. This means he has more than 5 minutes left before he'd start taking notable brain damage (2 minutes of air and then 3 minutes before notable brain damage).
The death-by-snot felt odd, because the aliens had an overactive nurse on board, which should have been able to either stasis them or cure them.

Also, i'm pretty sure the ship was not from an alternate universe, but just out of phase, quantum-linked, one second out of sync, dimensionally sunk, ethereal, post-material, one with the dreamworld or something else like that. Alternate universes are apparently hard to get to in DW nowadays, so probability suggests something else made it be in one place.

[Cold Fuzz]

Loved this episode. Pirates in Doctor Who is fantastic. I loved the Siren idea, she looked really cool (kinda reminded me of the White Witch's appearance in Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie for some reason). Her face sure grew distorted when she was angry! Cool to see the pirates(apparently) in space in the end. Would be neat to see them again far down the line.

The eye-patch lady is very odd. But I'm trying not to guess who she is as I want to be completely surprised.

Next week looks like another winner!

I wouldn't be surprised if we see the pirates pop again later this season to actually help out the Doctor and his companions.

[Replicator Todd]

I wouldn't be surprised if we see the pirates pop again later this season to actually help out the Doctor and his companions.

I like to stay away from spoilers, but it would be neat to see them again so soon!

[WingedPegasus]

The pirates in space were fun at the end. Delightfully anachronistic.

[The Flyattractor]

Amy does about a minute of cpr at the ending before giving up. This despite Rory having lain in the water for less than a minute before getting picked up by the siren. This means he has more than 5 minutes left before he'd start taking notable brain damage (2 minutes of air and then 3 minutes before notable brain damage).
The death-by-snot felt odd, because the aliens had an overactive nurse on board, which should have been able to either stasis them or cure them.

.

Well you also have to remember that The HoloNurse wasn't "smart" enough to figure out that if she took the water out of Rory's lungs that he would get better.

[SaberBlade]

Well you also have to remember that The HoloNurse wasn't "smart" enough to figure out that if she took the water out of Rory's lungs that he would get better.

The Nurse wasn't created for humans, so didn't know how to properly heal them. Same thing happened with the child in season 1 who'd only say "are you my mummy". They had no idea how to heal humans without proper programming. Small stuff like cuts the Nurse could do, but big stuff like diseases and drownings she couldn't. It's how the original crew died to begin with, human diseases. There is a chance that the original crew gave up their medical rights for treatment in an attempt and wasn't able to save them, just like Amy deciding to remove Rory.

[Ben 'Teal'c would WIN!!' Noble]

I don't know about this episode it was ok I suppose.

The Best Line was when they first went into the sick bay.

Amy: Rory!
The Captain: Toby!
The Doctor: The TARDIS!

It kept me guessing all the way though.

[Sealurk]

Can't believe I haven't posted in here yet!

Not a bad episode, all in all. Hugh Bonneville seemed to be having fun playing a pirate, I liked the slight continuation of the idea that mirrors are gateways to other places that Family of Blood touched upon and the whole idea that the Siren wasn't evil but simply something good taken out of the context of her normal surroundings was an interesting and welcome development. Also, would I be right in saying that is another episode where 'everybody lives'?

[Nth Chevron]

Except the aliens on the crashed ship

N.C