Doctor Who Series 6 Episode 3 - The Curse Of The Black Spot - Review

Starring: Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill & Hugh Bonneville

Written By: Stephen Thompson

Directed By: Jeremy Webb

 

Doctor Who has never been much of a sea-faring show. In the past, whenever the Doctor has found his way onto a ship or at sea, he's been followed by all manner of things – such as Daleks, Sea Devils, Drashigs, Rutans and Silurians. Well it seems that some things never change, as this week the Doctor finds himself dealing with something that appears to be a mythological Siren.
 

After picking up a distress call, the TARDIS brings the Doctor, Amy and Rory to 1699, aboard the good ship Fancy. The ship's crew are pirates, led by Captain Henry Avery, and they seem to have an abnormal fear of being injured in any way. The Doctor soon discovers why – the ship is haunted by a beautiful Siren-like creature, who marks the injured with a black spot on their hands, and entrances them into wanting to go with her, only for them to be disintegrated. It's up to the Doctor, Amy and Rory to discover just who the Siren is, and why she entrances the sick and injured.

At the heart of The Curse Of The Black Spot, we find a solid but simple premise – a 17th Century pirate ship stalked by an alien in the shape of a beautiful Siren. It's a much simpler idea than the opening two-parter, and even though I've never really been keen on a pirate setting, I was at least expecting that this episode would be an enjoyable one. However, the end result is anything but that. For one thing, the first proper pirate setting in Doctor Who is just wasted, and there's little reason for the episode to be set on a pirate ship. Set aside one brief scene of some swordfighting and walking the plank, and there's little else to justify setting this episode on a pirate ship. This is a real shame considering how great the sets looked, because no mistake, The Curse of The Black Spot nails the looks, feeling very atmospheric thanks to the night setting, low lighting and the fog surrounding the ship. It may look great, but there's not enough here to justify this setting.

The Siren herself also makes for quite a boring villain. She lacks any kind of threat or menace, and while Lily Cole looks great in the role, the Siren just isn't intimidating at all. If anything, the Siren is lacklustre, doing little else but floating around the sets and singing. Even in the moments where she turns angry, and starts glowing red instead of the usual green, and in one instance threatens to burn the Doctor's face off, she still doesn't come across as a threat. (Spoiler Warning!) As the episode draws to a close, the Doctor finally deduces who the Siren is and that she is in fact a virtual doctor. However, my problem with this is that when going back and watching this scene again, I struggle to see anything that led the Doctor to this conclusion. How did the Doctor figure out that the Siren isn't just a “ravenous hunter”? There was no new developments to lead him to that answer.
 

Nearly every problem in The Curse Of The Black Spot can be traced back to a scriptwriting level. The script contains simply too many unnecessary twists and turns. Going back to the revelation of the Siren being a doctor – this explanation doesn't add up. If the Siren really is a doctor, then why can't she help or cure things as simple as the small cuts many of the crew members had? If she's putting people who literally just have a small cut on their hands in stasis, she has got to be the worst doctor ever. (Spoiler Warning!) While the Doctor initially concludes that the Siren materializes through water, we later learn that it's instead reflections. What does this change? If the Siren could only materialize through water, then it may have even helped justify setting this episode on a pirate ship, but if it's any reflection, then this is just further proof that you could have set this episode nearly anywhere else. There's also a moment where the Doctor, Amy and Captain Avery all agree to deliberately cut theirs hands so the Siren will send them to the same place as Rory. However, when they wake up, they wake up on the bridge of the alien ship. Why weren't they put in stasis like everyone else that the Siren has captured? There are just too many problems here for this script to hold up.
 

The characters here don't fare much better, as we have a very forgettable supporting cast on our hands. Many of the crew members we see at the start of the episode don't even get named on screen, and they're not at all distinct from one another. The only purpose Captain Avery's crew serve in this episode is for them to get picked off by the Siren. Proof? There's one crew member who literally disappears mid-way through the episode – he doesn't fall victim to the Siren, he doesn't take his chances, he's just there in one scene and gone in the next. It's also clear that these are some of the worst pirates ever, as at the beginning of the episode, they try to hold Amy as prisoner, but put her in a room with a crate full of swords! The supporting character that stands out the most is Captain Avery, without any competition, and this is mainly down to Hugh Bonneville's performance. Now Hugh Bonneville is a good actor and he doesn't do a bad job with Captain Avery, but the character still ends up feeling forgettable, as he's let down by the script. Not even Avery's relationship with his son adds anything particularly interesting, and it's during these scenes that Avery seems to lack the ruthlessness needed to be captain of a pirate ship. On the bright side, some of our main cast fare better than the supporting characters. While Amy and Rory barely have any kind of presence, we can thankfully rely on Matt Smith to entertain the audience. Matt Smith does the best with the material he's given, and generally speaking, the moments of humour usually work in his favour.
 

To conclude, I can only describe The Curse Of The Black Spot as a disappointment. Given the fairly simple premise of this episode, I had at least hoped that it would be somewhat enjoyable to watch, but the end result is a bit of a mess. The Siren lacks any kind of threat or intimidating presence, the script is full of inconsistencies and answers that just don't add up, and we're given one of the weakest character line-ups the show has seen for a while. We may only be three episodes into the series, but I can imagine this being the episode that you'll probably end up skipping on the home media release.

 

The Curse Of The Black Spot



4/10