The Curse of the Black Spot
Story 215, Episodes 773, Series 6 Episode 3
Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor
Companions: Amy Pond, Rory Williams
A low-key episode, The Curse of the Black Spot makes the most of what is a pretty straightforward story.
The Review
This story is much maligned, and truthfully I think undeservingly show. I think the biggest issue is that this plays more like a Fifth Doctor story than a modern story, and probably would’ve been better in that era (see Enlightenment). The sets are cheap and barebones, somehow even the Doctor and Avery in the TARDIS is cheap. The plot is simple, a Siren is abducting Henry Avery’s men at the sight of blood, but it turns out she’s an alien hospital interface trying to help them. There are other oddities, the biggest being the Boatswain just gets taken by the Siren completely off-screen which made me check that I didn’t miss anything. I think after the bombast of the last two episodes, this mediocre one stuck on one pirate ship for most of the time really raised the ire of people.
That said, there are some great emotional moments in this episode. It’s close to heavy-handed, but Avery’s son getting taken by the Siren because he just couldn’t let go of a piece of treasure he had looted is a good parable. There is also genuine emotion with Amy having to do CPR on a drowning Rory, thinking she is going to lose him but Rory barely pulls through. There’s good stuff in this episode, but it does drag a bit, even for 45 minutes, which is never a good sign. Still, I think it is unfairly maligned, even if it ages worse the more you think about it. It does have Karen Gillan dressed like a pirate though, so who am I to judge?
The rep as a disastrous episode is undeserved, but it’s certainly not a great one. Also way to do a stealth prequel to The Smugglers from the 60s.
7.5/10 Shoutout to the atmospheric prequel to this episode
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