“When you’re a professional pirate,” you really need to worry about your health care. Why? Because sometimes there are scary green women working as nurses. I don’t believe that’s what Kermit and his mates were on about, but still, it is a true fable of a pirate’s life (for me). Joking aside, this is a prime example of something I’ve had brought to my attention.

Following my review of The Spectre of Lanyon Moor, I sought a couple of opinions on it and was told of the Doctor Who trope of “Oh it’s aliens.” The thing is, I understand both why that’s a good thing and a bad thing. I’m not a fan of the ghostly-type all that much anyway, but I also know some (Alexx) enjoy fairytale aspects of fiction and sometimes less science-y fiction. I’m not saying I want the Doctor fighting fairies, but given Chibnall has run to the “the Doctor uses Nazis” twice already, that might be the next well he dips in.

I might have reservations over the Doctor fighting fairies simply because I don’t like when we claim everything under fantasy is dragons, fairies, and such. I also don’t like the idea because I can’t plot out a script in my head that isn’t just a scene from Harry Potter with tiny flying CGI fairies being swatted with a rolled-up newspaper or zapped with a wand. Call me a prude, but something like that just isn’t Doctor Who. The scripts I’m writing in my head as I write this aren’t about getting to the bottom of something. Instead, it is just fairies being evil and I can’t think of the ending because there isn’t a Doctor Who ending to that.

Small sentient creatures being mischievous isn’t very interesting and can’t be wrapped up in a Who way. So I’m left returning to “Oh, it’s aliens!” Which ties us back to “The Curse of the Black Spot” an episode with a pirate ship stranded, a scary (pretty) green woman singing a song to tempt the men to her side, and oh, she’s an alien, not a siren. The thing is, I don’t love the episode or hate it, it just is there and inoffensive. The type of thing I’d assume would be episode 6 of any series before this. This episode doesn’t have a massive budget, but doesn’t underspend either.

I mean, there is the 11th Doctor’s flashes of energy, but it is because of Stephen Thompson’s writing. I’d argue his writing is is quite different from Steven Moffat’s fast and in-your-face writing. Though that is an odd thing to say as Moffat, Thompson, and (Mark) Gatiss are the only ones to write Sherlock. A uniformly good show for three seasons, then something happened. It’s easy to say Thompson is a little more relaxed with his writing, which isn’t to say there isn’t humor that fits the 11th. It is just a bit less compared to the last two episodes.

It isn’t lacking fun bits though. I do like the sexy ginger doxy in the pirate get-up being dominant and saving the day. I had a dream like that once. I think when Amy is fighting the pirates and they are scared of getting cut, it is a good play on things and somewhat evens up the field. That said the episode does fall in a bit of a trope: The Black guy dies first. Well, in a couple of technicalities that’s wrong: There is a White guy in the pre-credits that offs-it, and they aren’t dying. Nonetheless, it gives the Black guy the cut with the sword and shrugs it off as nothing because you could do worse with a butter knife.

So, the black spot thing, it’s the mark of the oncoming green woman. This singing green woman gets quite angry if you try to keep blokes away from her, and blokes fall for her song. Because of this setup, you are conditioned to think of a siren on the rocks. “Oh, it’s aliens!” she’s a space nurse, which is programmed to take care of any and every little thing, say a cut. However, she’s not properly programmed for human diseases and 17-century humans. She’s also played by Lily Cole, one of many actors from St Trinians that appear in Who, I wonder what the receptionist is up to now?

I like the conflicting relationship between captain Henry Avery (YES!) and the captain of the good ship “police public call box.” Avery is played by the wonderfully charming Hugh Bonneville, and places himself so far away from his more famous role as Henry Brown in the two fabulous Paddington films of recent years. For quite a bit of the episode, he just drops the warm charming Englishman thing for a pirate. He plays a proper pirate that’s as hard as nails, quick to draw a weapon, and is as greedy as a magpie. Though Who has to do the Who thing and as such he has a son.

Being one for history and enjoying Who, I don’t really like this characterization (or light re-characterization) to make him a bit of a good family man who served dutifully in the Royal Navy. Henry Avery (or Every) is a pirate, not just any pirate, but the quintessential pirate. He and his crew made off with what today would be £91.9-million and was the first person to have a worldwide bounty on his head. I’m not saying he couldn’t have a son and love him, but it reeks of the BBC (or some producer) trying to lighten up a bad person to make him kid-friendly. He’s a pirate and slaver in history books, and this is just the pirates are X with a good PR joke taken with a straight face.

See, I don’t love the episode, and the truth is I don’t hate it either, it is just there. The thing that annoys me the most is just how “middle-of-the-series” it feels, yet it is only the third episode in. If it wasn’t for Neil Gaiman’s “The Doctor’s Wife” being next, and we went straight into “The Rebel Flesh,” I’d probably start banging my head off the walls hoping to give myself enough of a brain injury to retire. Look, I don’t hate everything in this series, but I know that it is simply not going to be my favorite series. That is annoying, given I know what comes in series 7.

I’ll like episodes and I’ll like little bits here and there, but there is a pervasive Moffat-Gatiss horror to the majority of the series. Even after we find out what’s wrong with Amy’s pregnancy. “Night Terrors” and “The God Complex” sit on the very edge of creepy Doctor Who that I don’t really care for. Let’s not even admit that I have to go through hell again reviewing what Gareth Roberts excreted out with “Closing Time,” because I don’t want to deal with James Corden again. Can we just do episodes 4, 7, 8, 10, and 13? I won’t be bored to death or spewing anger then. I’m hearing a loud “No” from the direction of Texas.

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Doctor Who "The Curse Of The Black Spot"

6

Score

6.0/10

Pros

• Pirate-fun for our leads.
• Rory being the damsel.
• Henry being able to understand any ship is fun.

Cons

• Softening Avery's story.