outsdr | Doctor Who: The Curse of the Black Spot

Well, that was kind of a mess.

It started out promising enough, I suppose. The Doctor enjoying being on a pirate ship and being oblivious to danger, Amy rescuing everyone, etc, etc, the odd fear of the danger of a tiny cut ... and then it falls apart. I'm not even exactly sure where it fell apart, but not even half way through the episode and I realized I was ... bored. Bored of the cliches and the weak writing. (The TARDIS is answering a distress signal and is now in danger! The pirate captain who's lust for gold is stronger than his love for his own son [Who hasn't seen his father in three years but somehow manages to locate his ship and stow away!?] The son who only desires the gold he knows is in his father's heart! The mysterious misunderstood alien with the best of intentions and oh god make it stop.) I was relieved when it was over.

I felt like I should apologize to Andy; this is the first season I've managed to actually get him to watch regularly with me, and I'll be surprised if he tunes in next week. This has been the most disappointing episode for me since "The Doctor's Daughter" although it doesn't reach that level of badness; not quite.

So many things don't add up at all ... the Siren steals away those who are hurt, yet is unable to tell the difference between a life threatening injury and a scratch? She's ready to protect her patients at all costs ... even before they're in her care, as when she attacked Amy?

The Siren manifests through reflections, and the black dots are the results of tissue samples being collected ... by what, exactly, and how?

The TARDIS is stolen ... why?! It's not hurt!

The captain of a sailing vessel can pilot a starship ... pull the other leg, there's bells on that one.

The siren saved Rory from drowning, removing the water from his lungs and connecting him to a breathing machine, but when disconnected, Rory can no longer breathe on his own? And yes, he's said time and time again that he's not a doctor of medicine, but the Doctor doesn't know even basic CPR? (Ok, granted, maybe he gave up on it when it didn't work that time with K9.) And if Rory needed CPR immediately, why bother carrying him into the TARDIS first? And the TARDIS can do a medical scan right from the console, yet apparently has no medical facilities whatsoever?

The Siren can do nothing but put everyone who is injured into Stasis, and if removed, they die (no matter how bad their original injuries were, it seems) because she "doesn't know how to heal them." So ... that final scene, when the Captain (Who can instantly learn how to pilot a star ship, but not apparently work a shower or washing machine for his clothes) is joined in the cabin by ... his son and his seemingly now healed crew. Who healed them?

The original crew of the star ship ... killed by a virus that somehow leaked between universes (ignoring basic biology to instead rely upon a War of the Worlds resolution,) got sick and died somehow before the siren was able to put them in stasis. Mmm-hmm. And their sneezes are so wet, so juicy, so gosh-dang icky and powerful, that they stay fresh and gooey even long after the aliens have died and mummified.

The episode started out promising, but by the end was really just 10 minutes of vague story padded out with 30 minutes of crap.

ETA: Am I the only one who noticed that one of the pirates just disappeared without any explanation at all?

This is an episode (Like the Doctor's Daughter) that makes me embarrassed to be a Doctor Who fan.