Doctor Who - The Curse of the Black Spot
I need a new DW icon.
So I watched it last night and was entertained. I went in with pretty low expectations, to be honest (I was kind of pissed that all the Sherlock BBC writers also got a Doctor Who episode this year, including Mark "0 for 3" Gatiss. Moffat, please stop hiring your friends over actual good writers), but it was a decent enough episode. On second watch, several things bugged me, most of which have already been enumerated elsewhere by other people:
-The mysterious disappearing pirate, probably the victim of a cut scene.
-Rory being mostly a non-entity until he died. Again. He is not really that useless.
-The deplorable depiction of CPR and Eleven sitting there doing absolutely nothing. You're telling me the TARDIS doesn't have anything that can resuscitate people? And there's also nothing that can cure typhoid fever?
-Speaking of Eleven, he was weirdly off in several scenes. I say weirdly because in several other scenes he was spot-on, so it wasn't that he was OOC for the whole thing. I sort of got the feeling at points that Matt Smith was just kind of phoning it in.
-I am not bothered at all by the pirates flying the spaceship at the end, because really, this is Doctor Who. For all we know they got all the information they needed downloaded into their heads or something. It could have been another cut scene.
-Sometimes there are writers for Doctor Who where it feels like they just don't get the show in a fundamental way. I think this guy is one of them. There was enough polish and funny bits that it didn't stick out as much as some others have, but the plot really was a very promising one that didn't live up to its potential at all.
And to be fair, things I liked:
-Lots of funny bits. When Matt Smith was on he was on. Also all his quiet moments. I really love Eleven.
-The episode was gorgeous. I'm so glad that no matter what, we can now count on Doctor Who at least looking pretty.
-More hints and reminders of the season arc than I thought we would get. That pleases me.
-Pirate Pond.
-I was definitely entertained, and when it comes down to it, that's really all I'm asking for.
As always, I did screencaps for the episode. They are here.
So I watched it last night and was entertained. I went in with pretty low expectations, to be honest (I was kind of pissed that all the Sherlock BBC writers also got a Doctor Who episode this year, including Mark "0 for 3" Gatiss. Moffat, please stop hiring your friends over actual good writers), but it was a decent enough episode. On second watch, several things bugged me, most of which have already been enumerated elsewhere by other people:
-The mysterious disappearing pirate, probably the victim of a cut scene.
-Rory being mostly a non-entity until he died. Again. He is not really that useless.
-The deplorable depiction of CPR and Eleven sitting there doing absolutely nothing. You're telling me the TARDIS doesn't have anything that can resuscitate people? And there's also nothing that can cure typhoid fever?
-Speaking of Eleven, he was weirdly off in several scenes. I say weirdly because in several other scenes he was spot-on, so it wasn't that he was OOC for the whole thing. I sort of got the feeling at points that Matt Smith was just kind of phoning it in.
-I am not bothered at all by the pirates flying the spaceship at the end, because really, this is Doctor Who. For all we know they got all the information they needed downloaded into their heads or something. It could have been another cut scene.
-Sometimes there are writers for Doctor Who where it feels like they just don't get the show in a fundamental way. I think this guy is one of them. There was enough polish and funny bits that it didn't stick out as much as some others have, but the plot really was a very promising one that didn't live up to its potential at all.
And to be fair, things I liked:
-Lots of funny bits. When Matt Smith was on he was on. Also all his quiet moments. I really love Eleven.
-The episode was gorgeous. I'm so glad that no matter what, we can now count on Doctor Who at least looking pretty.
-More hints and reminders of the season arc than I thought we would get. That pleases me.
-Pirate Pond.
-I was definitely entertained, and when it comes down to it, that's really all I'm asking for.
As always, I did screencaps for the episode. They are here.