Look, this is the third one of these things I have written today. Which, on the upside, means I am caught back up. On the downside, I am exhausted and dehydrated and just want to go to bed. 

So let's get this over with.

The Curse of the Black Spot

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

Way back on April 30th of last year, I watched the first two episodes of The Smugglers and wrote ".Here we are again, with yet another fine example of how good the historical stories can be." Today's episode, however, shows how mediocre they can be when the "historical" part gets overshadowed by hand-wavy sci-fi. The first episode of that great (and sadly missing aside from audio) First Doctor story mentions the missing Captain Avery, and today's story serves as a kind of prequel that explains exactly how and why he went missing.

I liked it better when it was a forgotten mystery.

There is just no arguing that this is easily the weakest story of the season. It's not actively bad, it's just not particularly good. The TARDIS response to a ship in distress, only to end up in the hold of a pirate ship besieged in calm waters and plagued by a bloodthirsty Siren. A bunch of stuff happens, it turns out that the Siren is really just an alien HoloDoctor that thinks it is healing the sick and the injured, and everyone lives happily ever after. Sure, some of them are pirates living happily ever after sailing an alien spacecraft into the stars, but tomato tomahto.

The only remotely interesting thing that happens in the story is another brief appearance of the mysterious eyepatch lady.

The episode features a guest turn by celebrated actor Hugh Bonneville, best know for playing Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey. I'm not quite sure why he is slumming around here, but I wish the writers would have given him something a bit more interesting to do.

And that's about all I have to say about this story. The good news is that tomorrow is Neil Gaiman's first (and best) contribution to Doctor Who, and I love it to pieces.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Eleventh
Companion(s): Amy Pond, Rory Williams
Episode(s): Curse of the Black Spot
Steps Walked: 7,482 today, 3,123,671 total
Distance Walked: 4.06 miles today, 1,630.49 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 100 today, 4,764 total
Sit-ups Completed: 0 today, 929 total
How Many Times has Rory Died?: 3
How Many Times has Amy Died?: 1
Is Anything Cool?: Boots are cool, at least in passing
Weight: 250.78 lbs (five day moving average), net change -56.52 lbs