Doctor Who Series 6 Episode 3 review

Pirates of the Caribbean in space  - lets just get that joke out of the way early.

This episode centres around a pirate ship that’s trapped in still waters, with no wind to move it and a siren (yes, a siren) kidnapping and seemingly killing everyone who gets the slightest injury aboard the ship.

This episode sits distinctly in the “ok” category. It’s good, but not exactly something I’d be eager to sit through again. The main problem stems from the episodes very obvious wrestling bout with its own budget and obligatory run time. Rather than replicating the excitement and tension of the previous episode, this one is comfortable to stagger along on the fumes of a certain pirate related franchise that it’s shamelessly ripping off. To be honest, it makes me uneasy to see episodes like this cropping up in the post-Davies era, as it gives the impression of the kind of pattern that Davies used to use. That of writing a good series (that’s series one in 2005 by the way) and then following it up with a series that has its good moments, but ultimately gives the impression that they let the guy who delivered their pizzas write one of the scripts.

It’s not that this episode is bad, it’s just that it’s below the standard that the series 5 set. To give a brief comparison, the episode called “Amy’s Choice” in series 5 made a lot more of a seemingly lower budget and smaller idea.

The relationships between the auxiliary characters are shallow, even that of the ship’s captain and his son, which goes almost completely unexplored and by the time that the “mystery” (if you’re familiar with any kind of science-fiction, it won’t ever be a mystery to you) is unraveled, the audience is so bored and tired of the distinct “filler” feeling of the episode, that it doesn’t have nearly the kind of impression that it needs to.

Can I now please take a moment on the shear ridiculousness of Amy thinking that dressing as a pirate is a good way to save the Doctor and Rory from death. I mean come on; since she’s obviously supposed to be a carbon copy of Keira Knightley’s character in Pirates of the Caribbean and call me strange, but I thought that this TV show as above the Smallville level of rip off whatever seemed popular a few years ago.

What I most dislike about this episode, is that the it came from the same writers who gave us series 5, the first series for which I enjoyed (and would be perfectly happy to sit through again) start to finish, without missing any steps along the way.

This episode contradicts the implicit mandate set by its immediate predecessor, to use every single episode as 1) an exploration of the characters and 2) a progression of the overarching story that builds up the whole series.

One explanation I can think of for this attack on its own quality standard, is that (as a family show) Doctor Who is obliged to have a fun run on a pirate ship to offset some of the distinctly mature and dark issues that were raised in the two preceding episodes.

That said, I can’t say that I’m happy with this episode; the story is weak, the characters are shallow and above all it reminds me of two of my least favourite things; The Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy and the series management skills of Russell T Davies.