(all spoilers! don’t read till you’ve seen the episode! this is a love fest only — all complaints and bitching must come from a place of love / previous: “Day of the Moon”)
Someone’s been watching Pirates of the Caribbean:
No, wait, someone’s been watching The Abyss:
And someone’s little girl has Bratz dolls:
But okay, fine: This is a lovefest, which means we don’t bitch about repeating themes from previous stories, such as alien tech that thinks it’s doing good but is really doing bad. Or stolen ideas, like the fact that if the Siren could speak — and really, why couldn’t she speak or communicate her benign intentions in some way — she would say, “Please state the nature of the medical emergency.” Or gaping plotholes, like why didn’t he Siren come for the kid sooner… like pretty much the moment the ship was becalmed– er, caught in that awfully convenient temporal rift.
No, we don’t talk about those things. We don’t talk about what isn’t here. We talk about what is here, and what it might mean, and what it might bode for the future.
Like this: the Doctor obviously feels a bit of spiritual kinship with both Henry and his son. When the kid is saying, “I’ve come to join your crew. You can’t send me back,” the Doctor is listening and smiling:
Does something about the boy remind the Doctor of himself? Does the boy remind the Doctor of another boy… like maybe his own son? I wouldn’t necessarily think that except that there seems to be a concerted effort in this episode to liken the Doctor and Henry in all sorts of way. Henry instantly and intuitively grasps the operation of the TARDIS — “Wheel. Telescope. Astrolabe. Compass.” The Doctor rails against Henry’s abandoning his wife and child to pursue his own selfish desires (and we know the next episode is called “The Doctor’s Wife”). And Henry’s explanation for himself, about how he can’t change the course he’s set for himself, resonates with the Doctor’s life, too. And yet the Doctor tells Henry that things can change… which echoes with the hints of what we seen for the Doctor’s life to come throughout this season in progress.
I do wonder if the Doctor sees a bit of himself in Henry:
And then there are the suggestions — repeated from the previous episode — that it’s all a dream or they’re all in the Matrix or, at a bare minimum, there is some futzing with reality going on. Eyepatch Lady appears again
as if she’s peeking in from another universe. Or perhaps from Amy’s subconscious, as if it were all a dream of Amy’s. For Amy is indeed asleep when she “hears” the woman say, “It’s fine. You’re doing fine. Just stay calm.” And she’s just waking up when she “sees” the woman.
Or perhaps there are different universes all mashed up together. Perhaps the Doctor and the TARDIS are caught in a temporal rift of their own. Alt universes bumping into each other would explain how Amy can be pregnant and not pregnant at the same time…
Random thoughts on “The Curse of the Black Spot”:
• Amy gets to rescue the Doctor and Rory! Cool!
The Doctor thinks that’s pretty cool, too…
…at least at first:
• The Doctor wears a tricorn now. Tricorns are cool:
Actually, the Doctor has frequently fancied hats in the past: Doctors Four, Five, and Seven liked hats quite a lot. So this is harkening back to his past… as Matt Smith’s Doctor is suddenly harkening back to the Second Doctor. Last season I saw a lot of Peter Davison in Eleven, but now there’s more than a bit of Patrick Troughton’s clownishness in him.
• You two wanna be alone?
• So any guesses on who the aliens are?
There’s Earth lettering on that sleeve: “D.I.H.S.” And maybe on that sign on the wall:
It is legible in high-def?
• “Ewww, alien bogeys”? They had to throw in something for the kiddies, I guess. But did it have to be that?
• Amy might be the first woman ever to be a little bit pregnant:
• Pirates of Orion’s Belt. Coming next summer to BBC One:
• Great quotes:
“If something’s gonna kill ya, it’s nice that it drops you a note to remind ya.” –the Doctor
“Just like a shark. In a dress and singing and green. A green singing shark in an evening gown.” –the Doctor
“You’re big on the gun thing, aren’t you? Freud would say you’re compensating.” –the Doctor
“I’m confused.” –Henry
“Yeah, well, it’s a big club. We should get T-shirts.” –the Doctor
“Space can be very lonely. And the greatest adventure is having somone share it with you.” –the Doctor
(next: “The Doctor’s Wife”)
