I've been introduced to Doctor Who pretty recently, I think around the beginning of New Season 7 last year. It's never been part of my world, but ever since I've been hooked.
Now I've started watching Season 6 (2011). The production was moved to the US in the meantime I understand. So far I've seen the first three episodes (The Impossible Astronaut, Day of the Moon and The Curse of the Black Spot) and although I rather enjoyed the first two, I already had the feeling something was missing. I couldn't really put the finger on it, but it felt wrong. As if the British soul was gone. Could be the lighting and the way it was cut/produced - I'm not an expert in these things. It just doesn't feel like Doctor Who anymore.
But then yesterday I saw The Curse of the Black Spot. What kind of hideous creature is trying to inhabit this show? I couldn't even finish is it one go, instead finishing the last 20 minutes today.
I understand that SciFi/Fantasy in general is unbelievable, it's why we have the term suspension of disbelieve: as long as we follow the internal logic, we will swallow many pieces of technobabble/Magic/Deus ex Machina. As a piece on Tor.com said last week: Doctor Who is even worse then others, but it's OK, because WE CARE about these people.
But here the internal logic doesn't even work. As if someone opened a box of pirate tropes and just mixed them up, adding a splash of scifi explanation to make it more Who-like in the end. The list of things wrong with it is simply astounding. They were adrift for several days at least at the start of the story (btw, why were they in the rowboat at the start? gone fishing?) and nobody had even entered the powder room once to find the key was missing, the door was open and the captain's son was in an empty keg as a stowaway? Not to mention the weeks of sailing before that moment? The boy was coughing so loud that anybody would have heard him immediately if they ever came near the room. Plus, the went there in the first place, because it's the driest place in the ship. What then is a keg of water doing there in that room? And why are there freaking open flames in the powder room: those candles were on when they enter. And who lid them? And when? Remember: when no-one had been there for days/weeks. Unless the boy was a stowaway, and left his hiding place to go to his dad, steal the key and go to a safer place to hide, namely in the powder room. (How did he know what key to take anyway?) Did he light the candles? Way to keep hidden, my boy.
The siren comes into the world via reflective surfaces, so they break mirrors. As if that doesn't produce a million tiny mirrors: good call Doctor. The siren's song draws everyone in, irresistibly. So why does it look like Amy is not even holding Rory tight enough to give him a nice squeeze, yet he doesn't go to the siren? And why don't other people just stop (or knock down) there crew mates when they are drawn in? They find a golden crown, which looks like what a three-year old would draw for a medieval European style crown, and we're supposed to believe it's "from the Moghul of India". What about "all ships are alike, which explains why I, as a 17th century pirate can fly this spaceship to the Dogstar/Sirius with no problem. (...) I mean Aaargh."
I didn't even mind that we never got a real explanation why the captain turned pirate (other than "for the gold" ), because I didn't care about this man. In the end I wasn't bothered by Rory dying, any of the others dying (oh, the boy is dead: fine, begone), or them being alive again, or Rory drowning again - I was bored. And then they can't even get CPR right...
I really hope this improves soon. I dislike the feel these episodes have, I dislike being treated as dumb, I dislike not caring one bit about these characters.
</rant>
(BTW, curious after the Old Who, I'm now looking for the old espisodes and there's apparently a 250+ Gb torrent out there with all the episodes of Old Who. Don't know the quality, don't know if it's even true, but if you're into that, look for it yourself)
