Not only was last week's episode of Doctor Who disappointing, it also disproved what I had taken to be a given in life: Everything is better with pirates. (If you don't know where I learned this important lesson, watch this. It is outstanding.)
The beginning of the episode was strong - the appearance of the Doctor and his companions on the pirate ship was amusing, and Amy Pond demonstrated that she has plenty of swash and an adequate amount of buckle. From that point, though, it was pretty much downhill.
The characters were believably in-character and the acting was - as always - very good. Even the concept of the episode was strong. The execution of the idea, however, was sub-par, courtesy of poor writing.
Well, okay, the writing wasn't truly horrible - the dialogue was believable, but the story itself wasn't well thought out and there were plot holes so large that I expected a shark to appear out of the ocean and swim through them while rolling his eyes in embarrassment at having any part in this debacle.
In the episode the group faces a "siren" who appears out of the water and makes people disappear if they get injured. Cool, right? They all hide from her in a dry room - no water, so she can't get to them. Then the Doctor realizes that she's not using water for access, she's able to appear through reflective surfaces. At this point everything falls apart.
1. Why not use soap or grease on the windows and particularly on the mirror? Breaking them apart just makes smaller reflective surfaces...
2. Why didn't the siren use the reflective medallion to get to the captain's son as soon as he was marked? We don't see her use reflections until the Doctor tells us that she can...
3. When the Tardis disappears inexplicably, the Doctor just lets it go without explanation as to why it's better to let it go than to stay with it, fix it, and return...
4. With only the Doctor, the Captain and Amy left, the Doctor speculates that maybe everyone else hasn't been killed, maybe they were just transported somewhere else. His speculation seems more like wishful thinking than the sound theory that we're used to hearing from him. So, based on his flight of fancy, they all let the siren take them...
This is Steve Thompson's first writing credit for the show, and I have to wonder if Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat went on vacation to Antarctica and forgot their satellite phone. Seriously, did no one read this thing before the cameras started rolling?
On the bright side, the Neil Gaiman episode airs next and, in spite of my deep disappointment in this most recent offering, I have high hopes for it.
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