Basic Plot

Rory, Amy and the Doctor, en route to another adventure, encounter a pirate ship who is beset by a demon, The Siren of legend, who marks injured victims with the black spot. Stephen Moffat drags poor Rory into deep trouble as he is cursed with the black spot and called by the Siren. The focus of this episode is to reaffirm our faith in Amy and Rory's relationship while reminding us that our priorities are to those we love first. Everything else is immaterial. Parallel universes collide, threatening the peace of our heroes while offering hope to a set of wayward pirates and a young boy named Toby.

The Multiverse and Doctor Who

Towards the end of the episode, the Doctor, Captain Avery, and Amy follow Rory into the realm of the Siren, who we discover is aboard a ship in an alternate dimension piloted by alien life forms. The Doctor explains to his companions that the universe interacts in layers of universes that sometimes cross paths. In modern metaphysics, those layers of universes that make up the navigable space/time continuum is known as the multiverse. Based in String Theory, the idea is that time and space are not relative, and that both of them can be traversed at the same time or separately using a set of determined coordinates. In the case of this episode, the two realms that have intersected both include becalmed ships with endangered or dead crew members. The Doctor and the others repeatedly get the impression that someone is watching them. The reflections in mirrors, water and other surfaces serve as doors into either alternate reality.

Traveling along the space time continuum through the multiverse is precisely what the Doctor does with the Tardis. Using coordinates, the Doctor chooses when and where he'd like to travel to. So it no surprise that the Tardis attempts to exist in both sets of coordinates, those grounding it in the seventeenth century and those of the alternate alien reality. The result is complete malfunction and confusion.

The idea of the multiverse is not new, and in fact could be linked to Doctor Who as far back as its original series. The multiverse has been a trope for metaphysical poetry and speculative fiction for as long as the genre has existed, used often by fantasy writer Michael Moorcock and, arguably, perfected by horror author, Brian Lumley, author of Necroscope, a fifteen-novel-story about a man who can travel the space/time continuum and speak to the dead. Awesome trope and effective catch-all, the multiverse is ideal for complicating matters in Doctor Who.

Best Scene

The best scene is, of course, the scene aboard the alien ship in which the Doctor puts his hand in something foul, crying, "Alien bogies!" before promptly wiping his hand on Amy's sleeve. As if the exclamation where not childish enough, we are reminded of the Doctor's whimsical disregard for personal space in a blatant act of self-cleansing and preservation. And of course, the Doctor has a habit of doing things just to annoy Amy.

Next Week: Episode 4, "The Doctor's Wife"!

Excitement abounds across the Internet in light of next week's episode, written by Neil Gaiman in true Gaiman style. Gaiman originally (at least to my knowledge) revealed the fact that he had been asked to write a script for a Doctor Who episode at the World Horror Convention in 2010. Our adventurers shall embark next week in search of what could be the only surviving Time Lord besides the Doctor. They will travel to a place that seems to be inhabited by biting hobos. This nerd was not at all surprised to see the flash of a Cthulhu-esq face as a potential enemy. Surprises abound.

The Doctor is a Time Lord of Gallifrey. He travels through space and time with his loyal friends, embarking on weird adventures. But is the Doctor truly the last of the Time Lords? Could there really be just one more out there, or is the Doctor falling into a trap?

Dark Corners

Doctor Who: "Curse of the Black Spot"

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