Series 6 (2011)
Episode title: The Curse of the Black SpotFeaturing: Eleventh Doctor
Companions: Amy Pond, Rory Williams
First shown: 7th May 2011
Related articles: Siren
Guide: The episode starts on a ship, stranded at sea with a skeletal crew on board. One of the crew gets a cut from the rigging, followed immediately by a black spot appearing on their hands. As this is being shown to the captain, a soft music starts and the crew member with the black spot leaves to find it, and shoot the creature making it. Instead of doing this, the crew member disappears, leaving behind only his gun. As the rest of the crew investigate, a banging is heard from the hold, which opens to reveal the Doctor, Amy and Rory, having arrived following a distress signal. The captain says they did not send out a distress signal, and concludes that the trio are stowaways on his ship, and sets them up to walk the plank. The Doctor is made to walk the plank first, while Amy is sent into the hold, where she finds spare swords and a pirate’s hat. Back on deck, Amy fights the pirates to rescue the Doctor, and accidently cuts one of the crew members by accident, along with Rory when she drops her sword and he tries to catch it. Both end up with a black spot on the palms of their hands and the music starts up again. A sea siren leaps from the water and onto the deck, singing and holding out her hand to the injured men. The crew member walks towards her outstretched hand, but as soon as he touches it he disappears in a puff of smoke. Rory attempts to do the same but is stopped by the Doctor, while the rest of the crew hurry into the hold.
Down in the hold, another crew member is bitten by a leech in the water. The siren appears again and claims the man while Amy keeps Rory from getting too close. The Doctor orders everyone to stay away from the water so they all go to the magazine hold, the driest place on any ship where the gunpowder is held. Inside the magazine hold, the captain finds his son has stowed away to travel with him as his mother died. The captain’s son, Toby also has a black spot as he has typhoid fever, and is also dying. The Doctor and the captain venture back to the hold to get hold of the TARDIS, but the TARDIS malfunctions and flies off on its own, leaving the Doctor stranded on the ship. As the Doctor and the captain return to the magazine hold, one of the crew members decides to abandon ship with some of the treasure and supplies. He runs off, chased by the Doctor and the captain (the Doctor to get the supplies back, the captain to get the treasure back), into another room, where he cuts himself trying to light a lamp to see by. The siren appears and takes him as the Doctor and the captain burst into the room. There isn’t any water in the room, only the shiny crown the crew member dropped. The Doctor realises he was wrong, the siren wasn’t coming from the water but from reflective surfaces and proceeds to destroy every reflective surface on the ship, including mirrors, windows in the cabin and throwing the treasure off the ship. He orders the captain to get the crown and throw that off the ship as well, but the captain hides it in his coat instead. A wind picks up, allowing the ship to move again. Amy, Rory and the captain work the sails to catch the wind while the Doctor takes the wheel of the ship. The captain asks Toby to fetch his coat from the hold, but the crown falls out while Toby is carrying it. The crown rolls along the ship and the siren appears from it, and takes Toby. She tries again to take Rory but the Doctor leaps down and throws the crown into the sea, seemingly saving him again. The Doctor has a go at the captain for wanting to keep the treasure that has now cost him his son, while Rory goes to take the wheel. The wind suddenly gusts the sail and the mast is blown, with one of the beams hitting Rory and knocking him overboard.
Rory begins to drown and Amy goes to save him but the Doctor stops her, saying he has a better idea. He rushes to a barrel of water and opens it, releasing the siren from the reflective surface of the still water and instructs her to find Rory in the ocean, which she does so. The Doctor decides that it might be worth trying to be taken by the siren as well, to find out where everyone goes because he suspects they might still be alive. The captain and Amy agree, so the Doctor pricks each of them, drawing blood and prompting the black spot to appear on each of their hands. The siren reappears again and takes the three of them aboard a spaceship that is in the same location as the pirate ship. The Doctor realises that it’s two universes colliding together at that point, with the reflections acting as gateways between the two. The spaceship is emitting a distress signal that the TARDIS originally picked up on and drew the Doctor, Amy and Rory to the pirate ship. They explore the ship and find all of the spaceships crew members are dead, from a human virus that came through the gateways and infected them. They venture further and find a medical bay filled with the crew members of the pirate ship, Toby, Rory and the TARDIS. Amy wakes Rory up, prompting the siren to arrive. The Doctor, Amy and the captain hide behind some equipment while the siren eases Rory. The Doctor realises that the siren isn’t dangerous at all, but a virtual medical doctor that keeps the injured in a stasis sleep until they can be healed. The captain tries to shoot the siren, which makes it angry and it turns to attack him but the Doctor sneezes, prompting the siren to turn her attention to him.
She goes to incinerate the Doctor as a germ risk when he blows his nose and throws the handkerchief on the floor, which is incinerated instead. Amy goes back to try and help Rory, but the siren stops her and Amy gets upset that she can’t help her husband. The Doctor makes Amy tell this to the siren, which realises that Amy can help and makes her sign a medical release form making Amy take care of Rory. Amy signs it and wakes Rory up, while the Doctor realises that if Rory leaves the bed he’s in, he’ll die. Rory instructs Amy on how to save his life once they’ve moved him from the bed but Amy is reluctant to do so until Rory say’s that he trusts her to do it. The Doctor and Amy move Rory into the TARDIS where Amy performs mouth-to-mouth and CPR to revive Rory from his drowned state. The Doctor explains to the captain that Toby won’t ever heal properly, and the captain doesn’t want to leave him again. They decide to take charge of the spaceship instead, and together the captain and Toby fly the ship with the rest of the pirate ship crew into space while the Doctor, Amy and Rory depart in the TARDIS. Amy and Rory head off to bed in the TARDIS while the Doctor continues conducting his pregnancy scan of Amy, which changes between negative and positive again without stopping on the answer.