I really love the rebooted Dr. Who – at least seasons 1-4. Season 5 onward, however, strikes largely of metooisms and oddities. Smith’s Dr. debuts with a tough-guy speech to aliens bent on destroying the Earth – yeah, Tennant did that too. Amy gets all bubbly at finding vampires and is also the most important woman in the universe? Hello Rose with the werewolves and Donna Noble. And as to the oddities, what’s with River Song’s quick evolution into an apparent action hero, or the writers’ bizarre love affair with Vincent van Gogh (“one of the greatest men who ever lived”… seriously???) Smith is at least getting interesting the more he becomes obliviously, enthusiastically geeky (“Fez’s are cool”), but this is still a work in progress.

BUT, nobody wants to hear my Dr. Who opinions, so how about I complain about some pirate stuff?

Hugh Bonneville talks piracy and ‘Doctor Who’

All well and good, but the flogging episode is titled “Curse of the Black Spot.” For real? The same month as the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film comes out, and Dr. Who names its cleverly-timed pirate episode (which indeed includes mermaids, just like the new pirate film) with a title that is only barely different from Curse of the Black Pearl? It pains me to see mounting evidence that the illustrious Dr. Who franchise might be going the way of such trend-hopping parasites as “Transmorphers” or “Snakes on a Train“, but there it is – commercials even indicate that the “black spot” appears on the hand, just like in the second PotC film. Even with its current issues, Dr. Who deserves better than that.