Some pirates, some curse

Good grief, but I'm getting tired of finding fault, but there really isn't much good to to say about the third episode of Steven Moffat's second series in control of the TARDIS.

"The Curse of the Black Spot" is a fairly generic, back-in-time adventure featuring a mythical monster that (of course) is anything but supernatural. Or should have been.

In truth, it's quite a lot less than a generic episode. It makes "The Unquiet Dead", "Tooth and Claw" or "The Fires of Pompeii" (never mind the superior "The Shakespeare Code") seem almost brilliant by comparison.

Avast ye scurvy dogs! There be no sense, nor continuity in this week's episode! (But be on yer guard fer spoilers and the sound of one man cursing! Aaarggh! Or rather, Aauuggghh!)

I am still processing the results of Monday's election and expect to have gathered my thoughts about the results shortly. Meanwhile, I want to talk about the Canadian federal election system itself — that is, how we cast our votes and how our cast votes are counted.

That system is antiquated, labour-intensive, apparently inefficient and uses technologies that, with the exception of a computer-generated print-out of the voters' list, would be completely familiar to a time-traveller from the 19th century.

I spent some 15 hours in an uncomfortable chair on Monday striking names off the voters' list with a cheap ball-point pen, then helped to count the votes. I came away from the experience with a sore back, tired eyes and a lot of appreciation for an apparently primitive system that still managed to count not far off 15 million ballots in a matter of a few hours. This ancient and cumbersome system is one that is in no need of fixing.

More in-depth response to the events of May 2, 2011, to come in the near future.

	Cartoon by Geoffrey Dow, for True North Perspective

Doctor Who or Doctor Doom?

The real problem with Steven Moffat

I fear I'm becoming One of Them, one of those strange and hideous trolls, shuffling about in the dark passageways of fandom, who seem to exist only to tear down that which they claim to love. You know the one: I've watched every episode of New Who and I've hated every bloody one of them!

Well, I'm now one-sixth of the way through Steven Moffat's second series at the helm of this venerable franchise, and I'm coming more and more to resemble that monstrous beast, The Fan Who Hates His (or Her) Fandom.

The accusation's been tossed at me before, but not, I think, with even a smidgeon of truth. So far.

Though it's no secret I haven't been any too pleased with Steven Moffat's reign as Who's show-runner so far, the fact that his was the mind behind episodes like "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances" and "Blink" gave me good reason to hope for better things to come.

But now, having viewed the opening story of his second series, and coming after the morally idiotic Christmas special, my hope is dwindling fast.

Like a bungling time-traveller, Moffat seems to be working backwards. Starting as a writer of the morally complex, spiritually uplifting and yet also frightening (and even very funny!) tour de force that was "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances", his decline sees him shedding even the facade of a moral stance in favour of a puzzle. A puzzle whose solution is, er, genocide.

Read more? Spoilers and a hell of a lot of negativity inside.