So, me hearties, a week after The Day of the Moon, the controversial second episode of the new series (that’s controversial as in ‘children’s telly series’ controversial, not ‘who exactly did the Americans  kill?’ controversial) divided viewers’ opinions, strap me vitals if episode three didn’t sail into view. (Which it did. And that’s a good thing – I hate having my vitals strapped, me.)

Last week’s comments were split along the lines of ‘Shropshirestar.com’s TV reviewer is quite right: it was needlessly convoluted and too clever by half’, versus ‘Shropshirestar.com’s TV reviewer is a – how you say? – “osser” – and should be burned alive inside a giant wicker Tardis for daring to post such heresy’.

Still, I thoughts this week’s instalment was good fun, so I dids, but in a fillery sort of way. (Don’t worry, I’ll drop the ‘pirate’ voice now, so I shalls. It was just an idea I had and it clearly doesn’t work, me – er – hearties.)

We were firmly back in stand alone territory with a story that saw the Doctor and co stuck on board a pirate ship which was being menaced by a mysterious singing siren who appeared whenever a sailor suffered so much as a paper cut. And when she appeared, the injured pirate soon disappeared.

The pirates thought they were cursed – although I think you’ve been at sea a touch too long if you consider it a bad thing when Lily Cole turns up in her nightie and whisks you away.

Mind you, they were possibly the nicest bunch of sailors ever to set foot on board ship. Blackbeard? No, black would never work with this colour scheme, Captain.

Our seadogs compared being pursued by the siren to being chased by a shark. The Doctor had no time for such superstition. Yes, he said, it’s just like a shark, “a shark in a dress and singing and green – a green singing shark in an evening gown.”

Some good knockabout comedy soon gave way to the realisation that  – wouldn’t you just know it – the evil siren wasn’t an evil siren at all but actually an alien robot nurse thingy on board a crashed spaceship that was sharing the same space as the pirate ship. The crew were dead so she’d decided to look after anything and anyone, no matter how small the injury. Bupa subscribers probably get much the same treatment.

It all ended in a scene reminiscent – oh, all right, completely ripped off – from the old medical horror film Coma, with a room full of people in, er, comas, suspended from the ceiling. (Wouldn’t it have been lovely if Tom Selleck had been among them?*)

So, not a classic then, more prime-time filler than prime fillet, but a decent enough way to spend 45 minutes on an overcast Saturday evening.

And they managed to make a couple of references to forthcoming events without trying to baffle or beat you over the head in an effort to shoehorn in as much as possible.

Is Amy Pond up the duff? And what is Frances Barber doing peering at her through walls? My guess – not that it matters in the slightest – is that time has split in two somewhere along the way, and this reality keeps overlapping with an alternative reality. That’s why Amy is both with child and without at the same time. It probably harks back to the Tardis exploding and the psychiatrists she ended up seeing after the Doctor appeared and then disappeared from her life.

Still, that’s only my theory. Any of you old sea dogs gots a better idea? (Sorry, I did say I’d stop doing that, didn’t I.)

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*If you don’t get that reference you’ll have to see the film. It’s really good – Michael Douglas is in it and he looks about 12, so that should give you a rough idea how long ago it was made. Genevieve Bujold is in it, too. I used to have a bit of a crush on her – and Brooke Adams, come to think of it. She was in the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. You know, with Donald Sutherland and Leonard Nimoy. That’s a great film.**

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**By the way, do you think I sound a bit geeky?