Doctor Who 5x10 - Vincent and the Doctor

[Danny Stewart]

Good stuff.

[Ben Dawson]

I honestly thought this was the best episode of the series so far.
The monster wasn't visible for most of the story, and when we did see it, we didn't get a full body view that lasted more than a second... I think the fact that Vincent Can Gogh could see it and no one else could was a brilliant metaphor to his insanity.

It's true that this episode was more character led than story led, and I thought it was a very emotional episode at points, particularly towards the last 10 minutes. Back in RTD's era, he would always try and cram all these big epic emotional moments that he thought would draw the audience in... in total honesty, I think his constant and desperate escapade to get an emotional response from the audience cheapened the value of his episodes. That however did not come across in this episode.
What this episode did was strike the right balance of emotion. For something truly emotional, it has to be subtle (and RTD was never subtle, so for me it made the characters much less believable).
I think what the episode succeeds in doing is showing the Van Gogh was a real person, and not some time demi-god or something, and didn't shy away from showing his depression and suicide (to bring the point home, after the episode, the BBC even advertised a hotline to ring up if you were effected by the story. That just shows that they tried to do something daring for the time slot). This truly was Vincent's story, so the episode really either lived or died by the was he was portrayed. But he was written in a very human way, that I for one couldn't help but feel for his pain.

The great thing is that although the episode didn't shy away from the negative, it didn't bog itself down in it. I think how Vincent ended up besotted with Amy was rather amusing. And once again, it wasn't to dominating on the story, it didn't take too much of the limelight.

I mentioned earlier that the last 10 minutes really brought home the emotional aspects. It felt like the Doctor and Amy really gave a doomed man his last bit of hope, and it was brilliantly portrayed by Tony Curran's performance. I have to commend his performance (even though he used his Scottish accent, which wasn't really very accurate, I believe the strength of the episode made that little niggle rather trivial). Tony Curran really brought the balance of the humor and the darkness onscreen, the episode could very easily have been purely depressing and left the audience in despair. But coupled with Tony's performance and the writing, the episode showed us that even if we aren't appreciated, we can still be capable of great everlasting things. And I think the scene with the Doctor and Amy showing Vincent his paintings in the art museum was single handedly my favorite part of the episode.

So all in all, I think this episode had it all. It struck the right balance between the negative and the positive brilliantly. It was also quite obvious that this was probably the cheap episode of the series (the one which is designed to cost as little as money as possible), despite being shot in croatia. A perfect example of this would be the fact that we never really get to see much of the monster. But this just comes to show what you can get away with if you have a good story.
This is definitely my favorite episode of the series, and with the series drawing to a close, I'm interested to see how the finale pans out.

[Recurring Villain]

Very much liked the episode, but they could have held back on the "greatest artist of all time" crap, because if there's one thing you cant quantify in terms of the objective, it's art. Art on its own merit is pointless and without meaning, it's only in the mind of those who experience the work that it takes on any value, and the resonance of art is a very subjective thing. So it sort of annoyed me that the Doctor didn't consider this, instead calling him the greatest artist blah blah.

But Van Gogh's character was played well and written tastefully, which was a nice change of form from the recent trend for historical caricatures we get when the Doctor meets famous people from history, ie. Winston Churchill, Shakespeare, Agatha Christie etc.

Hopefully this will set a new standard for the quality of these sorts of historical episodes, though I doubt it.

[Ronnie Rowlands]

Loved it. Best thing about Moffat is that he doesn't mind tonal shifts in episodes. With RTD, he'd rewrite other episodes to fit in with the tone of the series, which is fine but doesn't allow for writers to come in to their own.

Richard Curtis went to write it, and wrote it as Richard Curtis would, not as some Doctor Who hack. And delightful to see Bill Nighy.

[Danny Stewart]

Originally Posted by Recurring Villain

Very much liked the episode, but they could have held back on the "greatest artist of all time" crap, because if there's one thing you cant quantify in terms of the objective, it's art. Art on its own merit is pointless and without meaning, it's only in the mind of those who experience the work that it takes on any value, and the resonance of art is a very subjective thing. So it sort of annoyed me that the Doctor didn't consider this, instead calling him the greatest artist blah blah.

But Van Gogh's character was played well and written tastefully, which was a nice change of form from the recent trend for historical caricatures we get when the Doctor meets famous people from history, ie. Winston Churchill, Shakespeare, Agatha Christie etc.

Hopefully this will set a new standard for the quality of these sorts of historical episodes, though I doubt it.

That, exactly.

[Kody]

Loved it.

The ending was simply brilliant and in my eyes, so 'The Doctor'. Bringing someone a moment of happiness, not because it'll change their future, but because it'll bring them a moment of incomparable happiness. The little speech about the good and bad moments.. the reaction Van Gogh has in the art exhibit.. priceless.

I'll agree with RV that Van Gogh was played and written tastefully, it was the best 'new who' episode involving a historical character yet in my eyes. I can see this trend continuing.

As for the argument about quantifying art.. eh, I'll leave that discussion to other people more qualified in the field of art. I -loved- the story and the emotion in it, it felt like real Doctor Who.. and that made my day.