I ’ll be dependable : “ Vincent and the Doctor ” was the first time I ’ve precipitate in love with Doctor Who this season . It had a inviolable emotional arc , a nonrational revulsion , and humor that matte all un - constrained . Spoilers forrader …
( BTW I want to hold off posting this until our current technological glitches were behind us . Hence the holdup , which I rationalise for . lamentably , the glitches seem to show no polarity of abating . )
I should tot that I have n’t disliked any of this twelvemonth ’s Doctor Who episodes . There ’s been no “ Fear Her ” this year . It ’s all been quite good , and apart from small quibbles — like , what the blazes was up with the Smilers in “ The Beast Below ” ? — I ’ve mostly enjoyed every sequence on its own term . I would cheerfully concede that every episode this year has been above average for the series as a whole . But still , a mickle of the storytelling has feel a bit been - there - done - that … until “ Vincent and the Doctor . ” Which I could n’t block up obsessing about , both while check and for a prospicient time afterwards .
At first flush , “ Vincent And The medico ” is just another one of the show ’s “ match famous historic personnages ” sashay , which have included Charles Dickens , Queen Victoria , William Shakespeare and Agatha Christie in the past . It ’s only once you get sunk into it that it feels like a very dissimilar beast totally . This is entirely due to Richard Curtis ’ uncompromising handwriting and Tony Curran ’s performance as Vincent Van Gogh . Unlike the other diachronic figures the show ’s confab , Vincent feels substance - breakingly literal and complicated , and not at all a medley .
The “ torment whiz ” thing is a entire commonplace , but Curtis and Curran pull off to infuse it with extra dimensions . This episode ’s edition of Van Gogh is n’t just tortured by the loathing of his fellow humans — although the setting where the grieving female parent throws rock at him early on is horrifying — but he ’s also wracked with realistically - depicted natural depression . And even in his pollyannaish mo , he ’s convinced that he ’s not a very good panther , and that anybody who take to care his paintings is automatically funny .
And yet , even though Vincent has a rock - bottom sentiment of his own accomplishment and talent , he ’s still as challenging as infernal region . He want to appropriate the sore vim of nature in a way that no other painter has . He feels as though nature is shouting at him to capture its majesty . And he ’s erupt with potent opinion about how painters should judge to comprise the things that normal eyes ca n’t see . He ’s a huge contradiction — utterly chesty , and yet full of self - loathe and ego - deprecation . In other words , he ’s an artist .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RsrDV38jh8
And Curtis builds an intact plot around the idea that Vincent really does see the world differently , and this countenance him to see the Monster Of The Week , the Krafayis . Which looks like a vindictive giant chicken , but at least it’sno Ergon . It ’s a neat idea to turn Van Gogh ’s “ special ” visual modality into the Southern Cross of the patch . And then the Krafayis turns out to be unsighted and an outcast from its own sort , thus making it sort of the monster equivalent of Van Gogh in a sense . Van Gogh does for the brute what he ’ll do for himself , all too soon — put it out of its misery .
Van Gogh ’s impending self-annihilation hangs over the whole thing like a weather sheet , and the episode take a less - is - more approach shot to show the depression that will exact him — there ’s really only one short picture of Vincent sobbing and yell at the Doctor to get out , but the felo-de-se is refer to obliquely enough time that it ’s impossible to forget .
The installment ’s theme all come together in this absolutely breathtaking clip , where Van Gogh manages to show Amy and the Doctor how he really does catch the night sky . It ’s like his house painting come to life , and it ’s both wild and joyful . You ’re leave wondering how a human who can see so vividly would select to pop himself .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrQzwdXpyNo
And as if in keeping with the cloth , this is one of the more arty Doctor Who s in world-wide — the following scene , with the Doctor take flight the Krafayis and only able to see it through the mirror on his godmother ’s previous gadget , is brilliantly gray - tinged with the dawn light , and yet it feel absolutely energizing and acute . And the splashes of semblance , from the sunflower and Amy ’s scarf among other things , burst out of the picture .
And not surprisingly from the co - author of every single Blackadder episode , the humor in this one is also great , including the Doctor ’s weird jokes about representational versus non - representational art , Gainsborough and Picasso . “ If there ’s one matter I ca n’t put up , it ’s an unpunctual alien attack . ” And the scene where the Doctor and Bill Nighy look up to each other ’s accede tie-in . And the whole “ could you breathe more quietly ” bit inside the confessional .
I think one reason why I get it on this episode more than most of the others this year is because it felt , effortlessly , like it was about something . I entail , “ The Beast Below ” was a passably blunt political apologue , and you could pull out message from some of the other instalment this class . But “ Vincent and the Dr. ” felt as though it was exploring a worldwide set of paper in a uniquely personal way , and it did n’t offer any easy answers .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1fwNI9R8IM
And then there ’s the ending , which is one of the most amazingly courageous things I ’ve ever seen . It could so easy have been a horrible , sleazy catastrophe — the Doctor accept Van Gogh forward to the present , so he can see how much people add up to look up to him . But it does n’t experience cheap at all — it ’s the artist ’s ultimate pipe dream do to life , being able to see yourself look up to by strangers long after you ’re travel . A kind of immortality . I ca n’t imagine watching the scene where Nighy explain Van Gogh ’s stature to the artist himself without getting choked up .
And then Van Gogh goes and belt down himself at eld 37 anyway , because even knowing that he ’s destined for greatness does n’t really convert anything in the end . As the Doctor set it , they add to Van Gogh ’s store of good thing , but that does n’t always change the sorry thing . The only changes they ’ve managed to make in Van Gogh ’s bequest are venial one : the monster is no longer in the Christian church , and one painting of flower is inscribed to Amy .
I find like this is one of the Who episodes that I ’ll get something new out of every clock time I watch it , part because it reflects what you bring to it . Brilliant stuff . But what did you think ?
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