Doctor Who's Van Gogh Visit Makes Us Weepy

The ending of this week’s episode of Doctor Who, “Vincent and the Doctor” made me weep like a little baby... I only wish we didn’t have to deal with a giant chicken monster to get there.

Richard Curtis (Love, Actually), who wrote the episode, had his fingerprints all over it. Well constructed jokes, a Bill Nighy cameo and unabashed sentimentality – as well as some clunky parts that were just plain silly, giant chicken monster included. So how do we get there?

The Doctor, being nice to Amy Pond for no good reason (spoiler: he kind of killed her boyfriend, but she doesn’t remember that), takes her to a Vincent Van Gogh exhibit, and discovers something evil in one of the paintings. So it's back to the 1890, the pair befriend the lonely, destitute doctor, and fight a monster only he can see.

I get the metaphor, of course: all his life, Van Gogh was battling invisible monsters. It just turns out this one time that he’s fighting an actual, invisible monster. It works well in theory, but in practice, you’ve got actors batting at nothing, and a poorly CGIed baddie who looks like a screaming chicken. Which is, you know, not that scary. More funny I’d say?

So how does an episode mostly concerned with something so silly reduce me to a puddle of tears by the end? It’s because the stuff Curtis is good at – human relationships – shined beautifully. Everything with Van Gogh’s infatuation with Amy Pond – and her reciprocation – rang true, and fit perfectly into the continuity of the show.

And while the climax of the show found the Doctor taking Van Gogh to the future to see his own art exhibit, and to find out how much he means to so many people, was something we would never see the Doctor do (that much messing with the time stream? Come on), it worked. So it doesn’t matter.

Bill Nighy’s beautiful description of the impact of Van Gogh, Tony Curran’s (he played Van Gogh) silent reaction to the speech and Amy’s heartbroken look when she realized Van Gogh still killed himself within a year all were played to the hilt – and mark the first time in Doctor Who history I’ve actually been emotionally affected by the show.

Did it make sense? Maybe not. Was there a ridiculous bad guy? Heck yeah. But was this a gorgeous, well filmed tribute to a great painter? Yes, it was that, too.

Random Notes:

• Bill Nighy is the best. In everything. There is not a line he can make uninteresting.
• “Bow ties are cool!”
• Nice to get away from cracks in the wall for the episode, and have just enough continuity that it felt like it belonged in the season, without cramming the overall arc in at the end, like last week.
• Van goth? You pronounce Van Gogh as Van Goth? Really?
• I also liked having a famous person time travel episode that didn’t have a cheeky nod to their history, like, “Oh no, that giant chicken monster ate Van Gogh’s ear!”
• “Is this how time usually passes? So slowly? And in the right order?”
• Seriously? Giant chicken monster?