By ^o^CORVUS^o^

“Okay, so, let’s talk about you then. What are you interested in?”
“Well look around! Art! It seems to me there’s so much more to the world than… than the average eye is allowed to see. I believe if you look hard there are more wonders in this universe than you can ever have dreamed of.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”

Last week’s episode ended on a tragic note, and after that we need something a bit uplifting. Fortunately, we’re getting it, thanks to script-writer Richard Curtis.

Doctor Who has a long history of including major historical figures, including some notable artists and writers as well over the past 5 years. These included the likes of Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, and now, Vincent van Gogh. By the time the end titles rolled, this particular excursion into history had become something quite special.

The Story…

The Doctor has taken Amy to the Musée d’Orsay, in Paris, where they admire the work of the post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. As the art expert, Dr. Black, tells his tour group about van Gogh’s work, Any thanks the Doctor for bringing her there, and wonders why he’s taken her to a series of amazing places. One particular piece, “The Church at Auvers” catches the Doctor’s eye, and he points out a malevolent, shadowed face that appears in one of the windows. Disturbed, the Doctor decides they must travel back in time so they can speak to van Gogh himself.

In 1890 Arles, France, they manage to track down van Gogh at a local cafe’ where the artist never pays for his drinks and has earned a bad reputation. The Doctor attempts to break the ice, but the distrustful artist rebuffs him angrily. Amy, however, ingratiates herself to him very quickly since he thinks her “cute”, and thanks to her offer to share a bottle of wine with him. Over wine, the Doctor clumsily broaches the subject of the church painting, but the trio is interrupted when a woman wails for help. They rush into the alleyway to find a young girl dead, ravaged by some sort of beast, and her anguished mother blames van Gogh’s madness for her daughter’s fate. Pelted with stones, they run from the small crowd, and Vincent tells the Doctor that a similar murder occurred a week prior.

They leave for Vincent’s home, where he allows Amy and the Doctor to stay the night. The small home is cluttered with paintings that the artist sadly considers worthless to anyone but himself. However, in spite of his poor sense of self-worth, he believes the universe is filled with more wonders than one could imagine. Later, Amy is attacked outside by a creature only Vincent can see. The Doctor attempts to help, but is knocked about by the invisible creature. Vincent, however, drives it off and saves them both. Back inside, Vincent sketches the creature for the Doctor, and the Doctor goes back to the TARDIS to fetch a device that allows him to identify the creature as a Krafayis, a vicious pack-predator that has been abandoned on Earth.

Vincent promises to help them stop it, but when the Doctor promises him that after that they’ll be out of his hair, he shuts himself in his bedroom and breaks down in tears. The Doctor approaches him and Vincent tells him that everyone leaves him in the end, forgotten and hopeless. The doctor attempts to empathize, but Vincent becomes furious and orders him to go. Frustrated and saddened for the man, the Doctor tells Amy they are leaving, but will first have to defeat the creature on their own. As they gather their things and prepare to depart, Vincent appears, his mood has shifted and he’s dressed and ready to go with them, determined to assist.

As they walk to the church, Vincent tells Amy that if she can “soldier on, then can Vincent van Gogh.” and goes on to say that he can hear her sadness and loss, something she herself cannot detect. On the way, the funeral procession for the dead village girl moves down the road, and the trio stop and pay their respects briefly before continuing on, and Vincent looks back upon the sunflowers that lay atop her casket. When they reach the church, Vincent begins to paint, stopping occasionally to quiet the Doctor who is bored by the long wait. Hours later, the artist spots the beast inside, lurking past a window. The Doctor plans to stun the creature with his sonic screwdriver, and tells Vincent and Amy to remain outside and not to follow him. Amy agrees, but when the Doctor is gone, Vincent asks her if she’ll follow, and she replies “Of course.”

Inside, the Doctor finds his plan a difficult one to execute, and from outside Vincent spies the creature stalking the Doctor instead. Amy dashes inside, and the pair are forced to hide inside a confessional. They are saved by Vincent who fends off the creature with his chair, allowing the three of them to retreat and hide. The Doctor attempts to reason with the creature, but fails. Vincent describes the creatures actions, saying its feeling its way around the room. The Doctor realizes that the Krafayis is blind, and that’s why it was left behind. It finally charges, and Vincent attempts to repel it with his easel, but the creature impales itself, something that the artist did not intend. As the Krafayis lays dying, the Doctor makes out that the creature is afraid, and he strokes and comforts it as best he can as it breathes its last. Vincent sadly observes that the frightened, lonely creature had been lashing out in fear and frustration, the way that humans do when they are afraid, the way the villagers sometimes lash out at him.

Outside, the three of them lay down in the grass and look up at the sky, and Vincent describes the world he sees: a night sky that is deep blue, not black, framed by swirling air, a canvas for the shining stars above. Finally able to see what Vincent sees (as in “The Starry Night”), the Doctor says he’s never seen anything quite as wonderful as the things Vincent sees. Holding their hands, Vincent says “I will miss you terribly.”

In the morning, they say their goodbyes and Amy tells Vincent to be kind to himself, and he tells her that if she ever leaves the Doctor, to come back to him so they can marry and have many children. He embraces Amy and the Doctor, but before they can leave, the Doctor decides tells Vincent he wishes to show him something first. The trio walk to the TARDIS, and then take him on a journey to the Musée d’Orsay in 2010. There, the Doctor shows Vincent how his art has has come to be regarded. The Doctor approaches Dr. Black and asks him how he feels van Gogh rates in the history of art. As Vincent listens with his back turned, Dr. Black dubs him “the greatest painter of them all”, and says that the artist turned his pain into works of great beauty in ways nobody ever had before, and may never do so again. He goes on to say that he was not only the greatest artist of all, but one of the greatest men who ever lived. Reduced to tears of joy, he embraces Dr. Black and kisses his cheeks in gratitude. They then take Vincent back to Arles in his own time, where Vincent says he’ll walk out with his easel the next day a changed man. He thanks the Doctor yet again, and asks Amy if marriage is still out of the question, she kisses Vincent’s cheek and says she’s “not really the marrying kind”

They leave a smiling van Gogh and return once more to the Musée d’Orsay, where Amy expects to see that Vincent’s history had changed, and had lived a long life and painted many new paintings. However she finds nothing new, and Dr. Black lecturing a tour group about van Gogh’s suicide at the age of 37. Distraught, Amy posits that they made no difference, and the Doctor says that life is a mixture of good and bad, and that the bad doesn’t devalue the good, and that they had added to the good in Vincent’s life, and that if they look closely, perhaps some little differences had been made. “The Church at Auvers” no longer shows a beast in the window, and his “Vase with 12 Sunflowers” now bears the dedication: “To Amy”.

The Critique…

Um, wow! This episode was just brilliant. It was fun, it was funny, it was moving, it was sad, it was hopeful, and if you wanted to distill it down, you could easily dub it poignant. It ran the gamut of emotions during its 47 minutes, and explored a lot of serious themes that haven’t gotten a lot of attention on the show before, such as depression and suicide.

As an illustrator who struggles with depression (and who manages it pretty well much of the time thanks to friends, my family, and my medication. Oh, and chocolate *lol*), this episode really struck a chord with me. While the exact nature of Van Gogh’s mental issues are, and probably will remain, a matter of vigorous debate, its clear that he was a deeply troubled man, who struggled with his issues until his death, and yet turned out a body of work that would eventually see him regarded as one of the most important artists in history. On that score, I have a great deal of respect for impressionists like Van Gogh because of their ability to take the world they live and see, and paint it from the heart rather than strictly from the eye. This was something else that the episode managed to touch upon, and did so in a very vivid fashion.

As the story shows, like so many other artists, Van Gogh was mostly under-appreciated while he lived, and its probably because he (again, like so many other artists) was ahead of his time. In his last years, his work started to gain praise from artists such as friend Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Signac, and Claude Monet. But this evidently did little to ease his emotional burdens.

While the whole episode is filled with wonderful scenes, the final ones with Van Gogh were the ones that truly got to me. When the Doctor decided to take Vincent to see just how important and valued his art really was, that was the point where I nearly came to tears. It was so touching that one wished it had been something that had really happened. If only each of us could see exactly how our lives end up touching so many others…what a precious gift that would be.

I was very concerned that the episode would end on a terribly downbeat note, but I was quite pleased that it didn’t, and at least in this tale we didn’t have to deal with that blasted crack *lol*

We also got yet another glimpse at the First and Second Doctors. Its happening with some regularity and it makes me wonder if its actually something more than a simple nod to the past.

My only complaints would be that the scenes with the Krafayis creature slowed things down a bit, and the creature’s parallels with Van Gogh’s own sense of isolation and loneliness weren’t handled as well as they might have been. Keep in mind, however, that the creature itself is just a catalyst. The real meat of this episode lies in the Doctor and Amy’s relationship with van Gogh, and that’s where its strength lies. As such, I accepted the role of the Krafayis for what it is. Also, I think they could have come up with a better title for the episode than they did *. Aside from those minor trifles, this entry was simply superb.

* EDIT: Stone Petal over at Live Journal wrote a review of her own, and in it she made a connection that I overlooked:

“Vincent and the doctor are so alike in so many ways (perhaps that’s why it’s the name of this episode) they both continuously lose people, however as the doctor says there is always a glimmer of hope there. They both see the world in very different brilliant ways. Vincent says how he may not win against the monsters alone, and I believe the same with the doctor, I mean just look at Ten without a companion, flipped out into the Time Lord Victorious, I wouldn’t say that was winning against any monsters would you?”

Well said, and I agree. With that in mind, I now think that the episode title is just fine.

The Performances…

Whew, what can I say here? I think that the cast just knocked it out of the park. Simple as that.

Matt Smith continues to carve out his own niche as the Doctor, alternating from doddering buffoonery, to tetchy impatience, to quiet compassion, and bursts of manic, innovative brilliance. He takes the material he is given and really makes the most of it, and he’s been given some very good material this time out. Occasionally the Doctor is able to give someone a gift, and in this episode he did so by showing van Gogh the permanence and importance of his art, in a scene that displayed the Doctor’s sense of whimsy and also his deep respect and reverence for the man as well. Smith often does these things in a rather understated fashion, but he does it well, and I think the subtlety adds to his performance.

Karen Gillain was also very good, but I’m almost taking that for granted at this point. She ably displayed her range once again, and I really enjoyed her transition from adoring and somewhat star-struck Van Gogh “fangirl”, to someone who would come to know and care greatly about the man behind the brightly-painted canvases. She would become (like the Doctor as well) a very dear friend of the troubled artist for the brief time that they spent together, and she made it all seem very organic and natural, despite the amazing circumstances behind it all. She brings a great deal of fun and earnest warmth to the role, and she’s molded Amy Pond into a superb companion.

As for the titular van Gogh himself, Anthony “Tony” Curran was absolutely pitch-perfect. He ably captured the artist’s shifting moods, and at times seemed very much a man who had been cast adrift on a sea formed of his own unpredictable and often uncontrollable emotions, desperate for purpose and solace. While I would never compare my own struggles with those of van Gogh, his performance allowed me to identify very strongly with the now-legendary artist. He was so good, that he’s quickly become my favorite historical “guest star”, and I hope that Character Options has a van Gogh action figure planned for the near future, because I’d love to add one to my small collection.

And then there’s Bill Nighy as Dr. Black, the art expert. An actor who enjoys a long-standing listing on fan short-lists of actors they’d love to see play the Doctor, Nighy is always a delight when he turns up, and his appearance here was much-anticipated. His part in this episode was essentially an extended cameo, but it ended up being a very important one, for it was through Dr. Black that van Gogh saw how he would someday be regarded. Dr. Black’s analysis of the importance of van Gogh’s art and how his pain influenced its style and content was heartfelt, and it reduced the artist to tears of joy. In his brief scenes, Nighy brought a real sense of class to the episode, and didn’t disappoint.

Getting Technical…

There was some great location work to be found in this installment. Trogir, Croatia, filled in ably for 1890 Province, while the National Museum of Wales and Roald Dahl Plass did the same for the Musee D’Orsay. I must also commend the prop department and set designers for the way that they helped realize the world van Gogh lived in, particularly the cafe’, and also his cluttered home and his bedroom.

The dating and order of some of van Gogh’s paintings gets shifted around and a bit muddled in this story, and I’m not quite certain if that’s attributable to error, or the choices of the script-writer. Since I’m not certain, given the amount of available info on van Gogh that’s easily obtainable, I’m leaning towards the latter.

The design of the Krafayis was interesting, and while it certainly wasn’t the best-realized CGI beastie that the show has given us, I felt it worked out more than well enough.

I must also say that I once again felt that Murry Gold’s scoring was well-done and unobtrusive, and I also really liked the other musical and song selections as well. Nice work!

The Verdict…

The Verdict: Excellent!

Well, after reading all that, its readily apparent how I felt about this episode. Anyway, I really loved this episode, probably more than any other this season, and I’d probably rank it among my top-5 episodes of the revived series. It was just that good, and thus far I’ve been quite pleased to see that a lot of other viewers were genuinely touched by it as well. As such, my hat is off to all involved in the episode’s production.