um... even more negative than the beehive city review:
Doctor Who: Vincent and the Doctor
TV episode review
UK airdate 5 June 2010 (BBC One)
The Doctor and Amy travel back in time to discover just why the world’s greatest painter has drawn a monster in one of his masterpieces…
When Richard Curtis was first announced as a writer for this season of Doctor Who, I confess to feeling very excited. After all, the co-writer of Blackadder was bound to offer a historical story full of wit, sophisticated ideas and quotable dialogue…
Sadly Richard Curtis no longer seems to be the man who had a hand in writing Rowan Atkinson’s dry put-downs and twisting comedic plots that still prompt guffaws to this day. The Richard Curtis currently working is the fellow who delivered mainstream sentimental mawkishness like Love, Actually and the laughter-free zone that was The Boat that Rocked.
Much like previous historical encounters such as The Unquiet Dead and The Unicorn and the Wasp, the story features aliens menacing a historical figure. This time it’s Vincent Van Gogh, and much like Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie in those earlier episodes, he’s concerned with how his work will be remembered. It’s old, tired ground that was dealt with much better in The Unquiet Dead, where Simon Callow convincingly portrayed Dickens’ understated sense of pride and redemption as the Doctor told him that his works will live forever. If Curtis is wondering how his episode of Doctor Who will be recalled in years to come, the likely answer is: “Like the other historicals, only nowhere near as good.”
Curtis should be playing to his earlier strengths here; perhaps offering a modern equivalent to the work of Dennis Spooner (the man behind classic series stories The Romans and The Time Meddler, among many others), who managed to write very funny episodes that contained enough excitement and menace to keep the drama moving forward. Yet there aren’t even many laughs in Vincent and The Doctor, which is disappointing given the writer’s comedy credentials. What is does have is the sentimentality of the worst of his output.
Doctor Who is a show that lives or dies on the strength of its monsters, and thankfully we do at least get a good one this time around. The often invisible creature from this episode is very effective despite its fleeting appearances and a shaky back-story (it’s a brutal hunter that we are supposed to sympathise with later in the tale).
However, a huge missed opportunity is evident in the pre-credits teaser as the cornfields shift as the unseen creature moves across the landscape. Surely there should have been a scene in which the heroes are stalked by the unseen menace as the corn moves? Instead, we get a poorly staged sequence in which the Doctor joins in the fight against the creature that he can’t see. Despite Vincent facing the beast head-on, the Doctor is waving his weapon elsewhere. It doesn’t make sense, isn’t funny and takes away from the terror of facing up to an unknown horror.
A major plus is Tony Curran as Van Gogh. Resisting the urge to deliver a broad performance, Curran is by far the best thing about this story as he plays out the complexities of the troubled artist perfectly. His gentle flirtation with Amy is both amusing and playful (though less amusing and playful when you consider that Van Gogh was suffering with syphilis at the time this story is set). His power to see things that others can’t is a major plot point in the story, but goes unexplained… for now.
A well-publicised, if brief, cameo from Bill Nighy adds little to the overall story, other than to replicate the “bow ties are cool” shtick and offer a brief, unsubstantial explanation as to why the artist is seen as such an important figure.
A weird sequence that feels like some sort of LSD experience is the most out of place thing in the episode… until, that is, the music of Athlete signals an emotional part of the story is approaching and you might want to reach for a hanky. With the plot resolved 10 minutes before the end, there’s just enough time for a truly horrible extended sequence that seemingly refuses to stop until at least somebody in the audience cries. Somebody should have remembered how The Unquiet Dead conveyed exactly the same sentiment with brief, well written dialogue.
If the Fourth Doctor saw Vincent and the Doctor, he’d write “This is a fake” on every canvas… Jonathan Wilkins
VERDICT: 3/10
OKKAAYY! Maybe these people don't like emotional stories, but they clearly are not fond on the charcter focus in this ep more than on the monstor focus. So what if theres tewn minuites of emotional character plot at the end... It dosn't matter! I really hope this is a great story like I think it will be. It's a pity coz I sually agree with total sci fi. But I guess evrey site has it's duff review
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