Rate "Vincent And The Doctor"

After this, the series will rapidly start drawing in toward a conclusion. Only three episodes left! Voting opens promptly after transmission of the episode in the UK. So... you know the routine, what did you think?

Well that was the biggest pile of festering manure ever in Doctor Who...












It was when the Doctor, Amy and Vincent was walking through the field at the left of the picture. Other than that, Vincent and the Doctor was sublime. 5/5.

They finally did a good one!

Loved it.

I thought Matt Smith, Tony Curran and Karen Gillan were all very good and - finally - an episode where I liked Amy! I haven't rated an episode since very early in the season as I simply didn't know what to give but this one was easy - 5/5.

Though that song at the end was bloody awful.

Rich Flair wrote:Though that song at the end was bloody awful.

Well yes, could have done without that...

Well, I'm afraid I am going to be controversial.. That for me was THE very best episode of Doctor Who ever made, bar none.. It had everything, joy, sadness, humour, an alien/monster that was actually scary in concept, a great little story, and a very well drawn character in Vincent.. Absolutely awesome and well done..
I can only say to those who didn't like it, watch again and simply enjoy.. I did..

It wasn't that good. Very Richard Curtis.

Enjoyed that one a lot. 5/5 from me as well.

Really enjoyed that, for all it was nostalgic and staggeringly sentimental, but then I'm from Liverpool.

Liked the recreations of paintings, thought Tony Curran was absolutely excellent, the handling of mental illness was probably near-spot-on for an early evening kid's show, the mispronunciation of 'van Gogh' will have annoyed the Dutch, Bill Nighy did that Bill Nighy thing he does so well, the locations and sets looked great, the direction was at worst passable, enjoyed the Doctor's impression of Perseus, another Hartnell cameo, thought Amy looked lovely (as usual), enjoyed the night sky/ 'Starry Night' morph, and, yes, did cry more than one unmanly tear during Vincent's trip to the Musée d'Orsay.

Could have used more jokes, however, probably Matt Smith's most unsure performance, and, frankly, the entire monster sub-plot could have been jettisoned quite happily (I'm never convinced that putting a monster into a Doctor Who story simply because 'Doctor Who stories have monsters in them' is a good idea (qv The Absorbaloff) - for all it's attempts at reaching the 'sympathy' and 'affecting' viewer-buttons the Unawesome Colossal Chicken Thing was by far the worst thing in it.

Apart, of course, from the song at the end - Athlete? Athlete!?! F*** YOU, CURTIS! F*** YOU!¹

Still, I suppose it's nice to a) see something written by Richard Curtis willingly; and b) see something written by Richard Curtis that I didn't walk out of in disgust².

So, what with the output of Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat, Simon Nye, and now Richard Curtis - is it time to only allow people with a background in sitcoms to write Doctor Who?

Today's off-the-cuff rating...

No idea. Genuinely don't know. I'm going to have to watch it again, at least once, to separate out the parts that I really didn't like (as there were several, and I really didn't like them) from the parts that I really did, see if the parts that made me cry still affect me on subsequent exposure, and weight the lot together before figuring out what I think of it³...


1) If you have been affected by any of the songs used in this episode, there is a helpline available...
2) qv The Boat that Rocked and it's apparently 'hilarious' comedy rape scene.
3) If pressed, I mean really pressed, I'd probably go for a seven-out-of-ten right now - but that exercise would be even more worthless than usual...

Had some brilliant moments but it felt slow(er than anything this series so far bar Amy's Choice). I enjoyed it though. 3/5

3/5 from me, which is what I've given to most of the other stories.

Why? Well, I'm tremendously hard to please.

Other than that, great work from the cast.

i've been a bit underwhelmed by this season but thought that was absolutely wonderful.

i'm surprised that the two standout episodes this year were written by the bloke who wrote "men behaving badly" and the bloke who wrote "love actually"

5

I think they must be sending different episodes to my house because I found it a bit dull, to be honest. There was an interesting idea in there trying to get out but it was smothered under a story that might as well have flashed up 'everybody cry now' at certain points. And the chicken monster was just silly.

Evening all. Only just watched this. Can't quite work out what I think as yet. Glad to see it's got such a positive & rapid response voting wise though.

Vincent & the Doctor was a classic piece of Richard Curtis, but with the extremes of comedy & emotion reined in to some extent. I'm presuming that Doctor Black (why wasn't Bill Nighy on the credits?) was saying what Curtis thinks about Van Gogh in the same way that Moffat used Tennant to extol the virtues of Davison in Time Crash.

Superb performances by Smith, Gillan & Curran, beautifully shot by Jonny Cambell. But I'm still struggling to rate it, and don't know quite know why!

It was an unusual DW story.

Lucy McGough wrote:It was an unusual DW story.

Unusual yes, but fantastic..

Lee Carey wrote:Well that was the biggest pile of festering manure ever in Doctor Who...












It was when the Doctor, Amy and Vincent was walking through the field at the left of the picture. Other than that, Vincent and the Doctor was sublime. 5/5.

Cheeky git. You nearly had me conned.

Perhaps not 5/5, but a very high 4/5 -- on the higher range of 8.5/10 for me. What was wonderful was how small scale it managed to be whilst being utterly moving. I think this series is managing the smaller scale stories very well, possibly better than the larger scale ones (Amy's choice, The Beast Below count as well, despite the latter's flaws).

Rich Flair wrote:They finally did a good one!

Ha!

I, needless to say, disagree. I think the series has been very solid, something which was lacking in previous seasons. This has, however, been the first true highlight.

Lucy McGough wrote:It was an unusual DW story.

Most unusual, I think, in that the monster part climaxed well before the end of the story. I was really expecting there to be a 2nd monster for a while.

I'm glad there wasn't, though.

Nick Barlow wrote:I think they must be sending different episodes to my house because I found it a bit dull, to be honest. There was an interesting idea in there trying to get out but it was smothered under a story that might as well have flashed up 'everybody cry now' at certain points. And the chicken monster was just silly.

When are any of the Who monsters anything but silly?

I've ended up giving it 4/5. Very good, but something is nagging at the back of my head. May have been the overkill ending.

Trust me Chief - it were the song!

Rich is right.