kindkit | Doctor Who 5x10, "Vincent and the Doctor"

I liked that this wasn't a romp, but instead a melancholy, emotion-driven story. The plot didn't need to be quite so perfunctory, maybe--I'd have liked a monster-plot that genuinely related to the thematic issues without such obvious forcing--but mostly this episode worked for me.

Tony Curran's performance as Van Gogh was crucial to that success. Curran made some fast shifts of mood believable, and captured Van Gogh's troubled, often deeply unhappy personality without getting into stereotypes; his Van Gogh was believable as a working artist, not just a visionary. The script was good in that respect too, and I like that it mostly avoided the temptation to turn Van Gogh into a poor mistreated lonely ~~god~~ Saint of Art; it's clear to see why he didn't make friends easily or keep them long. But Van Gogh's gentle side is equally believable in the script and in Curran's performance. I loved the affection he shows both Amy and the Doctor, his sense of betrayal when he realizes that they, too, will eventually leave, and especially the scene when they all look at the stars (well, up until the swirly special effects thing that assumes we're all too stupid to make the connection to The Starry Night on our own).

Above all, I liked that meeting the Doctor and Amy didn't save him, and I was moved both by Amy's grief for him and by the Doctor's response to it. Eleven is less . . . absolute than Ten; he can accept partial victories and incremental good, whereas Ten could only ever see those things as failures.

Now, here's what I didn't like:

(1) The anvilicious "the alien is sad and lonely and just like Vincent" stuff, especially when the creature had repeatedly tried to kill them and the Doctor had outright said the species was brutal. Since that shift wasn't the point of the episode, is just felt inconsistent.

(2) The unusually awful special effects on the alien. Seriously, when we first saw it through the church window it looked like somebody's school project made from an old sock and some paint. And it never got much better.

(3) The music, OMG THE HORRIBLE MUSIC. First of all, could we please NEVER have a pop music montage on Doctor Who again? Or on any other show, either (*scowls at the producers of Luther*) but especially not on Doctor Who. The lyrics and singing distract viewers, it's cheap storytelling anyway, and these things never age well. Second, there was Murray Gold being his usual "I don't do subtle, I do loud" self. When I feel like the music is trying to force a particular emotional reaction from me, I get dragged right out of the story. I also feel condescended to, like it's assumed that I'm incapable of responding to storytelling unless everything I should feel is cued for me with giant signs saying BE SAD NOW or THIS PART IS SCARY. And that makes me cranky. (To be fair, lack of emotional subtlety is also, increasingly, a Richard Curtis thing, and the script sometimes went almost as far over the top as the music.)

So, a real mixed bag of an episode, with some parts I loved a lot and some parts I cringed at. Dear BBC, fire Murray Gold now okay?

ETA: I should mention my favorite silly-but-adorable moment, which was the Doctor's flailing when Amy came round the corner and he thought she was the monster. *hearts him* It's very Second Doctor, and very very unheroic, and utterly delightful.