Welcome to your summer vacation through space and time, all from the comfort of your couch and TV. We’re spending our COVID-19 summer (and a little bit of autumn) winding our way through Doctor Who history, focusing on one episode from each Doctor’s tenure through to the Capaldi era. (Want to know what we’re watching? Here’s the schedule!)
Doctor Who’s heritage is as an educational program, which can include real historical figures and moments. Today’s episode from the Matt Smith era, “Vincent and the Doctor,” which aired on June 5th, 2010, sees the Doctor and companion Amy Pond visiting Vincent van Gogh after seeing something strange in some of his paintings. This is also one of two episodes that we covered in our regular series coverage – – you can read that recap here.
Pull out your paint brushes and let’s make something beautiful together. And of course: Spoilers!
1. This Simple Plot (aka Plot Plot Plot Plot Plot)
This is your standard monster-of-the-week Doctor Who plot. The Doctor and Amy, upon a visit to the Musée d’Orsay, find something odd in one of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings: a monster in a church window (specifically The Church at Auvers). Recognizing this as danger, they travel back to 1890s France to meet up with van Gogh, who is drunk, destitute, and depressed. The town where van Gogh lives, Auvers-sur-Oise, has been invaded by Krafayis, creatures that only Vincent can see. Thus it’s a trip back in time to defeat these monsters and save van Gogh.
But what elevates this past your paint-by-numbers plot into a masterpiece is this ensemble and the episode’s deeper message.
2. This Charming Amy
Before she was Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy, Karen Gillan was all about bow ties and ginger hair as Amy Pond. And in this episode, she is utterly charming, using Vincent’s attraction to her to smooth over bad relations with the local cafe and get information about Vincent’s current state of affairs, all without resorting to sexuality. Her eagerness to be in the presence of one of the world’s greatest artists does tip her hand that she is not of this world (a morning gift of sunflowers, for example, before Vincent had even thought of them as artistic muse), but Vincent is blinded by her charms.
He’s also very blinded to her very 21st century wardrobe, a plot hole in this episode that nags at me as we’ve been watching the NBC series Timeless of late, which took great care in its time travel to have period clothing for its principals.
3. This Charming Doctor
Steven Moffatt describes Matt Smith’s doctor as an old soul trapped in a young man’s body, a man traumatized still by the effect of the Time War. As such, there’s always a bit of darkness within him, particularly in this inaugural season as he has just watched a crack in time wreak havoc on the world, unsure of what it means for time and space.
But a hallmark of these revival Doctors is their deep and abiding love of humanity, which is all over this episode. The Doctor’s excursion to Paris is part of the comfort he’s providing Amy after the events of the previous episode (“Cold Blood”), which saw her fiance (and eventual husband) Rory erased from existence. And he does try his best to reach out Vincent in one of his episodes, also knowing as well when to pull away when Vincent refuses help.
He’s also nervous, unsure of what will happen with the Krafayis when it appears. We’re used to a Doctor having all the answers, so seeing their fallibility adds to the appeal and makes you want to root for him more.
4. This Charming Artist
I love Tony Curran as van Gogh. He moves between the despair of the mental illness that would take his life in less than a year, and the joy and wonder of art. He embraces life, finds inspiration in sunflowers (in spite of his belief they are a sign of death as well as life) and certainly enjoys Amy’s presence (right down to a marriage proposal at the end). In one moment he wants nothing more to do with anyone, and then in the next he’s suited up with easel in hand ready to take down the Krafayis.
Continued belowIt’s a keen understanding of the duality of mental illness: some days are good, some days are not so good, and sometimes you can have both at the same time. It would be easy to play van Gogh’s mental troubles as one note, leaning on only one side of the coin. Rather, he shows both, which provides a wonderful exercise to explain the facets of mental illness to a broad audience.
It’s also important to note again that the Krafayis are only visible to van Gogh’s eyes. The literal demon threat also serves as symbolic demon threat, van Gogh’s depression and suicidal tendencies in physical form.
5. This Charmed Whovian
“Vincent and the Doctor” is tied with “Blink” for my favorite episode. It’s not just because Matt Smith was my first Doctor. It’s not just for the modern art angle, a love of mine that also became a brief career at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. But it’s for the final scene, long after the monsters see defeat and the Doctor and Amy are ready to head home.
Bending the rules, the Doctor and Amy take Vincent in the TARDIS to modern-day Paris and the Musee d’Orsay. Back to the exhibit where this adventure started.
Vincent finally sees the impact of his work, which the Doctor underscores when he calls over the curator (Bill Nighy) to describe just what impact the artist has over a century later:
[T]o me, Van Gogh is the finest painter of them all. Certainly the most popular great painter of all time. The most beloved. His command of color, the most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world. No one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again. To my mind, that strange wild man who roamed the fields of Provence, was not only the world’s greatest artist but also one of the greatest men who ever lived.
There is wonder on his face and tears of joy in his eyes. That strange wild man now sees how his life has value, in spite of the scorn by his family and community. Despite what all tell him, he is a person worthy of love and understanding. And as someone who deals with those same demons (and has for a decade), it makes me tear up every time. For it reminds me that yes, my life matters, too. When you see your own experience reflected in art – – any kind of art – – you find meaning, understanding, joy, love, comfort. At the time I discovered Doctor Who (in 2011) I was in deep treatment for major depressive disorder, and this episode, that moment, spoke to me on a level that I needed like no other at that time.
Sadly, Amy and the Doctor don’t change history. Vincent van Gogh still dies months later at his own hand, a truth the Doctor knows (you see it in his eyes as he hugs Vincent farewell) and one that breaks Amy’s heart. Despondent that they didn’t make a difference at all, the Doctor reminds Amy that while life is both good and bad things, the good things can still have an impact, even when the bad takes over.
And the final scene, of an inscription “for Amy” in a painting of those sunflowers that Vincent first spurned, shows that there was something more in the good things that wasn’t there before. It wasn’t enough to prevent his suicide, but no doubt brought him comfort in some of those darker moments.
5.5. These Beautiful Paintings
Rather than end this with some trivia, I wanted to provide a guide where you can see some of the famous paintings we saw in this episode. Someday, it will be safe to travel freely again, but many museums have robust online and virtual presences. And art can provide comfort and solace to a broken soul.
- Church at Auvers (1890) and the second version of Portrait of Dr. Gachet (1890) hang at Paris’s Musée d’Orsay. (The first version of Portrait of Dr. Gachet is in a private collection.) Continued below
- Bedroom in Arles (1887), Almond Blossom (1890), and Wheatfield With Crows (1890) hang at the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam
- Café Terrace at Night (1888) hangs at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands.
- Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers (1888) and Van Gogh’s Chair (1888) hang at the National Gallery in London. (Van Gogh’s Chair does not appear to be online at the National Gallery’s website as of this writing.)
- The Starry Night (1889) hangs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
- While there are several paintings titled Self-Portrait with Straw Hat from 1887, the one we specifically see hangs at the Detroit Institute of Arts. (Others hang at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.)
Next week, we take a look at the Twelfth Doctor story “The Girl Who Died,” which also marked the 100th episode of the revival series.
Classic Doctor Who episodes (First through the Seventh Doctors) are available on the streaming subscription service Britbox (available in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. at the time of this writing). If you’re in the U.S., Latin America, Puerto Rico, and Europe, you can also get your classic Who fix via the free streaming service Pluto TV, which has its own Doctor Who channel!
Revival episodes (Ninth through Twelfth Doctors) are available worldwide on Amazon Prime, and in the United States on HBO Max.
