Doctor Who: Vincent and the Doctor (spoilers)
I wrote last week that there are very few programmes on TV aimed principally at kids that tackle ‘issues’ in the way that Doctor Who does. Just writing the word ‘issues’ makes it sound to anyone who isn’t familiar with Doctor Who (does anyone like that exist?) that Doctor Who is some worthy, do-gooding, preachy sort of programme, which of course it isn’t, so the very fact that it isn’t and it can include topics such as whether it’s right to murder someone (Cold Blood) and depression (Vincent and the Doctor) mixed up with some good old monsters is just brilliant.
Vincent and the Doctor was just brilliant all round really, I am growing to love this Doctor’s character more and more, sort of if I were to chose one of the Doctors to get stuck in a room with (not that you’d be stuck in a room for long with the Doctor) I’d want to get stuck in a room with Matt Smith’s Doctor. He’s a lot more interesting, caring and what I think is really unique with this reincarnation, vulnerable. Getting caught so easily by the Silurians, that scene in the butchers in Amy’s Choice where the Doctor is having to run and hide moments before he falls asleep and in Vincent and the Doctor stuck in a church with a monster he can’t see and not being the one who does the saving, Vincent does. Vulnerable Doctor doesn’t mean Wimpy Doctor, it means Doctor where the peril is far more exciting.
And of course back to the topic of Vincent van Gogh’s depression, the Doctor’s attempts to talk to him were incredibly touching, these were one set of monsters the Doctor absolutely could not help with. The way as well how the Doctor has been spoiling Amy with trips to art galleries and the works after the death of Rory that she doesn’t know anything about. And of course those last few scenes in the art gallery when the Doctor lets Vincent van Gogh see what a world renowned painter he really was, incredibly touching, that and the scene holding hands looking up at the stars; classic Richard Curtis moments and now classic Doctor Who moments. Makes me wish that there really was a hero gallivanting through time trying to make things better.
