Vincent and the Doctor
Encyclopedia
"Vincent and the Doctor" is the 10th episode in the fifth series
of British science fiction
television series Doctor Who
, which was first broadcast on 5 June 2010. It was written by Richard Curtis
, and deals with the Doctor and Amy travelling to Provence
, meeting Vincent van Gogh
and joining forces with him to fight a dangerous alien which only van Gogh can see.
The Doctor has taken Amy to the Musée d'Orsay
in Paris, where they admire the work of the post-impressionist
painter Vincent van Gogh. The Doctor discovers a seemingly alien figure in a window of the painting The Church at Auvers
, and decides they must travel back in time to speak to Vincent. In 1890, they find Vincent at a cafe in Arles
, a lonely man with a bad reputation, but he opens up when he notices Amy, sensing a loss she herself is not aware of. They discover that recent murders, the victims ravaged by some type of beast, have been blamed on Vincent, and the two resolve to help him.
At Vincent's home that evening, the artist confesses that his works have little value to anyone else, but he believes the universe is filled with wonders that he must paint. Amy is attacked by an invisible beast that Vincent is able to see and sketch for the Doctor, who identifies it as a Krafayis, a vicious pack-predator likely abandoned on Earth. Knowing the beast will appear when Vincent paints the nearby church the next evening, the Doctor and Amy plan to join him, after which they will leave. Vincent becomes distraught at this news and shuts himself in his bedroom, saying that everyone leaves him in the end. The Doctor and Amy set out to capture the beast, but Vincent soon joins them, eager to help. He confides to Amy that if she can "soldier on, then so can Vincent van Gogh".
Vincent begins painting the church and soon spots the beast inside. The Doctor demands that Amy stay back as he enters the church alone, but she and Vincent both agree they should help the Doctor. Vincent is able to save the Doctor and Amy, describing the beast's actions as they hide in the confessionals; the Doctor soon realises from Vincent's description that the beast is blind, the likely reason it was abandoned. The beast is impaled on Vincent's easel when it tries to lunge at the artist. The Doctor attempts to soothe the dying creature while Vincent empathises with its pain. After the creature dies, the three return outside the church, and Vincent describes the night sky as he envisions it, deep blue, framed by swirling air.
The next day, the Doctor and Amy prepare to leave. Vincent asks Amy to return and marry him should she leave the Doctor. As Vincent turns to leave, the Doctor offers to show him something. The Doctor and Amy take Vincent in the TARDIS
to the present and the van Gogh exhibit at the Musée d'Orsay. Vincent is stunned at the display, and becomes emotionally overwhelmed when he overhears Mr. Black, an art curator, say that van Gogh was "the greatest painter of them all" and "one of the greatest men who ever lived". They return Vincent to the past, and say their final goodbyes. When Vincent renews his proposal to Amy, she tells him she really "isn't the marrying kind". As the Doctor and Amy return to the present, Amy hopes that there will be several more paintings by Vincent waiting for them, but instead learn that Vincent still committed suicide at the age of 37 years. The Doctor explains that life is a mixture of bad and good, and while their brief encounter with Vincent couldn't undo everything wrong, they added some good to his life. The evidence is in Vincent's displayed works: the face no longer appears in The Church, and now Vase with 12 Sunflowers bears the inscription, "For Amy".
and Second Doctor
s are displayed on the Doctor's mirror device and printout from the TARDIS' typewriter. Amy makes comments on places the Doctor has taken her to see recently, including 'Arcadia'. The episode presents these trips as the Doctor's compensation to Amy for her fiancé Rory Williams
' death in the previous episode
, which Amy herself does not remember since Rory was consumed by a crack in the universe and thus erased from time. van Gogh is able to sense Amy's sadness at Rory's death, and the Doctor later accidentally addresses Vincent and Amy as Amy and Rory respectively.
was previously executive producer on the Doctor Who spoof The Curse of Fatal Death
, a one-off comedy special written for Comic Relief
by current show-runner Steven Moffat
. Based on this experience, Moffat asked Curtis to write an episode of Doctor Who. Curtis had enjoyed the show's historical episodes and felt comfortable writing one. He had the idea of a story centred around van Gogh for "a long while" and was particularly interested in the fact van Gogh never knew he would be famous, as well as his inspirational story.. Moffat was "enthusiastic" about the story idea.
Curtis asked Moffat to criticise "anything and everything" and later said he was very honest. Executive producer Piers Wenger
and director Johnny Campbell. Moffat told him that it needed to "start quicker" and that the meeting with the Doctor and Vincent was "dull" and needed to be something "cute" like Curtis had done in his films. He also noted that the Doctor did not talk as much as Curtis had written and recommended Curtis watch some episodes to see he was "rather efficient in the way that he talked". He enjoyed the experience, commenting that it was "fun" to work within boundaries rather than doing it all himself. After seeing a read-through
performed by leads Matt Smith and Karen Gillan Curtis made more changes. He commented that it was easy to write for them as they were "so delightful and modern and relaxed". Curtis's original title for the episode was "Eyes that See the Darkness" but he said this was vetoed.
Curtis wanted to write for Doctor Who because he thought it would be "something my kids would like."
When writing "Vincent and the Doctor", Curtis put up prints of van Gogh paintings around the house as well as a board with index cards outlining the plot. His children helped him come up with some ideas. Gillan commented that the story had a different style and approach and was more character-driven. Though it was a subject he knew "quite a lot" about, he still read a 200-page biography of van Gogh, which was more research than he normally would have done if working on other projects; he took van Gogh very seriously. As such, he wanted to be "truthful rather than cruel" and refused to write any jokes about van Gogh's ears after he famously cut one of them off. However, he did incorporate other humor as he naturally wanted to "try to make things funny".
Curtis stated that casting an actor to play van Gogh was done carefully, as he wanted him to feel to the audience as van Gogh, not "like a bloke they’ve seen acting lots of other parts, in an orange wig". Tony Curran was ultimately cast as the part; Curtis called him a "wonderful actor" and "really could not look more like" van Gogh. Curran, Smith and Gillan got to know each other very well, which Gillan hoped would come out in the episode. Bill Nighy
appears uncredited as Dr Black, the Musée d'Orsay
's expert on van Gogh. Nighy was considered for the role of the Ninth Doctor
when the show was revived.
Scenes set in Provence
were filmed on location in Trogir
, Croatia
in the same production block as "The Vampires of Venice
", which sees Trogir depicting 16th-century Venice
. Filming took place around November 2009. Some of the sets were intended to reference paintings, such as van Gogh's bedroom
. The song played during the ending scene is "Chances" by the British rock band Athlete
.
and a further 0.47 million on BBC HD). The programme was the 2nd most watched on BBC One for the week ending 6 June 2010, beaten only by an episode of EastEnders
. Across all channels, it was the 17th most watched programme of the week. For Saturday, 5 June 2010, Doctor Who was the 2nd most watched programme of the day, ranking behind the final of Britain's Got Talent
with 12.81 million viewers; more than double the rating for Doctor Who. All chart placements exclude the BBC & ITV HD Channels. After the original broadcast, viewers were offered a helpline if they had been affected by the issues raised in the program, possibly the only time this has been done for a Doctor Who episode.
", "The Pandorica Opens
" and "The Big Bang
" was released on 6 September 2010.
in The Independent
praised the episode as "first ingenious and then decidedly poignant", though he felt some aspects of plot would have wider implications not addressed in the episode, and remained "coldly unfeeling" towards the death of the Krafayis. Keith Watson in the Metro
was surprised by the "impressive imagining of van Gogh's world", praising Curtis' humour throughout the episode. He also praised the performance by Tony Curran as van Gogh, feeling that, with regards to van Gogh's depression, the producers "pulled it off" against the odds.
Sam Wollaston of The Guardian
liked the episode, considering Curtis' dialogue to be "witty and clever" and, despite feeling that some of the moral sentiments expressed during the episode were "as schmaltzy as sugary gloop", described how the emotion of the episode eventually got to him. Later treatments in print version of The Guardian included a review by Mark Lawson
praising it as "exceptionally good" and "thrilling and funny, as well as educational", noting its "historical rigour" and its "good arty jokes", whilst Deborah Orr wrote that it was "hardly original for someone to alight on [van Gogh's] tale as a tear-jerker, although it is pretty shrewd to think of placing it in a popular time-travel context" and that "the feeling that I'd been gently monstered into life-affirming feel-good sobs by Richard Curtis was not new, not in the least".
One of the most negative reviews in the press came from Gavin Fuller in The Telegraph
, who criticised it as a "bland, inconsequential episode that, once it set up what was a decent enough premise...completely failed to run with it". He compared it unfavourably with the third series
episode "The Shakespeare Code
" in being centred round a historical "tormented artist" but wrote that it lacked that episode's "narrative drive", with "a serious plot hole" in van Gogh's ability to see the creature and the Krafayis was "the most pointless monsters ever to appear in the series' long history". He also criticised Smith's Doctor and wrote that van Gogh still committing suicide despite the trip to the Orsay was "nonsensical". He did, however, praise "the Doctor's homily about good things and bad things" (though Sam Wollaston criticised this speech in The Guardian) and was grateful that Curtis "avoided turning the Doctor into a bumbling Hugh Grant
character from his romcoms
", concluding however "he did little else right and a crushing disappointment was the result". Sue Carrol in The Mirror took issue with the helpline that the BBC promoted for viewers affected by issues in the programme following the end of the episode, sarcastically commenting that most people "were affected only by the issue of van Gogh's Scottish accent."
Reviews online were also largely positive. On The Guardian
film blog, Peter Bradshaw
considered "Vincent and the Doctor" to be a "terrifically clever, funny, likeable wildly surreal episode", and a return to form for Richard Curtis after his poorly received 2009 film The Boat That Rocked
. He praised the "unmistakeably Curtis dialogue" and the "uproariously emotional ending of the sort only Richard Curtis could get away with". Dan Martin on the same paper's regular Doctor Who blog was more critical, writing that its "main problem [was] that it doesn't feel much like a Doctor Who story" and would have worked better if "the middle section with the monster had been stripped out". He also criticised the script for its "lashings of weapons-grade sentimentality" and for "throwing up possibilities that weren't followed up" and the monster as an "afterthought [posing] ... no tangible threat". However, he did praise Curran's "great performance" along with the episode's treatment of depression, concluding like Wollaston that he enjoyed the episode despite his misgivings. John Moore, writing on Den of Geek, also took a positive stance towards the episode, describing it as "life-affirming" as a Doctor Who fan, and, though he did criticise some elements of the plot, likewise wrote positively about the ending, ultimately finding the episode "utterly useless, but absolutely art".
for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation in the 2010 Nebula Awards
and the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form). It lost both of these; the Bradbury to the film Inception
and the Hugo to the series finale "The Pandorica Opens
"/"The Big Bang
". In Canada's Constellation Awards, Curran was nominated (alongside Smith) for Best Actor and Curtis for Best Script; Curran came in sixth with 10% of the votes and Curtis came in second, loosing out to Christopher Nolan
's Inception by one percent of the vote.
Doctor Who (series 5)
The fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who began on 3 April 2010 with "The Eleventh Hour" and ended with "The Big Bang" on 26 June 2010. The series was led by head writer and executive producer Steven Moffat, who took over after the departure of Russell T Davies. The...
of British science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
television series Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
, which was first broadcast on 5 June 2010. It was written by Richard Curtis
Richard Curtis
Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis, CBE is a New Zealand-born British screenwriter, music producer, actor and film director, known primarily for romantic comedy films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary, Notting Hill, Love Actually and The Girl in the Café, as well as the hit...
, and deals with the Doctor and Amy travelling to Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
, meeting Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
and joining forces with him to fight a dangerous alien which only van Gogh can see.
Plot
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture,...
in Paris, where they admire the work of the post-impressionist
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and Post-Impressionism...
painter Vincent van Gogh. The Doctor discovers a seemingly alien figure in a window of the painting The Church at Auvers
The Church at Auvers
The Church at Auvers was painted by Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh in 1890.-History:...
, and decides they must travel back in time to speak to Vincent. In 1890, they find Vincent at a cafe in Arles
Arles
Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....
, a lonely man with a bad reputation, but he opens up when he notices Amy, sensing a loss she herself is not aware of. They discover that recent murders, the victims ravaged by some type of beast, have been blamed on Vincent, and the two resolve to help him.
At Vincent's home that evening, the artist confesses that his works have little value to anyone else, but he believes the universe is filled with wonders that he must paint. Amy is attacked by an invisible beast that Vincent is able to see and sketch for the Doctor, who identifies it as a Krafayis, a vicious pack-predator likely abandoned on Earth. Knowing the beast will appear when Vincent paints the nearby church the next evening, the Doctor and Amy plan to join him, after which they will leave. Vincent becomes distraught at this news and shuts himself in his bedroom, saying that everyone leaves him in the end. The Doctor and Amy set out to capture the beast, but Vincent soon joins them, eager to help. He confides to Amy that if she can "soldier on, then so can Vincent van Gogh".
Vincent begins painting the church and soon spots the beast inside. The Doctor demands that Amy stay back as he enters the church alone, but she and Vincent both agree they should help the Doctor. Vincent is able to save the Doctor and Amy, describing the beast's actions as they hide in the confessionals; the Doctor soon realises from Vincent's description that the beast is blind, the likely reason it was abandoned. The beast is impaled on Vincent's easel when it tries to lunge at the artist. The Doctor attempts to soothe the dying creature while Vincent empathises with its pain. After the creature dies, the three return outside the church, and Vincent describes the night sky as he envisions it, deep blue, framed by swirling air.
The next day, the Doctor and Amy prepare to leave. Vincent asks Amy to return and marry him should she leave the Doctor. As Vincent turns to leave, the Doctor offers to show him something. The Doctor and Amy take Vincent in the TARDIS
TARDIS
The TARDISGenerally, TARDIS is written in all upper case letters—this convention was popularised by the Target novelisations of the 1970s...
to the present and the van Gogh exhibit at the Musée d'Orsay. Vincent is stunned at the display, and becomes emotionally overwhelmed when he overhears Mr. Black, an art curator, say that van Gogh was "the greatest painter of them all" and "one of the greatest men who ever lived". They return Vincent to the past, and say their final goodbyes. When Vincent renews his proposal to Amy, she tells him she really "isn't the marrying kind". As the Doctor and Amy return to the present, Amy hopes that there will be several more paintings by Vincent waiting for them, but instead learn that Vincent still committed suicide at the age of 37 years. The Doctor explains that life is a mixture of bad and good, and while their brief encounter with Vincent couldn't undo everything wrong, they added some good to his life. The evidence is in Vincent's displayed works: the face no longer appears in The Church, and now Vase with 12 Sunflowers bears the inscription, "For Amy".
Continuity
Images of the FirstFirst Doctor
The First Doctor is the initial incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by the actor William Hartnell from 1963 to 1966. Hartnell reprised the role in the tenth anniversary story The Three Doctors in 1973 - albeit in a...
and Second Doctor
Second Doctor
The Second Doctor is the second incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by character actor Patrick Troughton....
s are displayed on the Doctor's mirror device and printout from the TARDIS' typewriter. Amy makes comments on places the Doctor has taken her to see recently, including 'Arcadia'. The episode presents these trips as the Doctor's compensation to Amy for her fiancé Rory Williams
Rory Williams
Rory Williams is a fictional character portrayed by Arthur Darvill in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Having been introduced at the start of the 5th series, Rory joins the Eleventh Doctor as a companion in the middle of Series 5...
' death in the previous episode
Cold Blood (Doctor Who)
"Cold Blood" is the ninth episode in the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was broadcast on Saturday 29 May 2010...
, which Amy herself does not remember since Rory was consumed by a crack in the universe and thus erased from time. van Gogh is able to sense Amy's sadness at Rory's death, and the Doctor later accidentally addresses Vincent and Amy as Amy and Rory respectively.
Production
Writer Richard CurtisRichard Curtis
Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis, CBE is a New Zealand-born British screenwriter, music producer, actor and film director, known primarily for romantic comedy films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary, Notting Hill, Love Actually and The Girl in the Café, as well as the hit...
was previously executive producer on the Doctor Who spoof The Curse of Fatal Death
Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death
Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death is a four-episode special of Doctor Who made for the Red Nose Day charity telethon in the United Kingdom, and broadcast on BBC One on 12 March 1999...
, a one-off comedy special written for Comic Relief
Comic Relief
Comic Relief is an operating British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Lenny Henry in response to famine in Ethiopia. The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, a biennial telethon held in March, alternating with sister project Sport Relief...
by current show-runner Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat is a Scottish television writer and producer.Moffat's first television work was the teen drama series Press Gang. His first sitcom, Joking Apart, was inspired by the breakdown of his first marriage; conversely, his later sitcom Coupling was based upon the development of his...
. Based on this experience, Moffat asked Curtis to write an episode of Doctor Who. Curtis had enjoyed the show's historical episodes and felt comfortable writing one. He had the idea of a story centred around van Gogh for "a long while" and was particularly interested in the fact van Gogh never knew he would be famous, as well as his inspirational story.. Moffat was "enthusiastic" about the story idea.
Curtis asked Moffat to criticise "anything and everything" and later said he was very honest. Executive producer Piers Wenger
Piers Wenger
Piers Wenger is a British television producer who has been Head of Drama at BBC Wales since January 2009. His work includes the BAFTA-winning Victoria Wood drama Housewife, 49 and the 2007 adaptation of Noel Streatfeild's novel Ballet Shoes....
and director Johnny Campbell. Moffat told him that it needed to "start quicker" and that the meeting with the Doctor and Vincent was "dull" and needed to be something "cute" like Curtis had done in his films. He also noted that the Doctor did not talk as much as Curtis had written and recommended Curtis watch some episodes to see he was "rather efficient in the way that he talked". He enjoyed the experience, commenting that it was "fun" to work within boundaries rather than doing it all himself. After seeing a read-through
Read-through
The read-through, table-read, or table work is a stage of film and theatre production when an organized reading around a table of the screenplay or script by the actors with speaking parts is conducted....
performed by leads Matt Smith and Karen Gillan Curtis made more changes. He commented that it was easy to write for them as they were "so delightful and modern and relaxed". Curtis's original title for the episode was "Eyes that See the Darkness" but he said this was vetoed.
Curtis wanted to write for Doctor Who because he thought it would be "something my kids would like."
When writing "Vincent and the Doctor", Curtis put up prints of van Gogh paintings around the house as well as a board with index cards outlining the plot. His children helped him come up with some ideas. Gillan commented that the story had a different style and approach and was more character-driven. Though it was a subject he knew "quite a lot" about, he still read a 200-page biography of van Gogh, which was more research than he normally would have done if working on other projects; he took van Gogh very seriously. As such, he wanted to be "truthful rather than cruel" and refused to write any jokes about van Gogh's ears after he famously cut one of them off. However, he did incorporate other humor as he naturally wanted to "try to make things funny".
Curtis stated that casting an actor to play van Gogh was done carefully, as he wanted him to feel to the audience as van Gogh, not "like a bloke they’ve seen acting lots of other parts, in an orange wig". Tony Curran was ultimately cast as the part; Curtis called him a "wonderful actor" and "really could not look more like" van Gogh. Curran, Smith and Gillan got to know each other very well, which Gillan hoped would come out in the episode. Bill Nighy
Bill Nighy
William Francis "Bill" Nighy is an English actor and comedian. He worked in theatre and television before his first cinema role in 1981, and made his name in television with The Men's Room in 1991, in which he played the womanizer Prof...
appears uncredited as Dr Black, the Musée d'Orsay
Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay is a museum in Paris, France, on the left bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, an impressive Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture,...
's expert on van Gogh. Nighy was considered for the role of the Ninth Doctor
Ninth Doctor
The Ninth Doctor is the ninth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He is played by Christopher Eccleston....
when the show was revived.
Scenes set in Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
were filmed on location in Trogir
Trogir
Trogir is a historic town and harbour on the Adriatic coast in Split-Dalmatia County, Croatia, with a population of 12,995 and a total municipality population of 13,322 . The historic city of Trogir is situated on a small island between the Croatian mainland and the island of Čiovo...
, Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
in the same production block as "The Vampires of Venice
The Vampires of Venice
"The Vampires of Venice" is the sixth episode in the fifth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was broadcast on 8 May 2010. It was written by Toby Whithouse, who previously wrote "School Reunion". Rory Williams returns to the series in this episode, this time...
", which sees Trogir depicting 16th-century Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
. Filming took place around November 2009. Some of the sets were intended to reference paintings, such as van Gogh's bedroom
Bedroom in Arles
Bedroom in Arles is the title given to each of three similar paintings by 19th-century Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh.Van Gogh's own title for this composition was simply The Bedroom...
. The song played during the ending scene is "Chances" by the British rock band Athlete
Athlete (band)
Athlete are a British rock band formed in Deptford, London, comprising Joel Pott , Carey Willetts , Stephen Roberts and Tim Wanstall...
.
Broadcast
The episode was watched by 6.76 million viewers (6.29 million on BBC OneBBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
and a further 0.47 million on BBC HD). The programme was the 2nd most watched on BBC One for the week ending 6 June 2010, beaten only by an episode of EastEnders
EastEnders
EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...
. Across all channels, it was the 17th most watched programme of the week. For Saturday, 5 June 2010, Doctor Who was the 2nd most watched programme of the day, ranking behind the final of Britain's Got Talent
Britain's Got Talent
Britain's Got Talent is a British television talent show competition which started in June 2007 and originated from the Got Talent series. The show is produced by FremantleMedia's TalkbackThames and Simon Cowell's production company SYCOtv. The show is broadcast on ITV in Britain and TV3 in Ireland...
with 12.81 million viewers; more than double the rating for Doctor Who. All chart placements exclude the BBC & ITV HD Channels. After the original broadcast, viewers were offered a helpline if they had been affected by the issues raised in the program, possibly the only time this has been done for a Doctor Who episode.
Home video releases
A Region 2 DVD and Blu-ray containing this episode together with "The LodgerThe Lodger (Doctor Who)
"The Lodger" is the eleventh episode of the fifth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first broadcast on BBC One on 12 June 2010...
", "The Pandorica Opens
The Pandorica Opens
"The Pandorica Opens" is the twelfth episode, and first in a two-part story, in the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who, broadcast on 19 June 2010. The Doctor's friends send him a warning; he deals with a message on a cliff, a mysterious box and a love story that...
" and "The Big Bang
The Big Bang (Doctor Who)
"The Big Bang" is the 13th and final episode in the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is the second part of a two-part season finale started with "The Pandorica Opens", at the end of which The Doctor is trapped, the TARDIS destroyed, and Amy Pond has been shot...
" was released on 6 September 2010.
Reception
Reception of the episode in the British media was mostly positive. In the mainstream press, Tom SutcliffeTom Sutcliffe (broadcaster)
Thomas Sutcliffe is a British journalist and arts broadcaster.Sutcliffe studied English at Emmanuel College, Cambridge...
in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
praised the episode as "first ingenious and then decidedly poignant", though he felt some aspects of plot would have wider implications not addressed in the episode, and remained "coldly unfeeling" towards the death of the Krafayis. Keith Watson in the Metro
Metro (Associated Metro Limited)
Metro is a free daily newspaper in the United Kingdom published by Associated Newspapers Ltd . It is available from Monday to Friday each week on many public transport services across the United Kingdom.-History:The paper was launched in London in 1999, and can now be found in 14 UK urban centres...
was surprised by the "impressive imagining of van Gogh's world", praising Curtis' humour throughout the episode. He also praised the performance by Tony Curran as van Gogh, feeling that, with regards to van Gogh's depression, the producers "pulled it off" against the odds.
Sam Wollaston of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
liked the episode, considering Curtis' dialogue to be "witty and clever" and, despite feeling that some of the moral sentiments expressed during the episode were "as schmaltzy as sugary gloop", described how the emotion of the episode eventually got to him. Later treatments in print version of The Guardian included a review by Mark Lawson
Mark Lawson
Mark Gerard Lawson is an English journalist, broadcaster and author.-Life and career:Born in Hendon, London, Lawson was raised in Yorkshire and is a Leeds United fan. He was educated at St Columba's College in St Albans and took a degree in English at University College London, where his lecturers...
praising it as "exceptionally good" and "thrilling and funny, as well as educational", noting its "historical rigour" and its "good arty jokes", whilst Deborah Orr wrote that it was "hardly original for someone to alight on [van Gogh's] tale as a tear-jerker, although it is pretty shrewd to think of placing it in a popular time-travel context" and that "the feeling that I'd been gently monstered into life-affirming feel-good sobs by Richard Curtis was not new, not in the least".
One of the most negative reviews in the press came from Gavin Fuller in The Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, who criticised it as a "bland, inconsequential episode that, once it set up what was a decent enough premise...completely failed to run with it". He compared it unfavourably with the third series
Doctor Who (series 3)
The third series of British science fiction series Doctor Who was preceded by the 2006 Christmas special "The Runaway Bride". Following the special, a regular series of thirteen episodes was broadcast, starting with "Smith and Jones" on 31 March 2007...
episode "The Shakespeare Code
The Shakespeare Code
"The Shakespeare Code" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was broadcast on BBC One on 7 April 2007, and is the second episode of Series 3 of the revived Doctor Who series. According to the BARB figures this episode was seen by 7.23 million viewers and was...
" in being centred round a historical "tormented artist" but wrote that it lacked that episode's "narrative drive", with "a serious plot hole" in van Gogh's ability to see the creature and the Krafayis was "the most pointless monsters ever to appear in the series' long history". He also criticised Smith's Doctor and wrote that van Gogh still committing suicide despite the trip to the Orsay was "nonsensical". He did, however, praise "the Doctor's homily about good things and bad things" (though Sam Wollaston criticised this speech in The Guardian) and was grateful that Curtis "avoided turning the Doctor into a bumbling Hugh Grant
Hugh Grant
Hugh John Mungo Grant is an English actor and film producer. He has received a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA, and an Honorary César. His films have earned more than $2.4 billion from 25 theatrical releases worldwide. Grant achieved international stardom after appearing in Richard Curtis's...
character from his romcoms
Romantic comedy film
Romantic comedy films are films with light-hearted, humorous plotlines, centered on romantic ideals such as that true love is able to surmount most obstacles. One dictionary definition is "a funny movie, play, or television program about a love story that ends happily"...
", concluding however "he did little else right and a crushing disappointment was the result". Sue Carrol in The Mirror took issue with the helpline that the BBC promoted for viewers affected by issues in the programme following the end of the episode, sarcastically commenting that most people "were affected only by the issue of van Gogh's Scottish accent."
Reviews online were also largely positive. On The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
film blog, Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw is a British writer and film critic. He was educated at Cambridge University, where he was President of Footlights.Bradshaw is a film critic for The Guardian...
considered "Vincent and the Doctor" to be a "terrifically clever, funny, likeable wildly surreal episode", and a return to form for Richard Curtis after his poorly received 2009 film The Boat That Rocked
The Boat That Rocked
The Boat That Rocked is a 2009 British comedy film written and directed by Richard Curtis, with pirate radio in the United Kingdom during the 1960s as its setting. The film has an ensemble cast featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, and Kenneth Branagh...
. He praised the "unmistakeably Curtis dialogue" and the "uproariously emotional ending of the sort only Richard Curtis could get away with". Dan Martin on the same paper's regular Doctor Who blog was more critical, writing that its "main problem [was] that it doesn't feel much like a Doctor Who story" and would have worked better if "the middle section with the monster had been stripped out". He also criticised the script for its "lashings of weapons-grade sentimentality" and for "throwing up possibilities that weren't followed up" and the monster as an "afterthought [posing] ... no tangible threat". However, he did praise Curran's "great performance" along with the episode's treatment of depression, concluding like Wollaston that he enjoyed the episode despite his misgivings. John Moore, writing on Den of Geek, also took a positive stance towards the episode, describing it as "life-affirming" as a Doctor Who fan, and, though he did criticise some elements of the plot, likewise wrote positively about the ending, ultimately finding the episode "utterly useless, but absolutely art".
Awards and nominations
"Vincent and the Doctor" was nominated for the Bradbury AwardBradbury Award
The Ray Bradbury Award is presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America to recognize excellence in screenwriting...
for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation in the 2010 Nebula Awards
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
and the 2011 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form). It lost both of these; the Bradbury to the film Inception
Inception
Inception: The Subconscious Jams 1994-1995 is a compilation of unreleased tracks by the band Download.-Track listing:# "Primitive Tekno Jam" – 3:23# "Bee Sting Sickness" – 8:04# "Weed Acid Techno" – 8:19...
and the Hugo to the series finale "The Pandorica Opens
The Pandorica Opens
"The Pandorica Opens" is the twelfth episode, and first in a two-part story, in the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who, broadcast on 19 June 2010. The Doctor's friends send him a warning; he deals with a message on a cliff, a mysterious box and a love story that...
"/"The Big Bang
The Big Bang (Doctor Who)
"The Big Bang" is the 13th and final episode in the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is the second part of a two-part season finale started with "The Pandorica Opens", at the end of which The Doctor is trapped, the TARDIS destroyed, and Amy Pond has been shot...
". In Canada's Constellation Awards, Curran was nominated (alongside Smith) for Best Actor and Curtis for Best Script; Curran came in sixth with 10% of the votes and Curtis came in second, loosing out to Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan
Christopher Jonathan James Nolan is a British-American film director, screenwriter and producer.He received serious notice after his second feature Memento , which he wrote and directed based on a story idea by his brother, Jonathan Nolan. Jonathan went to co-write later scripts with him,...
's Inception by one percent of the vote.