Vincent and the Doctor

[alexwearspants]

I don't really have a lot of thoughty thoughts about this one, I wasn't hugely looking forward to it but I'm glad I watched it, it was ... pretty, in a visual sense, and beautiful, in an emotional sense. I spent a lot of the episode sort of crying or at that stage where your heart feels full and bursty and you need to cry but you're not quite there yet. I possibly wasn't in a great place today to be watching the ep, but it was in a strange way sort of cathartic, so that was good. It was very self-indulgent, in a lot of ways, but I allowed for it because they pulled it off so well. I was glad at the end that they didn't make it all about Great Changes and Affecting Time - the episode works well as a stand-alone and if they'd tried to pull it in to the overall theme about cracks and time and all that it would have felt false. The few notes of reminders - I'm not the marrying kind, Rory, why are you being so nice - were all of the right note to fit in with the overall melody of the episode, so I was quite happy they were there. srevans said everything else I think needs saying, I'm glad - well not glad, but glad, for the integrity of the ep, that they let him commit suicide at the end again, as he should have done, that history remained intact, because as the Doctor said, sometimes the good bits don't soften the bad bits, but I rather think the point of the episode was that they added to his overall pile of good bits and that was lovely.

The acting was all brilliant, I think the cast had lovely levels of chemistry, and whee! Bill Nighy, I liked how they all interacted differently with each other, and I love to see the Doctor being a bit of a prat, so, yes. I want to give van Gogh a hug, and lots of ginger children, though I have the wrong hair for that.

It was the kind of episode where if I had anyone to do it with I'd curl up on the couch and watch it again, maybe with a little bit of a cry, and then sort of relax in the glow of it, but as it is I think I'd rather treasure the memory of it.

I'm sure there are lots of horrible things that can be said about the episode, I can already throw patriarchy at you and watch the wolves tear it to shreds, but I don't want to, and I'm not going to seek out those kind of reviews. It was what it was and it was lovely and I appreciated it. Good show, Who. Well done.



Oh and in not-a-spoiler? Having seen van Gogh's work adds a whole other layer of depth and meaning and beauty and appreciation to this episode, I feel, and also, having actually seen it and loved it, to life. I <3 Vincent van Gogh.