Following the Silurian two part story, Richard Curtis penned the next episode. This story was intended to be the season's historical installment, as was "Tooth And Claw" for Series 2/Season 28, "The Shakespeare Code" for the Series 3/Season 29, and "The Unicorn And The Wasp" for Series 4/Season 30. While all of these previous installments have featured a historic figure as one of the main characters, in each case the stories were generally set around the Doctor Who style mystery/monster format, with the historic character being "along for the ride" so to speak in much the same way The Doctor's companions were meant to be.
However, in the case of "Vincent And The Doctor," it's clear that Curtis abandoned this format to focus more on teaching viewers about Vincent Van Gogh, and less about making it an episode of Doctor Who that features a historic character.
First off, I'll point out a technical oversight that I noticed before the title sequence. The episode opens with The Doctor and Amy visiting an art museum that contains all of Van Gogh's paintings. The Doctor is intrigued by one painting in particular of a church, where a mysterious creature was depicted in one of the church windows. This odd depiction convinces The Doctor to travel to the past to talk to Van Gogh personally about the painting, which serves as The Doctor's reason for visiting Van Gogh to begin with. Clearly, the creature would have wreaked havoc on the Earth by the time 2010 had rolled around, but oddly enough, the creature seemed to keep quiet all those years. Now, one might could explain this by saying that the painting was the same one done when The Doctor and Amy were with him at the church, but at the close of the episode, the church painting is shown to NOT have a creature in the window, which would seem to indicate THAT painting is the one Van Gogh did with The Doctor.
Throughout the course of the episode, I had mixed feelings about it. Sometimes it felt like Doctor Who, sometimes it didn't - but more often than not, it didn't. The problem I think was that Curtis was so wound up in trying to educate viewers instead of telling a gem of Doctor Who. Granted, the purpose of a "historical episode" is to be a rough history lesson, and the original series did several of these during Hartnell's first two seasons, but having not been told they were historic episodes, I never would have known because the plot was so tastefully done. "The Aztecs" comes to mind - one of my favorites from the Hartnell era - where a history lesson about the ancient Aztecs spanned four episodes without requiring a single monster. My point is, educational episodes are great, as long as you don't make it OBVIOUS that being educational is what you're trying to be. Besides, most children are more inclined to absorb such facts if they aren't aware that's they're being fed educational data.
Curtis minimized the use of CGI in this story by having the Krafayis be invisible to everyone in the episode except Van Gogh. This turns out to be the reason behind some of the accusations Van Gogh had got by the townspeople about being mad. Kudos for that, but it was one of those CGI-dodging gimmicks that's a bit obvious to the trained viewer. OF COURSE it's invisible. I'm not encouraging the use of CGI by no means, but there are other ways to get around it besides simply having the appearance of the monster absent for the most part of the episode, and writing it being invisible (and blind, apparently). Animatronics comes to mind. Yeah, it's a lot more time consuming to build a puppet and shoot some forced-perspective shots with it, but the pay off is worth it. If you look on YouTube, you've got five-year olds posting tutorial videos about using Adobe AfterEffects. Most kids know the difference between CGI and real, tangible puppets, so they're more likely to be scared behind the sofa by a physical puppet than a CGI monster. There's some body language that CG
I just can't mimic, and it's a dead giveaway. The kids may know it's a mechanically operated puppet, but to them, its a REAL puppet nonetheless, and they can't help but wonder if it's going to be hiding under their bed later that night. The worst a CGI monster can do is crash your PC or Mac.
The episode also had atleast 30% t0 40% of it's shots done in shaky-cam, so do I really need to rant again about why I subtract points for this?
What really killed this episode's score was the final ten minutes, where it effectively drops into a modern day primetime drama format for Van Gogh's visit to the 2010 museum. Having an emotional, heart wrenching Lifehouse-ish song over the epilogue of an episode has been the norm for television dramas like "Grey's Anatomy,""E.R.," and "One Tree Hill" for years. I'm not sure if this was Moffat's experimental attempt to "see how the fans like this format," but it's been my understanding that hard core Whovians were outraged by it, myself included. If there's one thing that has no place in an episode of Doctor Who, it's modern day music with lyrics! Thankfully, so far this episode has been the only one to do so, having already seen Series 6/Season32.
It was an OK episode, but as the title implies, it was mainly about a particular character, to the point that the inclusion of a monster made little to no sense at all.
However, in the case of "Vincent And The Doctor," it's clear that Curtis abandoned this format to focus more on teaching viewers about Vincent Van Gogh, and less about making it an episode of Doctor Who that features a historic character.
First off, I'll point out a technical oversight that I noticed before the title sequence. The episode opens with The Doctor and Amy visiting an art museum that contains all of Van Gogh's paintings. The Doctor is intrigued by one painting in particular of a church, where a mysterious creature was depicted in one of the church windows. This odd depiction convinces The Doctor to travel to the past to talk to Van Gogh personally about the painting, which serves as The Doctor's reason for visiting Van Gogh to begin with. Clearly, the creature would have wreaked havoc on the Earth by the time 2010 had rolled around, but oddly enough, the creature seemed to keep quiet all those years. Now, one might could explain this by saying that the painting was the same one done when The Doctor and Amy were with him at the church, but at the close of the episode, the church painting is shown to NOT have a creature in the window, which would seem to indicate THAT painting is the one Van Gogh did with The Doctor.
Throughout the course of the episode, I had mixed feelings about it. Sometimes it felt like Doctor Who, sometimes it didn't - but more often than not, it didn't. The problem I think was that Curtis was so wound up in trying to educate viewers instead of telling a gem of Doctor Who. Granted, the purpose of a "historical episode" is to be a rough history lesson, and the original series did several of these during Hartnell's first two seasons, but having not been told they were historic episodes, I never would have known because the plot was so tastefully done. "The Aztecs" comes to mind - one of my favorites from the Hartnell era - where a history lesson about the ancient Aztecs spanned four episodes without requiring a single monster. My point is, educational episodes are great, as long as you don't make it OBVIOUS that being educational is what you're trying to be. Besides, most children are more inclined to absorb such facts if they aren't aware that's they're being fed educational data.
Curtis minimized the use of CGI in this story by having the Krafayis be invisible to everyone in the episode except Van Gogh. This turns out to be the reason behind some of the accusations Van Gogh had got by the townspeople about being mad. Kudos for that, but it was one of those CGI-dodging gimmicks that's a bit obvious to the trained viewer. OF COURSE it's invisible. I'm not encouraging the use of CGI by no means, but there are other ways to get around it besides simply having the appearance of the monster absent for the most part of the episode, and writing it being invisible (and blind, apparently). Animatronics comes to mind. Yeah, it's a lot more time consuming to build a puppet and shoot some forced-perspective shots with it, but the pay off is worth it. If you look on YouTube, you've got five-year olds posting tutorial videos about using Adobe AfterEffects. Most kids know the difference between CGI and real, tangible puppets, so they're more likely to be scared behind the sofa by a physical puppet than a CGI monster. There's some body language that CG
I just can't mimic, and it's a dead giveaway. The kids may know it's a mechanically operated puppet, but to them, its a REAL puppet nonetheless, and they can't help but wonder if it's going to be hiding under their bed later that night. The worst a CGI monster can do is crash your PC or Mac.The episode also had atleast 30% t0 40% of it's shots done in shaky-cam, so do I really need to rant again about why I subtract points for this?
What really killed this episode's score was the final ten minutes, where it effectively drops into a modern day primetime drama format for Van Gogh's visit to the 2010 museum. Having an emotional, heart wrenching Lifehouse-ish song over the epilogue of an episode has been the norm for television dramas like "Grey's Anatomy,""E.R.," and "One Tree Hill" for years. I'm not sure if this was Moffat's experimental attempt to "see how the fans like this format," but it's been my understanding that hard core Whovians were outraged by it, myself included. If there's one thing that has no place in an episode of Doctor Who, it's modern day music with lyrics! Thankfully, so far this episode has been the only one to do so, having already seen Series 6/Season32.
It was an OK episode, but as the title implies, it was mainly about a particular character, to the point that the inclusion of a monster made little to no sense at all.
I agree w/you on The Aztecs, which is I think the best First Doctor story released on DVD as of today. I gave Vincent & the Doctor a 6/10, bumping it up only because of Tony Curran's performance as Van Gogh.
ReplyDelete"The Romans" is another well-done historical story, and so is "The Reign Of Terror," although some episodes are missing.
DeleteI agree w/you on The Romans, which got a 9/10 from me. This is a case of Doctor Who comedy done right, but w/good performances and an interesting story that ties together well. Am waiting for the restored Reign of Terror w/the missing episodes animated before making any comments.
ReplyDelete