Starry Starry Night...

"If you look hard, there are more wonders in this universe than you could ever have dreamed of."

Sorry for being late. Well, the only good thing about writing a review after every one else have already informed us about their opinions is that I'm able to say Curti's Vincent and the Doctor is quite dividing the whoniverse. And I know saying this is not worth waiting almost one week to write a review, sorry.

I for my part liked it pretty much, although I have to agree with the common opinion, the ending was a bit cheesy, and I really could have done without the music. The next time they should make sure to get rather the acoustic version than the actual song. But apart from that, I really loved it for Curtis' didn't stopped by writing an interesting story sprinkled with quotable dialogues, but there were also some Doctor Who insiders, which maybe not even every fan knows about, but more about this in a minute.

For a start, the episode's beginning was awesome and it worked pretty well also with the small bits, like the Doctor being irritated by the boys' conversation, just like any other fan of this show.

Then, there was the actual part of the story, with Vincent Van Gogh played by an incredibly good Tony Curran. Some fans might have been upset of Vincent having a Scottish accent, but luckily SFX prepared us for that and those who still haven't got it, this was what point 5 on their preview list, the one about the ongoing TARDIS-gag, was all about.

Indeed, this week's (or rather last week's) list was hotly discussed in several Doctor Who forums. And this leads us straight to our next point (point 1o for any SFX fans) which was, and I quote "a major story element that some will decry as a massive plot hole and others will embrace on a metaphorical level".
To my mind, the only important thing lacking some explenation was "the monster", or rather, why Vincent was the only one who could see it. Nevertheless, the monster is real and I think a far more interesting question is how the Doctor appeared to "Vincent van Goff". (At one point I wondered whether David Tennant would have got the pronunciation right, and yes, actually I'm pretty sure he would.)

Furthermore, while some see the monster as a big unnecessary something, others can't help noticing the extraordinary irony Curtis has added to the story through this. Namely, we have an invisible blind monster, which only a "mad" painter can see.

Taliking about Vincent's mental conditions. I'm glad the way this topic was dealt with, so that his depression was not denied or whatever they could have done with it, but it was very much there. His breakdown and suicide were surely major elements of the episode. But at the same time we were also showed that it was the same man "painting" his famous "Starry Night" picture into the sky, which was the most beautiful scene of the whole episode. The Doctor's line "I haven't seen nothing quite as wonderful as the things you see." couldn't have been more on spot.

Maybe also because of this (and that Amy tries to apply the Doctor's "time can be rewritten" theory and has to recognise that sometimes it just doesn't rewrites itself) the ending was surely tragic. Still, again, the Doctor doesn't fail to hit the mark... And he is sooo right. They definitely added to Vincent's pile of good things.