(no subject)
DW episode 05:10, Vincent and the Doctor..... did many, many important things right.
From the very first shot -- wind over a wheat field, or is it something else? -- I love the colors in this ep. Everything seems sharper, richer, more saturated than usual. And then we cut to Amy and the Doctor, taking in a Van Gogh gallery, and I wonder how the end of last week's episode will factor into this one.
This first episode after Cold Blood has big, big shoes to fill. And it fills them. Within the first few minutes it's confirmed that Doctor does remember Rory; he's being extra-nice to Amy, so much so that she notices. And is suspicious. Which is adorable.
Doctor: *looking at a face in a window of a Van Gogh painting* "I know evil when I see it, and I see it in that window." Well, he sees more than me (and more, it turns out, than was actually present). I couldn't even make out what part of that blobby thing is supposed to be a face until I'd actually seen the monster. But then, it takes practice to see what Van Gogh saw.
(Also, Bill Nighy is fantastic and would've made a great Doctor. Just sayin'.~)
Doctor: *waving his psychic paper around* "Routine inspection, ministry of art and... artiness." HEEEEE. I love how the psychic paper is becoming a thing of hilarity in the new season.
And then, after getting Important Information that he needed to know right away before somebody got hurt, the Doctor paused to complement Bill's bow-tie. And reiterate that "bowties are cool". And get a compliment back. HEEEEE.
Language nitpick: was Van Gogh, or anyone from his time period, ever in the habit of saying anything was "cool"? Meh... I guess after Girl in the Fireplace it'd just be silly to expect any period piece made nowadays to get the local idiom right. Fic where he learned the word from a different Doctor naow, plz.
(This was one of those historical-character episodes of which I am always inclined to be suspicious, especially since I felt Churchill's didn't measure up, but I started out largely clueless about Van Gogh's life and personality, outside the much-reported ear incident and being able to recognize some of his signature masterpieces. I probably missed many artistic in-jokes and have no idea how competently the script rendered the actual historical figure. However, whether this Van Gogh was authentic or not, many things were internally authentic about this Vincent character whom I will now start calling 'Vincent' because the Doctor does, so I have few complaints on that score.)
Vincent: "Your hair is... orange."
Amy: "Yes. So's yours."
Vincent: "Yes. It... was more orange, but now is of course... less."
Doctor: *EYEROLL*
Me: *wincing at the inevitable Vincent/Amy fic sure to spring up now, especially after the last bit of the episode*
And then a villager is found dead. Interestingly, it's a murder -- and we don't get a closeup of whatever horrible thing happened to the victim, just an outstretched hand and some rumpled clothes. Somehow, it's more frightening that way.
Doctor: "Beautiful night. Very... starry." Now that's one reference I got (and it was made even more blatant later on).
Next observation: Amy's a very good screamer. I don't think any of the previous new companions have had such a... melodious scream.
"Amy, get back, he's having some kind of fit!" Oh, Doctor, even I can tell it's something he sees (although I have the benefit of knowing how stories are constructed). Invisible monster that, according to Van Gogh, looks sort of like a hippogriff.... not bad.
Amy: "But it could be outside! Waitin'!"
Doctor: "I'll risk it! What's the worst that could happen?"
Amy: "You could get torn into pieces by a monster you can't see."
Doctor: "...you're right. Yes, that."
And then he walks out, scares them by popping back in and yelling, and leaves again.
Doctor: *rooting around in an old trunk looking for a piece of technology* "Right, I know you're in here somewhere! I can't apologize enough. I thought you were just a useless gadget. I thought you were just an embarrassing present from a dull godmother with two heads and baaaaaaaaaaaad breath.... twice. How wrong can a man be?"
I quite love it how every time he sees a mirror, he finds it his duty to make a face in it. AND THEN the doohicky starts printing out pictures of his previous faces. FIRST AND SECOND DOCTOR SHOUTOUTS FTW!<3
Amy: "Sorry, I got bored!" Yes indeed, that is a marvelous excuse for going out and wandering around on your own in a village with GIANT INVISIBLE MONSTERS about.
Her sunflower deluge is kind of cute, though. (And there's a chicken in the scene. Chickens always deserve a mention. I wonder if it's one of the same ones from Vampires of Venice.~)
The Doctor's speech about how they have to be careful or some of Van Gogh's most important work will be wiped out of history... makes me think he's thinking of Rory.
Obligatory "Zomg a wall" shot! Well, technically "zomg a window", but still.
And then the bedroom scene happens. No screencaps, because..... ow.
Doctor: "Vincent, can I help?"
Vincent: "You can't help. And when you leave -- and everyone always leaves -- I will be left again with an empty heart and no hope."
Doctor: "My experience is that there is... y'know... surprisingly, always hope."
Vincent: *rages* "Then your experience is incomplete!"
*wince* And in this context, he's right. Hope is something that can be used to fight dangers external to the mind. Madness, depression -- that's not something you can stop by wanting hope to be there. Maybe it's there, but that's on the outside and there's something else on the inside where you live. You can pretend until it passes, or you can rage until it passes, and it'll take its time either way; it comes and goes without reason and all you can do is keep breathing until it's over. That's something I'm not sure Eleven understands, at least not experientially. (Mind, Ten didn't get it either and it was happening to him, though his depression was rooted in circumstance, not in very bad brain chemistry. I think.) But the episode DOES understand it. That's pretty important.
Amy: "I'm sorry you're so sad."
Vincent: "But I'm not. Sometimes these moods torture me for weeks, for months, but I'm good now. If Amy Pond can soldier on, then so can Vincent Van Gogh." (Was anybody reminded here about Sherlock Holmes's "Sometimes I get down in the dumps and don't move for days, let me alone and I'll soon be right," speech from A Study in Scarlet?)
Amy doesn't think she's soldiering on about anything, but Vincent can "hear" it. He thinks she's lost someone. Behind them, the Doctor listens, knowing who was lost and knowing there's nothing he can do.
Amy: "I'm not sad."
Vincent: "Then why are you crying?"
Amy: *brushes a tear from her eye, surprised that it's there*
Amy has no idea why she's suffering. It's hard for her to even comprehend that she's suffering, because there's no obvious reason that she can recall, because she's not in the habit of being unhappy, because it doesn't make sense to her so the fact that it is there takes her by surprise. And it does exist, a different note of the same fugue that Vincent has always heard, but she doesn't know she can't remember why.
Amy: You do have a plan, don't you?"
Doctor: "No. It's a thing. It's like a plan, only with more grayness."
"Thing" is now a technical term. RESPECT THE THING! XDDDDD
For a moment the Doctor tries very sympathetically to bring up current theories of madness vs depression, but Vincent doesn't want to hear -- he's painting. So instead the Doctor doesn't shut up about how Michaelangelo was afraid of heights and Picasso was a ghastly old goat and what he said to them about their work. (Which calapine describes as BACKSEAT PAINTING. *loves*) Because he's bored, because real time passes slowly in the right order. "If there's one thing I can't stand, it's an unpunctual alien attack!" *DIES*
(One nitpick about the church: how does the monster get in and out if the door's shut? Eh, whatever.)
Doctor: "Right! Here's the plan. Amy, Rory--"
Amy: "Who?"
Doctor: "Sorry, uh -- Vincent--"
Me: *winces, OH SHOW*
*and to break the mood, another EEE A WALL shot!*
I spend way too much time watching for them. :D
Doctor: "I am really stupid. And I'm growing old." His Tenth Doctor "all is angst" habits keep making him theorize ahead of his data... though to be fair all the data they had up to that point did indicate a cruel, merciless killer monster.
The monster's end was a cliche, but it could have been much worse: its merit was that the discovery wasn't a revelation. "He was frightened," Vincent said, "and he lashed out. Like humans who lash out when they're frightened. Like the villagers who scream at me. Like the children who throw stones at me." Vincent wasn't discovering anything new about the villagers; they had no epiphany about him. He didn't curse himself for killing the monster, though he regretted it; the Doctor didn't rail at him for being a naughty violent human. *kicks Flesh and Stone* It was just a terrible situation that could only be endured.
At that point, I thought the episode was over, but there was still the starry-night scene.
Vincent: "Take my hand, Doctor. Try to see what I see."
That was mushy too, but still. (It's like the writer had three or four different endings he wanted to use, and finally decided to use them all.)
And then I again thought the episode was over. AND THEN THEY BROUGHT VINCENT BACK TO THE TARDIS. WHAT. *GLEE*
Doctor: *showing Vincent the controls* "This one plays soothing music." *music starts, the Doctor and Amy dance about for half a second* "And this one... makes a huge amount of noise." *odd dweedly noises* "And this one... makes everything go absolutely gonzo." *WHEEZE, GROAN, AND THEY'RE IN FLIGHT, ZOMG THEY JUST KIDNAPPED VINCENT VAN GOGH, THIS EPISODE IS AWESOME, etc etc etc!*
Vincent: "And this one--" *reaches out*
Doctor: *yells and stops him* "That's the friction contrafibrillator!"
Vincent: "And this one?"
Doctor: "That's ketchup, and that's mustard."
And then the third and fourth endings happened. They pulled out all the musical stops for the last few scenes, and I don't care at all that putting a song in there like that was just like that one scene at the end of NCIS s05e02 (or lots of scenes in other dramas, House for example, but I wasn't used to seeing it in DW).
What this episode did right: it made depression (and various other mental illnesses that fit Van Gogh's symptoms) something that isn't evil and that doesn't have a miracle cure -- something that has to be lived with and is nobody's fault. copperbadge puts it way better than I could: '' Depression is not a matter of "cheering up" or taking more walks or seeing pretty things or knowing one day you'll be in a museum. It's a neurological condition. You can't fix it by hugging someone more, and that's brutal too.'' And yet, the existence of a person with depression is not in itself a tragedy.
Doctor: "The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant."
I'll repeat that: the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant.
Van Gogh, at least this version of him, created beautiful things not because of his depression, but despite it. He saw beauty not because of his illness, but despite it. And despite the beauty, the depression still existed. And despite the depression, the beauty was still waiting.
It's a powerful, triggery episode. And I think that this time, they got it right.
From the very first shot -- wind over a wheat field, or is it something else? -- I love the colors in this ep. Everything seems sharper, richer, more saturated than usual. And then we cut to Amy and the Doctor, taking in a Van Gogh gallery, and I wonder how the end of last week's episode will factor into this one.
This first episode after Cold Blood has big, big shoes to fill. And it fills them. Within the first few minutes it's confirmed that Doctor does remember Rory; he's being extra-nice to Amy, so much so that she notices. And is suspicious. Which is adorable.
Doctor: *looking at a face in a window of a Van Gogh painting* "I know evil when I see it, and I see it in that window." Well, he sees more than me (and more, it turns out, than was actually present). I couldn't even make out what part of that blobby thing is supposed to be a face until I'd actually seen the monster. But then, it takes practice to see what Van Gogh saw.
(Also, Bill Nighy is fantastic and would've made a great Doctor. Just sayin'.~)
Doctor: *waving his psychic paper around* "Routine inspection, ministry of art and... artiness." HEEEEE. I love how the psychic paper is becoming a thing of hilarity in the new season.
And then, after getting Important Information that he needed to know right away before somebody got hurt, the Doctor paused to complement Bill's bow-tie. And reiterate that "bowties are cool". And get a compliment back. HEEEEE.
Language nitpick: was Van Gogh, or anyone from his time period, ever in the habit of saying anything was "cool"? Meh... I guess after Girl in the Fireplace it'd just be silly to expect any period piece made nowadays to get the local idiom right. Fic where he learned the word from a different Doctor naow, plz.
(This was one of those historical-character episodes of which I am always inclined to be suspicious, especially since I felt Churchill's didn't measure up, but I started out largely clueless about Van Gogh's life and personality, outside the much-reported ear incident and being able to recognize some of his signature masterpieces. I probably missed many artistic in-jokes and have no idea how competently the script rendered the actual historical figure. However, whether this Van Gogh was authentic or not, many things were internally authentic about this Vincent character whom I will now start calling 'Vincent' because the Doctor does, so I have few complaints on that score.)
Vincent: "Your hair is... orange."
Amy: "Yes. So's yours."
Vincent: "Yes. It... was more orange, but now is of course... less."
Doctor: *EYEROLL*
Me: *wincing at the inevitable Vincent/Amy fic sure to spring up now, especially after the last bit of the episode*
And then a villager is found dead. Interestingly, it's a murder -- and we don't get a closeup of whatever horrible thing happened to the victim, just an outstretched hand and some rumpled clothes. Somehow, it's more frightening that way.
Doctor: "Beautiful night. Very... starry." Now that's one reference I got (and it was made even more blatant later on).
Next observation: Amy's a very good screamer. I don't think any of the previous new companions have had such a... melodious scream.
"Amy, get back, he's having some kind of fit!" Oh, Doctor, even I can tell it's something he sees (although I have the benefit of knowing how stories are constructed). Invisible monster that, according to Van Gogh, looks sort of like a hippogriff.... not bad.
Amy: "But it could be outside! Waitin'!"
Doctor: "I'll risk it! What's the worst that could happen?"
Amy: "You could get torn into pieces by a monster you can't see."
Doctor: "...you're right. Yes, that."
And then he walks out, scares them by popping back in and yelling, and leaves again.
Doctor: *rooting around in an old trunk looking for a piece of technology* "Right, I know you're in here somewhere! I can't apologize enough. I thought you were just a useless gadget. I thought you were just an embarrassing present from a dull godmother with two heads and baaaaaaaaaaaad breath.... twice. How wrong can a man be?"
I quite love it how every time he sees a mirror, he finds it his duty to make a face in it. AND THEN the doohicky starts printing out pictures of his previous faces. FIRST AND SECOND DOCTOR SHOUTOUTS FTW!<3
Amy: "Sorry, I got bored!" Yes indeed, that is a marvelous excuse for going out and wandering around on your own in a village with GIANT INVISIBLE MONSTERS about.
Her sunflower deluge is kind of cute, though. (And there's a chicken in the scene. Chickens always deserve a mention. I wonder if it's one of the same ones from Vampires of Venice.~)
The Doctor's speech about how they have to be careful or some of Van Gogh's most important work will be wiped out of history... makes me think he's thinking of Rory.
Obligatory "Zomg a wall" shot! Well, technically "zomg a window", but still.
And then the bedroom scene happens. No screencaps, because..... ow.
Doctor: "Vincent, can I help?"
Vincent: "You can't help. And when you leave -- and everyone always leaves -- I will be left again with an empty heart and no hope."
Doctor: "My experience is that there is... y'know... surprisingly, always hope."
Vincent: *rages* "Then your experience is incomplete!"
*wince* And in this context, he's right. Hope is something that can be used to fight dangers external to the mind. Madness, depression -- that's not something you can stop by wanting hope to be there. Maybe it's there, but that's on the outside and there's something else on the inside where you live. You can pretend until it passes, or you can rage until it passes, and it'll take its time either way; it comes and goes without reason and all you can do is keep breathing until it's over. That's something I'm not sure Eleven understands, at least not experientially. (Mind, Ten didn't get it either and it was happening to him, though his depression was rooted in circumstance, not in very bad brain chemistry. I think.) But the episode DOES understand it. That's pretty important.
Amy: "I'm sorry you're so sad."
Vincent: "But I'm not. Sometimes these moods torture me for weeks, for months, but I'm good now. If Amy Pond can soldier on, then so can Vincent Van Gogh." (Was anybody reminded here about Sherlock Holmes's "Sometimes I get down in the dumps and don't move for days, let me alone and I'll soon be right," speech from A Study in Scarlet?)
Amy doesn't think she's soldiering on about anything, but Vincent can "hear" it. He thinks she's lost someone. Behind them, the Doctor listens, knowing who was lost and knowing there's nothing he can do.
Amy: "I'm not sad."
Vincent: "Then why are you crying?"
Amy: *brushes a tear from her eye, surprised that it's there*
Amy has no idea why she's suffering. It's hard for her to even comprehend that she's suffering, because there's no obvious reason that she can recall, because she's not in the habit of being unhappy, because it doesn't make sense to her so the fact that it is there takes her by surprise. And it does exist, a different note of the same fugue that Vincent has always heard, but she doesn't know she can't remember why.
Amy: You do have a plan, don't you?"
Doctor: "No. It's a thing. It's like a plan, only with more grayness."
"Thing" is now a technical term. RESPECT THE THING! XDDDDD
For a moment the Doctor tries very sympathetically to bring up current theories of madness vs depression, but Vincent doesn't want to hear -- he's painting. So instead the Doctor doesn't shut up about how Michaelangelo was afraid of heights and Picasso was a ghastly old goat and what he said to them about their work. (Which calapine describes as BACKSEAT PAINTING. *loves*) Because he's bored, because real time passes slowly in the right order. "If there's one thing I can't stand, it's an unpunctual alien attack!" *DIES*
(One nitpick about the church: how does the monster get in and out if the door's shut? Eh, whatever.)
Doctor: "Right! Here's the plan. Amy, Rory--"
Amy: "Who?"
Doctor: "Sorry, uh -- Vincent--"
Me: *winces, OH SHOW*
*and to break the mood, another EEE A WALL shot!*
I spend way too much time watching for them. :D
Doctor: "I am really stupid. And I'm growing old." His Tenth Doctor "all is angst" habits keep making him theorize ahead of his data... though to be fair all the data they had up to that point did indicate a cruel, merciless killer monster.
The monster's end was a cliche, but it could have been much worse: its merit was that the discovery wasn't a revelation. "He was frightened," Vincent said, "and he lashed out. Like humans who lash out when they're frightened. Like the villagers who scream at me. Like the children who throw stones at me." Vincent wasn't discovering anything new about the villagers; they had no epiphany about him. He didn't curse himself for killing the monster, though he regretted it; the Doctor didn't rail at him for being a naughty violent human. *kicks Flesh and Stone* It was just a terrible situation that could only be endured.
At that point, I thought the episode was over, but there was still the starry-night scene.
Vincent: "Take my hand, Doctor. Try to see what I see."
That was mushy too, but still. (It's like the writer had three or four different endings he wanted to use, and finally decided to use them all.)
And then I again thought the episode was over. AND THEN THEY BROUGHT VINCENT BACK TO THE TARDIS. WHAT. *GLEE*
Doctor: *showing Vincent the controls* "This one plays soothing music." *music starts, the Doctor and Amy dance about for half a second* "And this one... makes a huge amount of noise." *odd dweedly noises* "And this one... makes everything go absolutely gonzo." *WHEEZE, GROAN, AND THEY'RE IN FLIGHT, ZOMG THEY JUST KIDNAPPED VINCENT VAN GOGH, THIS EPISODE IS AWESOME, etc etc etc!*
Vincent: "And this one--" *reaches out*
Doctor: *yells and stops him* "That's the friction contrafibrillator!"
Vincent: "And this one?"
Doctor: "That's ketchup, and that's mustard."
And then the third and fourth endings happened. They pulled out all the musical stops for the last few scenes, and I don't care at all that putting a song in there like that was just like that one scene at the end of NCIS s05e02 (or lots of scenes in other dramas, House for example, but I wasn't used to seeing it in DW).
What this episode did right: it made depression (and various other mental illnesses that fit Van Gogh's symptoms) something that isn't evil and that doesn't have a miracle cure -- something that has to be lived with and is nobody's fault. copperbadge puts it way better than I could: '' Depression is not a matter of "cheering up" or taking more walks or seeing pretty things or knowing one day you'll be in a museum. It's a neurological condition. You can't fix it by hugging someone more, and that's brutal too.'' And yet, the existence of a person with depression is not in itself a tragedy.
Doctor: "The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant."
I'll repeat that: the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant.
Van Gogh, at least this version of him, created beautiful things not because of his depression, but despite it. He saw beauty not because of his illness, but despite it. And despite the beauty, the depression still existed. And despite the depression, the beauty was still waiting.
It's a powerful, triggery episode. And I think that this time, they got it right.