Was it just me, or was there something very old-fashioned about Saturday’s (American – Yes, I know you’ve seen the season finale, British people and those who download things from websites that we pretend don’t exist) Doctor Who? Romps with historical figures, invisible monsters and lessons about the permanence of time – It was just like oldschool Who… and not just because of the William Hartnell cameo.
You could tell that “Vincent And The Doctor” was the work of Four Weddings And A Funeral/Love, Actually‘s Richard Curtis by the sentimentality of the episode (Vincent gets a chance to find out he’s beloved in the future after all!), as well as the particularly un-Who-like pop song at the end, but those two things aside, this was a fun, if slightly throwaway episode that felt both necessary and especially light after last week’s death of Rory (Picked up on a couple of times this week – Certainly, the Doctor still remembers him, but part of Amy seems to, as well; why else would she be crying?). I was disappointed not to see the Crack In Everything appear (or, at least, not too obviously), but thankfully small details (Van Gogh thinking Amy is from Holland, because he shares her Scottish accent! Bill Nighy cameo! Bow tie jokes! The papered-over Tardis!) distracted enough to make the episode worth watching.
The piece of the episode that stuck out, in terms of the overall season arc, though, was Amy happily telling the Doctor that time could be rewritten – Something he himself had said earlier this season – only to find out that… well, maybe it can’t. Van Gogh’s life may have changed slightly – The “For Amy” on the painting showed that much, at least – but, for all intents and purposes, everything ended the same. So what does that mean for the Doctor’s earlier theorizing, and also the Crack In Time that seems to be doing what is now implied is impossible? Will the Crack be stopped by time re-asserting itself? Will everyone who’s died as a result of the Crack return in another place or time-period, a la Darkseid’s Omega Beams? Am I overthinking the ending more than a little bit? Only time – and a week longer than usual, thanks to the holiday next week – will tell.
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