Plenty of big names have guest starred in Doctor Who – but one outshone them all.
From Kylie Minogue and Andrew Garfield to Carey Mulligan, Simon Pegg, and the late, great Sir Michael Gambon, Doctor Who is in a league of its own when it comes to guest stars.
Some of the biggest names on the planet have lent their talents to Doctor Who and there’s no doubting that their performances have gone down in the show’s history. Blink, starring Mulligan and introducing the world to the terrifying Weeping Angels, is widely regarded as one of the best episodes in the sci-fi’s history.
Similarly, is there a single Christmas episode that could rival Voyage of the Damned, starring the iconic Kylie Minogue as Astrid Perth?
But, while big names are a huge draw for Doctor Who fans, there’s one guest star who overshadowed all of the others with his understated, heartwarming, and fiercely lovable portrayal of a historical figure – Tony Curran as Vincent Van Gogh.
Of course, Curran had had an incredible career before guest starring in Doctor Who, which has continued since. Most recently, he’s appeared in Marvel’s Secret Invasion, the series Your Honor, and gave a devastating performance in Mayflies. But, from my very biased point of view, Doctor Who showed him at his best.
Vincent and the Doctor could have been one of those episodes to have passed us by. In the midst of season 5, it sees the Tenth Doctor (Matt Smith) and Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) go back in time to Provence after seeing an ominous figure in one of Van Gogh’s paintings.
It was a risky move. Van Gogh’s history has been told plenty of times before, so viewers would need to get something new out of that story. Plus, Doctor Who has to have a monster, and while the Krafayis fit into the story nicely, it didn’t exactly prove to be a stand-out part of the show, instead becoming pretty forgettable among other season 5 villains.
But, in the end, none of that mattered, because Richard Curtis’s direction combined with Curran’s performance gave us some of the most beautiful and tear-jerking moments to ever grace Doctor Who.
One of them comes when Vincent, Amy and the Doctor lie down and hold hands and the artist describes his view of the starry night to them.
“Everywhere we look, complex magic of nature blazes before our eyes,” he tells them, with the Doctor responding: “I’ve seen many things my friend, but you’re right. Nothing quite as wonderful as the things you see.”
Somehow in a two-minute scene, Curran managed to get across some of of the most beautiful parts of Van Gogh’s artistry – his unique view of the world and his ability to turn pain into art in a way that no one else has before.
But the one scene that has stuck in most fans’ mind is that scene in the Musée d’Orsay. In a move quite unusual for the Doctor, he decides to take Vincent to present-day Paris to give him a glimpse of how important he would become.
Vincent is visibly thrilled to be there, stopping and admiring Monet’s Waterlilies in a beautiful touch.
He’s looking away so doesn’t see the sign for the next exhibition which just to happens to be the busiest one in the gallery. Without saying a single a word, Curran reduced all of us to tears, with Vincent in disbelief as he looks at his life’s work on display and being taken by avid admirers.
An appearance from Bill Nighy as Professor Black, the art curator, is completely overshadowed, as Curran’s eyes get watery when Vincent hears himself being described as one of the best artists of all time before showing him completely breaking down.
To make the scene even more emotional, it can be inferred that the Doctor knew this visit wouldn’t change the outcome of Van Gogh’s life – he would still go on to battle depression and take his own life – but it could potentially give him a small bit of peace knowing his life had meaning.
There are plenty of reasons Vincent and the Doctor resonates with fans. Curtis and Curran provided a delicate and compassionate depiction of mental illness – something that’s all too rare on TV today, let alone more than a decade ago. Rather than focusing on the tragedy of the artist’s life, the episode zones in on his humanity, his genius, and his legacy, providing a slightly more hopeful ending to that story than the one we all know.
It’s not hard to see how deeply the scene resonated with viewers. On the Doctor Who YouTube channel, which uploads all of the most iconic scenes in Doctor Who history, it’s the most-viewed clip by far, currently sitting at 25 million views. Far behind in second place is the first meeting of Matt Smith and David Tennant’s Doctors, the long-awaited moment from the 50th anniversary special, at a mere 11 million – less than half.
