Richard Curtis’ kinda long-awaited Doctor Who episode features Tony Curran as VIncent Van Gogh, in the latest ‘You’re brilliant you are, absolutely brilliant!’ historical character ep.

So, was it totally Blackadder or s steaming pile of pretty much everything else Curtis has done?

Caves

 

Set-up – The monster in the painting’ thing was a nice set-up

Tony Curran – Pretty convincing, didn’t ham it up and generally hit the right notes

Location – Looked nice, and gave the episode a very different look to previous series

Central performances – Curtis made Smith look foolish on occasion, but the three lead characters all did well, and made the emotional pay-off work.

Couple of funny one-liners

Twins

 

Stupid Doctor – Curtis made the Eleventh Doctor into his posh idiot cypher, and Matt Smith suffered as a result. Did neither character nor actor any favours.

Another unconvincing CGI monster – Is that the third, or fourth, or fifth this season?

Plot – Admittedly not the really the point, but didn’t seem to make much sense.

Athlete – Fucking hell. Made Murray Gold look like Leonard Cohen.

All in all, something of a curate’s egg. A brave move to take the series into fairly unexplored territory, and generally carried off well. A dodgy plot, some iffy characterisation and treacley end didn’t detract from an emotionally-satisfying ep on the whole though.

• Caves and Twins? What are you dribbling on about?

Go here: Caves and Twins