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Vincent and the Doctor
I've been commenting, but I should actually post as well. I think this one's my favourite so far.
This was a beautiful and strong story about the nature of art, time, and mental illness, and Curran's performance as Vincent was stunning. I loved the bedroom. I want it. At uni I had that picture on my own bedroom wall (plus another of a bridge) and a chair very like his which I called my van Gogh chair. Looking at them made me very happy back then, and this episode did too. They did a lovely job on the cafe too.
However I think the story was flawed by the monster which felt tacked on as if it was the token science fiction bit whereas time travel is SF enough. I think the story would have been even better had the monster been something van Gogh painted to represent the villagers' hostility or his loneliness, and then painted out after he met Amy and the Doctor and found how much his art was appreciated and loved after his death. Its presence weakened a beautiful and strong story that didn't need it.
The monster was inconsistent anyway: at first described as being from a brutal race, then seen as a pitiful blind frightened creature. And I wasn't impressed that it killed a young woman; far too many victims are young women.
I'm not sure how the Doctor could see it in his mirror (though I liked the steampunk look of his device) but I assume van Gogh could see it due to synaesthesia he showed when he talked about hearing the colours. And the colours were wonderful. This is one I'm definitively watching again.
Van Gogh painted lots of sunflowers BTW, and most before he met Amy. :-) But I can forgive that because it was such a lovely scene. The "greatest artist who ever lived" stuff was OTT too (and wrong) but hey, I like his work.
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I think your suggestion about the monster would have been much better, but they are imprisoned by the idea that one can't do historical episodes without added aliens. Boring, boring. I also thought it was a bit of a shame that Amy's enthusiasm for Van Gogh came out of nowhere; it wasn't that it was improbable as such, but it would have been nice if she'd had a throwaway line about art in an earlier episode (or maybe she did and I didn't notice?) I started wondering whether she'd studied art history, and then couldn't find a job, and that was why she'd had to fall back on kissagramming. Then it would have been nice if she'd had to do some more explaining of Van Gogh to the Doctor, since his knowledge does tend to be personal and he clearly hadn't met the man before.
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I don't think some of the early classic episodes needed anything but time travel. They put the first Doctor on after the B7 reruns here and I remember the stone age, Aztecs, Romans etc, but without any aliens or monsters. Maybe I'm wrong; it was years ago. I still think time travel is enough though, if you have a good story.
Maybe Amy just liked his work, and had a print of one of the sunflower paintings on her wall.
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The last straight historical episode was The Highlanders (which introduced Jamie) in December 1966-January 1967, unless you count Black Orchid in 1982 (the two-episode 1920s country house story).
I realised after typing it out that my complaints re Amy were classic B7 ones. Dayna's sudden interest in music, Blake explaining the history of space travel to Jenna rather than vice versa! There's no reason why Amy shouldn't just be a fan (has anyone noticed whether she had any Van Gogh prints in her bedroom? I know there have been detailed analyses of what's on her wall), but it just seemed like a missed opportunity to flesh out her character a little. But maybe that's the point, in that there's supposed to be a mystery about Amy and therefore her personal back-story is deliberately suppressed?
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Sorry, I'm not enough of a Doctor Who fan to know what was on her wall or in her house. I only remember the Doctor stuff she made herself. You'd think though that Moffat as chief writer would have specified something like that in an earlier script, but as you say, they could be deliberately keeping her a mystery. Van Gogh is an extremely well known artists though, so it's not unlikely she'd like his work and have some prints.
As for Jenna, I know it's not playing the game, but apparently Sally Knyvette said she couldn't handle the technobabble. Pity, as she said it with some cool conviction. I explain that one away by her having no interest in history, even of space flight. Dayna's music I ignore as I try to forget most of that episode. Maybe she likes the primitive instruments.
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Dayna having an interest in music would have been fine if it had ever come up before or after; what was annoying was the sense that someone had to fulfil that role in that episode and she was the only character who didn't have something else to do already. (Come to think of it, Dayna seemed to suffer from this; cf being reassigned Cally's role in Animals.) That's probably why I'm a bit suspicious about Amy suddenly having an enthusiasm which hasn't been mentioned before. I'm also thinking of Shaz suddenly mentioning she had Gypsy roots in Ashes to Ashes; again, no reason why she shouldn't, but it's a one-off attribute for the convenience of a single episode. It's not an issue exclusive to female characters or UK shows, though; I remember