Meggin Watches Doctor Who: Vincent and the Doctor

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This episode of Doctor Who is in the middle of series five, so if you haven't seen it, some parts of this blog may confuse you.

The year is 2010, and the Doctor has decided to take Amy to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France, to look at some beautiful works of art to distract Amy from the fact that Rory (her fiancé) has died and been erased from time (as seen in the previous episode, Cold Blood). Upon entering the Vincent van Gogh exhibit, all is somewhat well, until the Doctor sees an alien face painted into the window of a church of one of van Gogh's paintings. Of course, this should never have happened, so the Doctor and Amy are off to go back in time to correct the situation.

            Time travelling in Paris, France! Two of my favourite things have just been combined into one epic episode of Doctor Who! I must say that this episode is the highlight of series five (except for the Pandorica, of course), simply because it deals with the amazing Impressionist artist, Vincent van Gogh. It’s crazy to see an amazing painter like him be so rejected by the people of his own village. And from what I’ve learnt about artists in school, not many of them were successful in their lifetime, including van Gogh.

            The plot in this story was also quite an interesting one: how there’s an invisible alien loose in the French village preying on humans, and no one can see it except Vincent, most likely because of his mental illness. But it also raised a question: if Vincent could see the monster because of his illness, then could others with the same illness see it as well? But I know how the writer decided to go about this episode, to make Vincent an extremely vital role in capturing the alien.

            The alien in this episode is known as the Krafayis, which, according to TARDIS Index File, is a creature capable of travelling through the universe in packs, going from one planet to the next to hunt. They have one of the best defence systems because they’re generally invisible (except to Vincent van Gogh), and so can’t be seen by their prey. This makes it difficult to kill the Krafayis, so they live for extremely long periods of time. The Krafayis in this episode happens to be alone, because his pack left him on Earth. Apparently, he is also blind, because of his perfect sense of hearing and van Gogh’s commentary on his whereabouts to assist Amy and the Doctor explains how the Krafayis feels around the walls of the church.

The Doctor intended to capture the Krafayis and return it to its home (where exactly is that, by the way?), but I had my doubts about that. How could he possibly get the Krafayis into the TARDIS (if that was the Doctor’s plan) and take him home without causing mayhem in the TARDIS? Of course, this tricky plot idea was dashed when Vincent lunges for the Krafayis and ends up killing him. How very convenient…

            One of my three favourite parts of this episode was when Vincent showed the Doctor and Amy how he saw the world through his own eyes, which I would have loved to witness myself. The three are all lying on the grass in the night, and Vincent asks them to take his hands so he can show them the world.

Vincent: ‘We're so lucky we're still alive to see this beautiful world. Look at the sky. It's not dark, and black, and without character. The black is in fact deep blue. And over there—lighter blue. And blowing through the blueness and the blackness, the wind, swirling through the air. And then shining, burning, bursting through, the stars—and you see how they roar their light. Everywhere we look, the complex magic of nature blazes before our eyes.’

Doctor: ‘I've seen many things, my friend. But you're right—nothing quite as wonderful as the things you see.'

 The sky above their heads transforms into the famous Starry Night painting by van Gogh himself, and it’s a beautiful sight.

            My second favourite part was when the Doctor decides to blow Vincent’s mind by taking him on a trip in the TARDIS to the present day. Upon opening the doors to the TARDIS, Vincent stares appallingly at how the inside is bigger than the outside (‘How come I’m the one who’s mad, and you two’ve stayed sane?’). The Doctor takes Vincent to the Musée d’Orsay right to the van Gogh exhibit. This is another reason why I love time travel: you can take famous people who feel bad about their work into the future to show them how truly admired they are. You can change their attitude to life and keep them moving forward with a spring in their step. Vincent even tells the Doctor after their trip to the Museum, ‘You may be the first doctor to have actually made a difference to my life!’

            And lastly, my absolute favourite part was when the Doctor and Amy return to the Museum after parting with Vincent, because of Amy’s curiosity to see if Vincent made even more paintings after his trip to the future. To Amy’s disappointment, there aren’t any new paintings, except a slight change to van Gogh’s last work of art: on one of his many paintings of sunflowers, Vincent added ‘for Amy’ on the side of the pot in the painting. My mind=blown.

Vincent did have a liking for Amy. Perhaps it was because she’s ginger…? I suddenly feel bad for Rory…

            Overall, this episode was enjoyable to sit through. It wasn’t too complicated, and it wasn’t a massive tear-jerker. The writer for this episode (Richard Curtis) has done a really brilliant job with recreating one of the greatest painters in history.

THOUGHTS:

Lots of memorable quotes this time!

·         The opening titles theme song never gets old.

·         ‘Your hair is…orange.’ ‘Yes, so is yours.’ Cheers for gingers!

·         Bill Nighy as the curator in the Musée d'Orsay! It’s great to see the guy who played Rufus Scrimgeour from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Alan Blunt in Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker in this episode!

·         Doctor: ‘Don’t worry; I’ll be back before you can say, “Where’s he got to now?”’

*Doctor leaves, jumps back in five seconds later*

‘NOT THAT FAST!’

*Amy screams*

‘But preeeetty fast. See you round.’ That’s my favourite bit.

·         Vincent: ‘That accent of yours. You’re from Holland like me?’

Doctor/Amy: ‘Yes/no.”

Doctor: ‘She means yes.’

·         Amy (to Vincent): ‘You don’t like sunflowers?’ How ironic.

·         Doctor: ‘Right. Amy, Rory—’

Amy: ‘Who?’

Just another reminder of Rory. I missed him in this episode.

·         ‘To me, van Gogh is the finest painter of them all. Certainly the most popular great painter of all time. The most beloved; his command of colour the most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world... no one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again. To my mind, that strange, wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world’s greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived.’

·         ‘Is this how time normally passes? Reeeeally slowly. In the right order.’

·         Did anyone else go to iTunes and buy the song Chances by Athlete after seeing this episode? It was fit into the exhibit scene perfectly, and it’s now one of my favourite songs.

·         The Doctor (to Amy): ‘The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things… The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things, and make them unimportant.’

·         Amy: ‘If we had got married, our kids would have had very, very red hair.’ 
Doctor: ‘The ultimate ginger.’ 

·         Where’s the crack in this episode? You see one in every episode of series five except this one!

Meggin Reads The Confessions of Georgia Nicolson

I haven’t been able to write a review for several weeks now, but that is because I was working on the big picture, namely, this particular review. I shall take the time today to review the entire series involving the encounters of the infamous Georgia Nicolson.

Yes, indeed, it is another review on something British. It’s a teenage British romantic comedy series, to be precise. Are any of you familiar with the film Angus, Thongs, and Perfect Snogging, mostly because it airs on Nickelodeon a lot? Well, that is based on a book which happens to be the first in this series. The Confessions of Georgia Nicolson is a hilarious series of diary entries of Georgia Nicolson, a British teenager who isn’t really normal but tries to the best of her ability to be. She has been through quite a lot throughout her books, from meeting fit guys, to getting dumped by fit guys, to eventful fiascos at entrancing fit guys. Not to mention the sensational variations of disco dancing with her mates. And the dreadful Stalag 14, let’s not forget that!

Already confused? Bear with me, for I am going to summarise to the best of my ability all of the books concerning Georgia. As there are ten instalments, I shall try my best to go through this quickly.

WARNING: I will use quite a lot of Georgia Nicolson slang in this review! Hopefully, if I remember, I will add a hasty definition after these phrases for clarification.

In the book that started everything off with a ‘Phwooooar,’ Georgia introduces herself, saying that she has:

1.       Spots that lurk like lurking lurkers (those beautiful pimples, for you Americans).

2.      A three-year-old sister who probably went to the loo in her bedroom.

3.      The ridiculous orang-utan gene that causes hair to sprout on the legs and the eyebrow area, thus causing Georgia to nick her dad’s razor and shave it all off.

4.      A huge conk (that’s a nose...) that spreads out over her face whenever she smiles, and it looks quite unattractive.

These character traits lead Georgia to believe that she is an ugly young woman who should be sent into an ugly home. But, seeing as how she can’t do that, she insists on slathering herself in makeup and dressing like a tosser in order to entrance the opposite gender.

Her boy entrancing skills get put into effect when the Ace Gang (her group of best pallies that include Jas, Rosie, Ellen, Mabs, and Jools) laid eyes on the two most attractive guys in town, named Robbie and Tom. Being girls, they simply must call dibs. Because Georgia and Jas saw them first, they get the lads all to themselves – well, sort of.

Because every teenage romance should have enemy, we get introduced to Wet Lindsay. Lindsay is different from the film version; while the movie describes her as a slag with a plastic personality and fake basoomas, the novelised version is a suck-up prefect with no forehead and a wet personality (wet meaning the kind of person who does her homework every day). Actually, one thing is the same for both versions: they both have fake nunga-nungas, which the Ace Gang find out about after stalking Lindsay to see what attractive qualities she presumably has. Wet Lindsay also has a thing for Robbie (the guy Georgia is keen on), so things end up being a competition between them to see who gets Robbie in the end.

While Jas is dreaming on about Tom, Georgia is in her own little world thinking about Robbie. Tom and Robbie are both brothers, and while Tom likes nature-y-type things (like Jas, what a coincidence), Robbie is into music. He’s in a band called the Stiff Dylans, and they’re quite possibly the best band in town. They have gigs almost every Saturday night in teenage clubs, and loads of people queue up to see them. He is also quite literally gorgey and absolutely marvy, and Georgia and the Ace Gang have nicknamed him the Sex God.

The whole first book is about how Georgia desperately tries to capture the Sex God before Wet Lindsay does. The novel ends on a somewhat pleasing note with the fact that it’s very clear that Georgia and Robbie like each other, but haven’t been able to start a relationship together. But all of that gets somewhat resolved in the next book!

On the Bright Side, I’m Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God has a pretty explanatory title. Georgia’s hard work in the beauty and luurve-entrancing department finally pays off in the successful capture of the Sex God. However, Georgia’s dad, who went off to Kiwi-a-gogo-land (also known as New Zealand) for his job (involving geothermal whatsits), encourages the rest of the family to come join him in the land of the marsupials. Georgia, having just started going out with the Sex God, refuses to leave, but in the end, Robbie realises Georgia is too immature for him (about time, to be honest) and so he leaves her. Georgia’s just about ready to pack her bags when her dad comes back after getting his shoes blown off his feet in Kiwi-a-gogo-land (no, really). Gearing back to the Robbie situation, when he breaks up with her, he tells her she should go out with one of his friends called Dave, who is a laugh. The Ace Gang nickname him Dave the Laugh because of his sense of humour, and Georgia decides to go out with him just to make Robbie jealous. What are the odds of that working? Robbie is giving Georgia the jealous eye, and Dave is actually developing feelings for her! Because she feels guiltnosity for using Dave as a red herring, she breaks up with Dave, who then goes out with Ellen, one of the Ace Gang members! Georgia doesn’t know why, but she feels a sort of anger inside when she found out, but all is well-ish when Robbie comes pinging back like an elastic band.

Knocked Out By My Nunga-Nungas involves Georgia going on a trip to Och Aye land (that’s Scotland) and the whole time, she pines for Robbie. But on her return to Billy Shakespeare land (Ye Olde England), she notices that Robbie doesn’t really have time for her, what with the band gaining popularity. She wanders into the gaze of Dave the Laugh once again, who she finds somewhat attractive, and not to mention the gorgey French student teacher. Georgia begins to develop a severe case of red-bottomosity (think female baboons), where she flirts with more than one guy. This, of course, surely can get out of hand...

In Dancing In My Nuddy Pants, Robbie and the Stiff Dylans have been offered to go on tour, and to go to Los Angeles across the world in Hamburger-a-gogo-land (The United States). Georgia is thinking of becoming the cliché ‘girlfriend of a pop star’ and go on tour with Robbie. Naturally, her parents think otherwise because she is only fifteen years old. Things turn out for the worse when Robbie decides to take a job in, guess where, Kiwi-a-gogo-land. Even though Georgia is slightly bummed about the Sex God leaving, she still doesn’t resist the opportunity to dance in her nuddy pants (oh, come on, you can work this one out for yourself)!

On to Away Laughing on a Fast Camel (a phrase that Dave the Laugh made up as a parting phrase to say to people). While Robbie is away in Kiwi-a-gogo, Georgia decides to eschew her red bottom with a firm hand, not associating with boys whatsoever. This, however, is easily said than done, because she somehow keeps snogging Dave the Laugh! Also, the new lead singer for the Stiff Dylans, the one who is supposed to take Robbie’s place, is a handsome half-Italian by the name of Masimo, nicknamed the Luurve God by the Ace Gang. Just like the Robbie fandango, Wet Lindsay is also crazily in love with Masimo, and this causes yet another girly race to ensnare the Luurve God first. The book ends on a crazy cliff-hanger, in which Masimo heads off to Hamburger-a-gogo-land to visit relatives, and, what a coincidence, Georgia’s dad announces that they’ll be going to the States as well for a clown car convention (not actual clown cars, just antique-like cars. I don’t know why Georgia exaggerates so much)!

In Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers, Georgia takes Jas with her family to go to the States, and she is desperate to find the Luurve God there and have a snogathon with him. There’s only one big problem: Masimo is in New York, and Georgia’s headed to the most stereotypical part of Hamburgese-land, Memphis. In a fruitless attempt to find the Luurve God, Georgia and Jas have a grand old time in Memphis, riding bucking bronco seats in restaurants and making fun of the Americans. They also managed to get a souvenir: bison horn headbands, which they use in their latest rendition of random dancing, the bison disco inferno dance. When Georgia returns from America, she works on maintaining glaciosity (coolness in any situation) to get Masimo to drop Wet Lindsay and be with her. Her glaciosity pays off when Masimo asks her vati (father; come on, keep up) if he can take her to dinner, which, afterwards, Georgia cuts to the chase and tells Masimo that she wants to be his one and only, even though he told her he only wants to have fun after recently getting out of a serious relationship. He then tells her he’ll let her know his decision in a week, leaving her impatiently waiting for his answer.

Moving on to Startled by His Furry Shorts, Masimo waits for a week (and a day) to tell Georgia what he has to say about her ultimatum. And do you know what he says? Well, it certainly isn’t yes...His rejection leaves Georgia on the rack of love, and to distract herself from boys, she decides to dedicate herself to the school play, in which she is MacDuff in the Shakespearean play MacUseless (the Ace Gang’s name for the Scottish play). It certainly doesn’t help make the situation better when Dave the Laugh is one of the many lads working backstage on the production, and Georgia and Dave have many secret laughs backstage. What made this book my favourite is the ending. Georgia, at one of the Stiff Dylans’ gigs, gets taken aside by Masimo, who tells her that he is now a free man for her, when THE SEX GOD ROBBIE comes up behind her and surprises the pants off of her. And what does she do? She runs away, and her excuse is that Sven (Rosie’s crazy boyfriend) just came round the corner, and she was startled by his furry shorts.

In Love is a Many Trousered Thing, the title, like most of the titles in this series, pretty much explains the whole of the book. Georgia spends the entire book debating on which guy she should choose, Robbie, who just returned from New Zealand and wants to get back together with her, Masimo, the Italian Stallion whose foreignosity can dazzle anyone, or Dave the Laugh, who always makes her smile. I didn’t really like this book as much as the previous ones because it kept going in a repetitive pattern, from confusion to fighting with Jas the Captain Ditherpants to making up with Jas to snogging guys and back to confusion. To me, the author was mostly biding time, filling up the pages with unnecessary information in order to get to the ending. The whole time, I kept thinking, ‘Oh, just leave it, you’ve had your chance with Robbie, now go out with Masimo and that’ll be the end of it.’

Stop in the Name of Pants! is mostly about Georgia’s issues between Masimo and Dave the Laugh. While Robbie has moved slightly out of focus because Georgia has, in fact, chosen Mas, Georgia’s been spending loads of time with Dave, but is still going out with Masimo. Dave definitely has issues with Masimo; he always makes fun of him and he always tells Georgia Masimo can’t be trusted because he carries a handbag (obviously not true). You’d think Georgia would pick up on the fact that Dave is actually jealous of Masimo, but all she thinks is that the two lads are just not seeing eye to eye. This book winds up to Dave and Masimo getting ready to have a bit of fisticuffs (fighting) over Georgia, when Georgia interferes by shouting, ‘Stop in the name of...PANTS!’ and Masimo, quite literally ‘having the hump’ (you know, when you’re angry with someone), walked off into the night.

Finally, in Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me?, Georgia and Masimo try to make amends after the fisticuffs incident. However, this causes Georgia to not be able to see Dave the Laugh so much anymore. After a cycle or two of confusionosity, snogging, and arguments with Jas, Georgia is suddenly faced with another problem. The Stiff Dylans have been asked to move to London for a big recording deal, and this includes Robbie and Masimo. Georgia is OK with Robbie leaving after he dumped Wet Lindsay (oh yeah, he was kind of reluctantly going out with her after Georgia chose Mas), but she isn’t so sure about Masimo. When the school puts on the Shakespearean play Rom and Jul with Dave once again being behind the scenes, Masimo makes an appearance at the performance and tells Georgia that he must leave for London. Georgia, having no one else to turn to, goes to Dave for comfort, and then she realises that it was Dave all this time that was her perfect boyfriend.

I have anticipated this ending since Dave was introduced in the second book of this series, and it has appalled me that it took eight more books for Georgia to sort out her life. The series really has been dragged out for dramatic effect, but I really think that Louise Rennison should have condensed it a bit more. Other than that, this series really has changed my opinion on British humour. There’s a lot more to being British than I originally thought!

THOUGHTS:

• Startling hilarious cliff-hanger in Startled by His Furry Shorts! It left me with anticipation for the next book.
• ‘Have you seen the footie scores this arvie?’ is Georgia’s conversation changer, which always makes me laugh because she always uses it when some lad is talking about something serious.
• Walking down the street with the Ace Gang, suddenly: group of handsome guys approaching! ‘Quick, let’s duck behind each other and put makeup on quantum fast! Maybe they won’t notice! We need to look beautiful!’ That’s what I kind of hate about us girls.
• Georgia loves to make fun of us Americans, especially when she comes to America in Then He Ate My Boy Entrancers. Like how we say aluuuuuminum instead of aluminium, and panties instead of knickers. She actually thought we walked around without any undercrackers just because we don’t say knickers!
• Does anyone else notice that Georgia often goes to the piddly-diddly department (toilets) quite a lot when she goes to the Stiff Dylans gigs? Usually it’s just to look at herself in the mirror, but it seriously is like every ten minutes!
• Georgia is also really self-centred. I mean, everyone is a little bit self-centred, but Georgia is soooo selfish that if there was a scale from one to ten on selfishnosity, she’d be far off of it. When someone else, i.e. Jas, talks about their day, Georgia quickly interrupts by talking about herself. She absolutely can’t stand listening to other people ramble on, which really makes me frustrated.
• Rosie, one of the members of the Ace Gang, manages to get a Swedish boyfriend named Sven in the first book, and they’ve been together ever since. Of all the boys in this series, I absolutely LOVE Sven! He is completely crazy, decking himself in flare trousers or furry shorts, and he does random dancing and says, ‘Oh ja!’ a lot. If I were to choose a boy from this entire series to be my one and only boyfriend, Sven would be that guy.