Doctor Who: Vincent and the Doctor

Doctor Who has always loved depicting its hero meeting famous historical figures - something that has become much more prevalent since the series returned in 2005. He's met Charles Dickens, Queen Victoria, William Shakespeare, Agatha Christie and, most recently, Winston Churchill. And the series hasn't shied away from showing the darker side to some of these characters - in particular, Charles Dickens' loneliness because of his fraught relationship with his family and Agatha Christie's hurt at her husband's betrayal were important to those stories. Yet all of the historical figures met by the Doctor on screen tend to be those for whom things can get better. We know Churchill will win the war; we know that Victoria will become one of the most famous British monarchs of all time, we know Christie will fall in love again and so on.

Which is what makes tonight's celebrity historical figure such a departure for the show.

There is no way in which it can be avoided - despite his celebrity today, Vincent van Gogh led a miserable life that ended devastated by apparent failure. Tonight, the Doctor met - on prime time Saturday evening television - a man who struggled with mental illness all his life, mutilated himself, and ultimately ended up taking his own life. It requires a very different type of story to deal with van Gogh effectively, and balancing the darker side to the van Gogh story with the needs to provide early Saturday evening entertainment on BBC 1 is no mean feat.

And they did it with considerable aplomb. Vincent was presented as a tormented man, even at one point lying on his bed sobbing as the world rejected him once again. The show did not duck the depression that so blighted the artist. And it also took a moment to show how suspicious people can be of mental illness, and how intolerant people can be of those suffering. In this respect, this may yet prove to be one of the most important Doctor Who stories of all time. It tackled a taboo subject on prime time TV, and did so with considerable sensitivity and intelligence.

Yet it wasn't all solely about misery - there was much humour on offer as well. Vincent's over the top flirtation with Amy was amusing, the banter about bow-ties was nice and we saw a far lighter side to the Eleventh Doctor's personality than we have seen to date. And a more sensitive side too. When he comforted Amy in the museum at the end of the epsiode, he showed a genuine compassion for his companion - which is reassuring, since he has been far less affectionate towards Pond than the Tenth Doctor was to all of his companions.

But - make no mistake about this - it was Vincent who was the star of tonight's episode. The monster was a sub-plot, a side show that enabled the production team to look at someone who had a strange and troubled life, but managed to produce genuine masterpieces. The fact that Tony Curran was able to play the role so convincingly was essential, but this is proof positive that if you are going to deal with a historical figure, then you should put them centre stage. Churchill shouldn't have played second fiddle to the newer, fatter Daleks - he should have been at the core of his episode. Just as Vincent was the heart and the backbone of Vincent and the Doctor.

To some extent, this story messed with the format of Doctor Who, but that is perhaps what made it so distinct and so successful. The last two episodes were Doctor Who by the numbers whereas this... this was bold, clever, funny, sad and above all unexpected. It is often stated that Doctor Who has the most flexible format of any TV show, and I'd agree. But it rarely tries to truly challenge that format. It rarely properly stretches it. Tonight, it did. It took a long dead artist, and made him and his brilliant but troubled world into prime time entertainment that everyone could enjoy.

Ladies and gentlemen, this was Doctor Who at its very best.