oh. i just found out that the writer of the vincent van gogh doctor who episode wrote it as a tribute to his sister.
Richard Curtis wrote, "So – here’s the thing – the key reason I wrote this episode – was out of love for my sister Bindy. She was a gorgeous and brilliant person, 2 years older than me. She loved Vincent Van Gogh and life. She couldn’t have been more full of generosity and joy.
But half way through her life she was hit by depression and intermittently it hurt her for the rest of her life. And a few years before this show, like Vincent, she took her own life.
And in the key scene of the episode - when they bring Vincent to the future... that was me trying to show Bin how glorious she had been in our lives - and how nothing could change that.
And then also to deal with the fact that mental health issues are hard - and the capacity for joy, as I know Bindy did know how much she was loved, is intertwined with the immense difficulty of the illness sometimes...
So taking her own life wasn’t a failure by her, or a rejection of all of us. It was, as they say on Love island, what it was."
