The Christmas Invasion

Given the quality of the last season, and having enjoyed the short prelude to this story broadcast during Children in Need, my expectations for the Christmas Invasion were fairly high. Overall I was not disappointed. What was broadcast was a fairly entertaining story with something in it for everybody. For long term fans there were a couple of nods to the past – U.N.I.T and hints past Earth encounters with aliens. For more recent fans there were clear links to episodes from last season, particularly Aliens of London/World War Three (my favourite being the scaffolding around Big Ben). There were also some nice Christmassy elements combined with some emotional drama, light relief and a twist ending.

Other highlights included the performance of David Tennant. The Tenth Doctor is clearly an interesting character. He is very Doctorish, but was at the same time different from what has gone before. He seems to be more light-hearted than his immediate predecessor, yet at the same time he also seemed slightly more ruthless than any previous Doctor. His actions on the Sycorax and at the end against Harriet Jones show he will not tolerate any action he sees as wrong. This will make him a very dangerous opponent for his foes. Yet he also seems to have a far better relationship with humanity than the Ninth; enjoying Christmas dinner at Rose's house and being far more tolerant of Mickey and Jackie. Tennant captured this complicated character well and was clearly the ideal choice to replace Christopher Eccleston.

There were many other positive features. Billie Piper put in her usual excellent performance as Rose. Indeed none of the cast put in a bad performance in what was a very well acted piece. The visual and special effects were, for the most part, extremely good. The Sycorax and the Santa Robots were particularly well realised as were the scenes of their ship over London. The Sycorax were also quite an interesting race, although I would have liked to see more details of their culture and how the Doctor knew so much about it. Also the incidental music in this story was fairly enjoyable as was the different end theme arrangement.

However, this story had a few elements that disappointed me. Although the overall writing and direction was good, the first half contained too much silly comedy for my taste. Similarly, I felt the Doctor should have been introduced to the main action earlier. Lying in bed was a waste of the talents David Tenant and slowed the pace of the narrative. Additionally I thought the CGI space probe and the CGI TARDIS in the crash landing sequence were both too obviously computer generated. Certainly neither was up to the usual high standard of special effects the series has come to be noted for. I also found the idea of the Doctor challenging the Sycorax leader to combat too easy a resolution. That said the subsequent actions of Harriet Jones and the Doctor's response were brilliant; even if they were slightly reminiscent of Doctor Who and the Silurians.

Yet, these were really minor flaws and on the whole the story was a good Christmas romp.