The Christmas Invasion

I wasn't looking forward to 'The Christmas Invasion'. I'd become increasingly disillusioned with Russell T. Davies' writing for Doctor Who as the first series progressed and all the best episodes turned out to be written by other people, and the plot holes, clumsy dialogue, and deus ex machina ending of 'Bad Wolf'/'The Parting of the Ways' had left me feeling distinctly hostile towards the prospect of what I thought might be an exercise in camp and twee seasonal excess. As things turned out however, I was more than pleasantly surprised; 'The Christmas Invasion' is possibly the best episode of Doctor Who Davies has thus far written.

For me, the success of 'The Christmas Invasion' rides largely on David Tennant's performance as the Tenth Doctor. Whilst I grew to like Christopher Eccleston's performance, and whilst he had some truly great moments on screen, I never felt that he captured the character's inherent eccentricity very well, often veering uneasily between moments of convincing anger and periods of unconvincing mania and gurning. Tennant is a different matter; whilst at times here he almost chews the furniture, he effortlessly carries off eccentricity, but equally convincingly brings a hard edge to the Doctor. Some of the dialogue that Davies saddles him with is appalling, such as when he asks Rose, "Am I ginger?" (a nod, perhaps, to Billie Piper's irritating ex-husband?) and once more we get a character discussing his own characterisation rather than simply exhibiting it, as the Doctor loudly ponders the question of who is with a stream of bilge such as, "Am I funny? Sarcastic? Sexy?" But Tennant handles it well, and makes feeble puns such as, "You just can't get the staff" (when he breaks the Sycorax leader's staff) genuinely amusing. There is a warmth to this Doctor that his predecessor lacked, and when he needs to be he's very commanding, such as when he contemptuously grabs the whip that reduced two humans to piles of steaming bones. He clowns around during the duel with the leader, but he's suitably threatening when he holds the sword to his opponent's throat, giving the impression that he really will kill him if he needs to; this is confirmed moments later when he flings the Satsuma at the control panel and sends the sword wielding leader plummeting to his death, grimly noting, "No second chances."

But best of all is the fact that whereas the Ninth Doctor spent several episodes standing around ineffectually whilst Rose or random supporting characters were left to save the day, this Doctor is proactive, and is solely responsible for defeating the monsters. At times, Davies casts him not just as the self-declared defender of Earth, but almost as a super hero, most obviously during the extremely dubious scene in which he loses a hand but is able to grow it back as a result of his lingering regeneration cycle. This is a Doctor who brims with moral outrage and brings a flawed Prime Minster acting under duress and enormous emotional strength down with six well-chosen words (although more on that later) and who snaps out of a coma to defeat killer Christmas tress and banish hostile aliens with a threatening gesture. Refreshingly however, this is also a Doctor who does do domestics, sitting down with Rose, Jackie and Mickey to enjoy a Christmas dinner before setting off once more in the TARDIS. And whilst Eccleston's "U-boat captain" look was very contemporary, the switch back to more outlandish clothing, especially an outfit that looks like it's come out of my wardrobe, is most welcome.

The monsters work well here too. Although I liked the Slitheen, Davies' attempt to give them an original motivation resulted in the need to suspend disbelief to almost unworkable lessons as they executed a plan so ludicrous that it made me want to put my foot through the television. The Sycorax just want to invade, enslave humanity, and nick all of our mineral resources. It's all very traditional, and it is now impossible for a humanoid alien race with a code of honour not to bring the bloody Klingons to mind, but Davies' makes them interesting due to the numerous hints that they consider magic to be just as important as science, with the intriguing notion of blood control and references to curses and witchcraft, which is relatively uncommon in Doctor Who in any of its media. The Sycorax costumes are effective enough if not wholly original, and their stone spaceship is visually impressive. The other token monsters, which seem to be present purely to add a Christmas flavour, are less effective; the killer Christmas tree looks ridiculous, and the killer Santas achieve little, although the "Pilot Fish" concept is another potentially interesting idea, especially as they don't seem to be collaborating with the Sycorax, just riding alongside them. Although this doesn't explain why they share the same teleport special effect, unless the budget was wearing thin. It is also very nice to have an invasion of Earth rather than the Home Counties, even if we don't see it much, and the glimpses of the Eiffel Tower and the Coliseum are welcome.

Ironically, with this new Doctor proving far more capable than the old, Rose immediately becomes less effective and for much of the episode is quite annoying. With the Doctor in a coma, she proves less reliable than even, alarmingly, Peri, and spends a lot of time panicking and whining, "There's no one to save us, not any more" and tearfully telling her mum, "He left me". Never has she been so blatantly besotted with him, and as a result falls apart whenever he's asleep. Having said that, Billie Piper continues to act her heart out, and Rose does get a good scene when she decides to try and bluff the Sycorax leader; she announces, "Someone's got to be the Doctor" whereupon Harriet tells her, "They'll kill you" and she mutters, "Never stopped him."

Of the other recurring cast members, Noel Clarke continues to put bad memories of his wooden performance in 'Rose' behind him, and Mickey works well through 'The Christmas Invasion'. His continuing frustration at seeing Rose but listening to her talk endlessly about the TARDIS is convincingly acted, and he again proves that he's got a lot braver since he as scrabbling at the TARDIS doors in terror surrounded by Autons. Jackie on the other hand, should be shot. Davies continues to make the character so fundamentally irritating that I cringe whenever she appears on screen uttering verbal dross throughout. The character has no redeeming features, remaining as she does an air-headed bimbo saddled with such vacuous lines as, "I keep forgetting he's not human." One of her first lines here is, "What do you mean, that's the Doctor? Doctor who?", which exists purely to serve as a cheap and very old joke; whether she understands who the lanky stranger at her feet is or not, which *$#ing Doctor does she think Rose is likely to be talking about? The character also plums new depths of contemptibility as the unconvincing Christmas tree attacks and she frantically advises Rose, "Leave him, just leave him!" This might be easier to swallow if she was convincingly terrified, but in the mouth of Camille Coduri lines such as "I'm going to get killed by a Christmas tree!" become even less convincing than they ought to be.

The other recurring character here is Harriet Jones, previously employed as comic relief during 'Aliens of London'/'World War Three' and improbably elected to Prime Minister in the interim. Penelope Wilton puts in a fine performance, and for much of the episode the character works rather well. Just when her tendency to introduce herself as "Harriet Jones – Prime Minister" seems poised to become facile, she says it to the Sycorax leader, who amusingly replies, "Yes, we know who you are." Nevertheless, Davies' hamfisted grasp of real-life in a fantasy surround results in such jaw-dropping moments as her broadcast to the nation when she pleads, "Doctor, if you're out there, we need you. I don't know what to do! If you can hear me Doctor, if anyone knows the Doctor, if anyone can find him, the situation has never been so desperate. Please Doctor, help us." To recap, this is the leader of the country making herself look utterly unable to cope with an admittedly large crisis on national television, even though she should a) actually be wondering how to stall the Sycorax until the mysterious Torchwood is prepared (especially given how effective it proves to be), and b) not panicking the two-thirds of the country not under laine control by crumbling live on air. Essentially however, Harriet Jones is present here to allow Davies to convey an anti-war message that makes the infamous WMD line in 'Scream of the Shalka' look subtle, but works marginally better than that in 'Aliens of London'/'World War Three', as she says of the US President, "He's not my boss and certainly isn't turning this into a war" before blowing up a retreating enemy craft. What you make of all of this probably depends largely on your own politics, although Wilton conveys Jones' sheer stress at the end so well that I can't help feeling sorry for her when the Doctor leaves her looking lost and alone near the end.

I have other criticisms of 'The Christmas Invasion', but they are all relatively minor. The line, ""Sycorax rock" as in the modern sense, "they rock"" is profoundly crass and fuels my suspicion that Davies prefers Buffy to Doctor Who, and it is terribly convenient that none of the main characters are blood group A positive, leaving them free to do other things. And yet again, Murray Gold's incidental score is pompous, overblown, and intrusive. But there is also much to enjoy here; the idea of the Doctor being brought around by tea is an obvious attempt to remind us how very British he is, and it isn't exactly subtle, but it is rather sweet and the line about anti-oxidants and tannins just about covers it. The TARDIS not translating Sycoraxic into English until the Doctor recovers is another interesting concept, and a reminder that it is more than just a spaceship, and for the established fan there are numerous nice nods to the past, including the TARDIS wardrobe room, UNIT (in a more impressive capacity than in 'Aliens of London'/'World War Three'), references to Martians, and the British space program sending probes to Mars. Speaking of which, the Doctor's line, "You're getting noticed. You better get used to it" is very 'Spearhead from Space', which is rather appropriate given that the new series is the first occurrence of a recurring cast of supporting characters since the Pertwee era.

The end of 'The Christmas Invasion' is great, the grim revelation that the "snow" falling all around is actually ash from the Sycorax ship taking the saccharine edge of the proceedings, but not dampening the sheer joy of the Doctor excitedly talking about new horizons and monsters, and cheekily acknowledging his previous incarnation with the line, "And it is gonna be… fantastic!" Given that I thoroughly like the new Doctor, and with the reassuring feeling that this marks a considerable improvement in Davies' writing for the series (who is in any case only writing five of the next thirteen episodes), I find my enthusiasm for the second series has fully regenerated. And with a trailer boasting Cybermen, K9, and Sarah Jane Smith, I can't wait.