The Christmas Invasion

Like all the stories from the pen of Russell T Davies so far (with the possible exception of The Parting of the Ways), David Tennant’s debut adventure, and the series’ very first official Christmas special is a mixture of the sublime and the awful. There are big concepts, witty lines and memorable moments, but there are also cheap looking set pieces, embarrassing throwaway gags and too-easy-by-far resolutions. It’s the sort of hurried mishmash Andrew Cartmel would have endorsed.

The Christmas Invasion opens with the TARDIS popping into the real world above Rose’s council estate and literally bouncing off the buildings and crashing on to the street. It’s a great effect and one cannot help but wind it back and watch it again. The newly regenerated Doctor tumbles out, wide eyed and Tom Bakeresque. But the moment is ruined when Jackie exclaims, “The Doctor? Doctor who?” How many police box travelling Doctors does she know? It is clear that Rose is claiming the newcomer is the Doctor both Jackie and Mickey have met before. The gag doesn’t work as well as Rose’s, “Don’t you ever get tired of being called Doctor?” retort in Stephen Moffatt’s excellent The Doctor Dances. Here it hits the floor with all the subtlety of a thud.

Then it’s into Murray Gold’s rather lovely arrangement of the theme music, with its perfect blend of Delia Derbyshire inspired sounds and brand new orchestrations (the best rearrangement since the Pertwee/Baker version?), synchronised with that stunning re-imagining of Bernard Lodge’s slit-scan time vortex title sequence; together they slap a smile on the face and fill one with wonder and anticipation.

The Doctor is out of action and recovering from the regeneration process, and so it’s over to the soap-styled realism of the everyday, and in particular the strained relationship between Rose, her boyfriend Mickey and her mother Jackie. There are some nice touches, with Penelope Wilton’s Harriet Jones making a welcome return as Prime Minister of a new British golden age, and some lovely continuity in the form of scaffolding around a recently restored Big Ben (it having been extensively wrecked by the Slitheen in Aliens of London).

Rose and Mickey go Christmas shopping and then all hell breaks loose as aliens dressed as trombone playing Santas open fire. This scene would easily be at home in a Sylvester McCoy serial, with upbeat poppish music accompanying a flurry of sparks and a lot of running around. Indeed, Rose continues to bear more of a resemblance to Sophie Aldred’s Ace than any other classic series companion. All she needs is a rucksack full of Nitro and some out-dated slang and she’d be made.

The Santa scene is guilty of what critic Bonnie Greer claimed of Eccleston’s debut adventure March last year. It looks cheap and staged. It doesn’t look real. A bit of tinsel, a few lights, and virtually every extra carrying a wrapped present – it isn’t convincing at all.

Another McCoy era staple is littering stories with fanciful ideas seemingly for the sake of it. Davies equally prefers fantastic visual imagery over proper plotting and character driven drama. This is served up as a homicidal Christmas tree – a tremendous special effect, and one that will stay with people for years, but there only as a bit of superficial nonsense.

The adventure comes to life momentarily as the Doctor bursts from his regenerative sleep, expels the killer fir tree and engages Jackie in a genuinely funny comic routine. However, the moment he returns to a comatose state, so does the viewer’s interest.

In fact, I would say the first half of the special, with the exception of one or two moments, is a bit boring. This isn’t helped by the amount of incidental music supplied by Murray Gold. The composer does what he does exceptionally well, but is it really necessary to point up absolutely every emotion? Sometimes less is more, and here Gold’s music is too generic. It creates an effect opposite to the one desired.

And despite all the attempts to keep us hooked in, one thing becomes sparklingly clear: Doctor Who without the Doctor is rather dull.

The story only really becomes absorbing when the Sycorax reveal themselves and people are ready to jump from the roofs of London’s buildings (and by implication roofs all over the globe) like hypnotised lemmings. Harriet Jones and her aids are teleported up to the Sycorax ship and their exchange with the alien leader is mesmerising.

The scene where Rose breaks down and mourns the loss of the Ninth Doctor is genuinely touching. There she encapsulates how many a youngster might well have been feeling as they waited for the Doctor to recover (Piper proves she deserves all the accolades heaped upon her. Never before has a companion’s emotional response to the Doctor changing his face and personality been so real).

If the story only really picks up at the half-way point, then it becomes must-see telly in the last fifteen minutes. The moment it all changes is a simple one: David Tennant emerges from the TARDIS fully born as the Tenth Doctor. Witty, unpredictable, staring, smiling, euphoric, angry, like Eccleston before him, he convinces us he is the Doctor and we embrace him. Our hero has come back to life. By the time he has chosen his pinstripe suit, World War Two trench coat and worn his old fashioned British National Health glasses, we have forgotten there ever were any previous Doctors.

As the closing credits roll, one cannot help but await with great eagerness the onset of Series Two. The Christmas Invasion is not the best Doctor Who adventure ever to grace our screens, but it is better than any first outing for a new Doctor since Robot and sets the pace for what is to follow.