10.1: The Christmas Invasion

In which the new Doctor has a nice lie down and a cup of tea.

Broadcast: December 2005

Watched: July 2021

Oh wait but this one has a prologue, doesn’t it? So, first up:

Born Again/Pudsey Cutaway*

Broadcast: November 2005

Watched: July 2021

*God I hate that twee title, which exists entirely because Mission to the Unknown is annoyingly also known as “Dalek Cutaway”, a description in some production file somewhere that never appears on screen. It’s even worse here because a) Pudsey is not as good as the Daleks and b) this is in no sense a cutaway. Anyway:

“Can you change back?” “Do you want me to?” “Yeah.” “Oh.”

Is it canon? It felt like an important scene at the time but it isn’t on iPlayer.

I like that, just as he’s winning Rose’s trust again, the Doctor goes fucking mental. Shades of Twin done right?

I like the “hopping for your life” bit.

I am confused that they both know Jack is alive but don’t go back for him.

I am sad we never see Barcelona, the planet with dogs with no noses.

I have nothing more to say.

The Christmas Invasion

Okay, three odd things about this one.

1. “I’’m gonna get killed by a Christmas tree!” The bit with the murderous Santas and the killer Christmas tree is quite poorly integrated into the rest –  you can tell it’s 10 minutes added onto the start of a standard episode, to make it Christmassy and bump up the run time. For all the talk of “pilot fish” there’s no explanation for how they relate to the Sycorax plot.

2. It gets really, really dark for a Christmas special. The blood control bit, with a third of the world’s population apparently about to top themselves, is actually quite unnerving. The performance from the poor woman whose entire family is mindlessly climbing to the roof is *heartbreaking* and I’d totally forgotten it.

(While we’re on the subject, “It’s not just the whole country –  it’s the whole world”: it is very fun seeing people standing on roofs next to the Eiffel Tower or Colosseum, but wow this was definitely before twitter wasn’t it.)

3. “Doctor. If you’re out there... we need you. I don’t know what to do.” Harriet just reads out the theme. Rose’s uselessness without the Doctor, and her decision to run away, is actually a bit depressing? (Rose does later try, and is immediately laughed at.)

It feels like the wrong message: it’s RTD protagonist syndrome, without the Doctor the world just stops. (Nice to see the TARDIS translation circuit bit of the NAs canonised, though.) He finally arrives, for what I’d thought of as the last few minutes, in minute 39 of 59.

...so it’s kind of a mess. 

Considering which it’s loads of fun, actually?

Good bits:

• The TARDIS crash landing, just to show that the effects team can do that now.

• Harriet Jones making someone coffee to show she’s a goodun.

• “Did we ask about the royal family? Oh. They’re on the roof.” Hilarious, possibly *because* the PM would it never happen. (Yeah, you don’t ask that during a live broadcast.)

Bad bits:

• Rose waiting to exit the TARDIS for no reason other than to give the new Doctor a brief scene with Mickey and Jackie.

• “Anything with stairs, anything with steps” they’re the same thing, mate.

• The Sycorax Spacesip scenes look weirdly cheap now?

• RTD doesn’t understand politics if he thinks that would destroy a PM, even a Labour one. Also not 100% sure Harriet is wrong –  certainly doesn’t deserve that –  and it’s never really addressed.

• The Doctor’s lost arm is weirdly horrifying –  even weirder that it’s still a plot point three years later?

Other random thoughts:

• This is one of only two of three episodes I’ve ever watched with my mother. I remember her laughing a lot at, “Sorry, that’s The Lion King isn’t it”.

• I got a reference to the Sonic Wave’s effect on the Gherkin into a piece for the financial magazine I was working for at the time. First of many gratuitous Doctor Who references in my career.

• Slade makes its first appearance. Torchwood its second. Torchwood’s ability to blow shit up its first.

• Mickey: “You really love him, don’t you?” Gotta say, he deals very well with quite how badly he’s repeatedly getting cucked.

• The Sycorax ship menacingly hanging above London and then just... waiting is what Lawrence Miles wanted to do with his unwritten Dalek novel isn’t it? Also The Ancestor Cell, which he accused of nicking it. Also, Hitchhiker’s. (Although, weirdly inverted by the laser weapon charged from several different points in London, merging into a single beam that destroys the Sycorax ship?)

• This story plays up the new Doctor’s unpredictability, which doesn’t last. Also makes him much more physical than Eccleston, which does.

• “It. Is. Defended” – big influence on Eleventh Hour, too. Oh wait, he later says “I should have told them to run” yes Moffat definitely knew this didn’t he.

• The new Doctor considers dressing up as Casanova. A second Casanova joke there for the three people who watched Casanova.

By the way, the series explicitly becomes an extension of the old about 30 seconds into the season 2 trailer at the end of this, when Sarah Jane appears –  so really it’s only the first season that could be a reboot.