The Christmas Invasion by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: James Hawes

 

“The Christmas Invasion” stars David Tennant as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler with Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler, Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith, Penelope Wilton as Harriet Jones, and Sean Gilder as the Sycorax Leader.  It was written by: Russell T. Davies and directed by: James Hawes with Helen Raynor as Script Editor, Phil Collinson as Producer, and Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner as Executive Producers.  It was originally broadcast on Sunday 25 December 2005 on BBC One.

 

There were several hurdles for executive producers Russell T. Davies and Julie Gardner after wrapping production on Series 1 of Doctor Who.  First, Mal Young stepped down as executive producer leaving Davies and Gardner to work along.  Then Christopher Eccleston made the firm decision to leave the role of the Doctor after issues with the production, though this issue would be solved by Davies and Gardner agreeing to cast David Tennant in the role of the Doctor after working with him in Casanova.  The series had not been renewed past “The Parting of the Ways” however so there was a chance that Doctor Who did not continue into the Tenth Doctor’s era.  Luckily a month before the series launched, Jane Tranter informed Davies and Gardner that the BBC were impressed with what they had seen and some of the press materials for the series and commissioned two further series to be aired in 2006 and 2007.  With this renewal also came the final snag for Davies and Gardner, an expansion of the episode count from 13 episodes to 14 with added Christmas specials to be aired ahead of the second and third series, meaning a rescheduling of the production schedule.  This altered Davies’ plans for the series overall by allocating one episode of each Series 2 and 3 to be written as a Doctor light episode so two episodes could be made at once, for Series 2 that would be the final episode in production, only written after the airing of the 2005 Christmas Special.

 

“The Christmas Invasion” as a story was one that was also written quickly.  Davies had several ideas for where a potential second series of Doctor Who in development upon receiving the news of the Christmas special being added to the schedule and knowing that this would be the first full episode to feature David Tennant as the Doctor and by necessity the first episode to be filmed, Davies’ script focuses specifically on exploring the aftermath of the regeneration through the entire runtime.  The decision was made to make the Tenth Doctor’s first adventure structured like a classic alien invasion storyline, set at Christmas with Jackie and Mickey as major supporting characters as the TARDIS crashes at the Powell Estate in the pre-credits sequence.  The invasion itself, while hinted at early on, doesn’t occur until the halfway point of the episode with the spaceship of the Sycorax hanging over London and 1/3 of the Earth’s population poised on the tops of very tall buildings to jump to their deaths.  This as a plot point is incredibly dark, and while the climax of the episode reveals there is no danger, it’s this element that really strikes the emotional chord with the viewer.  As the Doctor is out of action for much of the episode, this amount of danger really brings home how Rose is out of her element despite her best efforts.  Davies’ script through the first half of the episode is fascinating as it has Rose unsure of what to make of the new Doctor.  Written without the addition of “Born Again” as setup, the uncertainty is perhaps laid on a little too thick, but there are moments where Rose realizes that while he is different he is still the Doctor.  This adds to the ending where the Doctor makes his actual grand entrance in the episode, waking up after a good cup of tea to reset his synapses and fighting the Sycorax leader in single combat.  David Tennant’s performance when he isn’t asleep is actually quite good, despite Davies’ script not always having a clear direction on where the Tenth Doctor is going to go as a character.  Some of that is genuinely because in the episode the Doctor hasn’t had time to really do anything to establish himself but it also is a sign of the episode’s script being rushed.

 

The Sycorax as a threat are also interesting, their design and the makeup work done by Anwen Davies, Steve Smith, and Moira Thomson is great.  Davies gives them a warlike race as an almost false bravado as the tactics they use to scare planets into selling half their conquests into slavery are tactics that scientifically don’t work but play on the fear of what they deem lesser species see when their technology is employed.  This means the first danger the Tenth Doctor faces is a race of bullies, using intimidation tactics to get what they want.  The actual fight sequence is perhaps the one place where James Hawes’ direction is let down, edited with several quick cuts and feeling quite a bit disjointed, only its beginning and ending, where the Tenth Doctor establishes himself as giving no second chances, really stand out as finished sequences.  The sequences on the Sycorax ship also feel like a marked shift in tone as the first half of the episode takes a more campy approach to the idea of an invasion occurring at Christmas, there are killer robot Santas using brass instruments of death and a spinning Christmas tree of death which are both so over the top yet so entertaining, Piper, Noel Clarke, and Camille Coduri selling the scenes perfectly.  The Christmas elements are perhaps the best utilized of many of the Christmas specials that will come after “The Christmas Invasion” as there is real character drama throughout with Penelope Wilton returning as Harriet Jones, now Prime Minister, doing her best to keep the UK and the world calm.  Her arc ends here, making the terrible decision to shoot down the Sycorax ship as it is leaving, something the Doctor uses to bring about her downfall.  It's a chilling note to resolve the episode on and the way Wilton sells these final scenes are perfect.

 

Overall, “The Christmas Invasion” serves as a great reintroduction to Doctor Who despite being a script written on rather short notice and as an added episode to an already hectic production schedule.  While sidelining the Doctor doesn’t work as well as it could and the climax becomes a bit too messy, it’s still a great example of the longevity of the show in selling David Tennant as the Doctor, the first regeneration to successfully occur without any large production troubles since 1984’s The Caves of Androzani.  “The Christmas Invasion” then becomes a very important episode for the show’s future as it balances drama, horror, and oddly camp fun for a very enjoyable experience.  7/10.