DR. WHO - THE CHRISTMAS INVASION

DR. WHO - "THE CHRISTMAS INVASION"
By Ken Leicht

The Doctor survived his latest crisis: The show about his adventures comes back from the dead in grand style only to have the actor playing him fuck off for no reason that anyone seems to be willing to say publicly. At least when Colin Baker was fired, it wasn’t a secret. Anyway, thanks Chris, you did a great job. But now it’s David Tennant and he slipped easily into the role.

While most regeneration stories are filled with changing personality schizo behavior, there’s a certain moment when the actor BECOMES the Doctor. And late in the episode once the Doc steps out into the Sycorax ship and starts talking smack to the aliens, you know he’s on his way to taking things into the new era.

Things start off pretty much right after last season’s PARTING OF THE WAYS, or, more accurately, after the mini Children in Need episode that bridges the two stories. The Doctor brings the Tardis crashing back to earth where it’s up to Rose to explain to her mother and Mickey that the weird guy who’s in a coma is the Doctor. They don’t have much time to wonder about this baffling development as they are quickly under attack by killer Santas and chainsaw Christmas trees.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, again amusingly played by Penelope Wilton (previously minister from Flydale North (?) and now the PM), is trying to find the Doctor as an alien invasion is obviously at hand. When he doesn’t show up she calls for TORCHWOOD, a mysterious something which will gradually be revealed to be the secret Time Agency which Captain Jack will be a part of in the spin-off series of the same name.

With the Doctor out of it, Rose tries to come to the rescue herself but is unable to pull it off. Fortunately, the Doc snaps to in time to give the aliens the boot.

All in all the episode was amusing enough but nothing earth-shattering plot-wise. What worked was all the character stuff of dealing with the change in the Doctor. In one hour it managed to do away with all of the out with the old in with the new and also paused to mourn the passage of the old Doctor’s persona which I don’t think they ever bothered to do in the original series.

But Rose needn’t worry. It’s always been my experience that the actor playing the Doctor usually isn’t the problem, it’s who’s making the show…and the gang’s still all here and will be for the foreseeable future. So bring on Year two. March or April can’t come fast enough.