The Christmas Invasion

A regenerating Doctor (with Rose) crashes back in London but struggles to overcome the process (he's sleeping), while the Sycorax take a fancy to Earth's inhabitants who they wish to own and possess. Soon a third are left in limbo, stood on ledges though it's Chrimbo and there's only Doctor Who knows what to do! As it transpires super-heated tea is the answer, turns the Doctor into a lancer (well knight or swordsman, although he does become Sir Doctor of TARDIS in the next but one episode) and the saviour of the planet (and everything else) is born again - on Christmas Day no less.

Besides Tennant's Doctor, whom I loved immediately, is this episode utterly uninteresting.

Not a great start to Tenant's time as the Doctor. Instead of forging their own sci-fi, they try and do things that they missed since the Doctor was on hiatus...which is why they seem to have sent the doctor to the Independence Day universe.

Also, whereas, the Eccleston year spent most of the time establishing emotional fronts to the new storyline; it seems that the only thing they seem to consentrate on is how England would have handled an alien invasion.

When it was announced Christopher Eccleston was leaving Doctor Who I was disappointed, especially with the timing seeming to risk the newly returned series being able to continue. Then David Tennant was announced as his successor and, having never actually seen him in anything before at the time, I made a judgement Tennant was wrong for the role (from clips I had seen advertising a show he was in) and dreaded his arrival. How wrong I was! This debut completely changed my view and made me an instant fan of the 10th Doctor.

Exactly as with Jon Pertwee's 3rd Doctor this regeneration has the Doctor spending a lot of time unconscious but just like Pertwee's debut Spearhead From Space it is a terrific story which keeps the interest while the Doctor sleeps and then benefits from a fantastic performance and characterisation once he leaps into action.

The story is, in my opinion, clever, interesting, funny and exciting. It features aliens - the Sycorax - making contact and threatening the earth and a large amount of mankind being controlled via clever means. The brilliant Penelope Wilton returns as Harriet Jones (having appeared in Aliens in London), this time as Prime Minister, and Rose, Jackie and Mickey help with the transition providing fun and humour in between scenes of threat, action and alien contact.

The Sycorax are a great alien menace with an excellent design. The script is fabulous and whenever the Doctor has moments of activity he is funny, superbly acted and engaging. Once fully awake Tennant grabs the role by the scruff of the neck and establishes 10 as a thoroughly heroic, brave, witty, clever Doctor with a dark, serious edge beneath his endearing and humorous exterior.

The climactic confrontation is simply joyous with excitement, some real laughs and some proper drama.

This is, for my tastes, an awesome debut for an awesome Doctor.

My rating: 10/10.

The moment that Doctor Who became a Christmas TV institution. David Tennant properly takes over as the Doctor in this fine episode that has a lot to do, but mostly pulls it off excellently.

It's Christmas, as the Tardis crashes back to London and the weak, still regenerating, Doctor (David Tennant) stumbles out into Mickey's (Noel Clarke) arms. Whilst he's recuperating at Jackie's (Camille Coduri) flat, Rose (Billie Piper) is attacked by someone tracking the immense power that the regeneration is giving off. Meanwhile a Mars probe in intercepted by the Sycorax, whose warship is heading to Earth, causing now Prime Minister Harriet Jones (Penelope Wilton) to consider drastic action.

As much as I enjoyed the Christopher Eccleston season, David Tennant is probably "my" Doctor, so despite him sitting out a lot of this episode, the moments at the end, when he appears to save the day, are thrilling (even if the "fighting hand" line is a little cringy). He looks strikingly young in this (still not quite young enough to be romancing Billie Piper, but closer than Eccleston was). There's enough carry over from Eccleston's performance to sell the idea that they're playing the same character, though one going through changes.

Having got off to a flying start, introducing the Tardis crashing and Tennants comedic timing, the episode actually drops off a bit. The scenes involving the spinning Christmas tree and the Santas both feel similar to the debut episode "Rose" and crowbarred in to make the episode more Christmassy. It's not until The Sycroax, including a heavily made up Sean Gilder make their appearance, and make their horrifying threat visible, that the show picks up again. There's another early role hidden here, with "Peaky Blinders" Arthur Shelby, Paul Anderson, in his first TV credit as one of the key characters to fall under the Sycorax spell.

It's quite a funny episode too, running gags about people knowing who Harriet Jones is now, play back into her previous episodes and work well and despite the fact it's got an awful lot to do, the episode pulls most of it off admirably.