Holistic Review: An Aliens of London re-tread with shoehorned-in Christmas elements, made much more watchable by the inclusion of an intriguing alien race and the superb introduction of David Tennant.

After watching The Christmas Invasion, I was able to sum up my overall impression in pretty much one word: disappointment. Not that it was a bad episode; it just failed to live up to its potential in all ways bar one, which I will discuss later despite the fact that anybody reading this review already knows exactly what I'm talking about. (particulary if you read the bite-size review above...) I might as well get out of the way the things that really got my goat, so I can spend the rest of the review focusing on the minor issues. So, here goes.

In a lot of ways, as I mentioned above, this episode reminded me of everything that was wrong with Aliens of London. It struck me shortly after the re-appearance of the American news anchor from that story, when I suddenly realized that our heroes were stuck at home watching the action on TV, while elsewhere (UNIT HQ, in yet another link - so at least they weren't all killed!) the government types assembled to try to actually do something. (And somebody else calls the ordeal "our longest night" again.) This state of affairs lasts basically the entire episode, up until the TARDIS gets beamed aboard the Sycorax spaceship.

In a related issue, not only are our heroes separated geographically from the action, they don't seem to be motivated to do anything about it. The Doctor's out of action, fine - he's regenerating, he's not supposed to be active right away, it's not a problem. What is a problem is Rose - and she's a big, big problem. Wasn't it just last episode that she had her epiphany? Do the words "You don't just give up. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand, you say no, you have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away, and I just can't!" ring any bells? Well, apparently that was all hot air, because the moment the Doctor isn't around to provide backup, she falls to pieces. When Mickey asks her, "What do we do?", her answer is: "Nothing. There's no-one to save us, not any more." So who's giving up, then?! Infuriatingly, she gets the chance to contribute handed to her on a silver platter, during Harriet's improbable speech (but more on that later) begging someone to let her know where the Doctor is. Does Rose rush straight to the phone and explain the situation to her? No... she runs off and has a good cry! Apparently she's less concerned with saving the world than she is with the fact that "He left me, Mum!" Once the spaceship arrives, Rose gets another chance to look proactive and take the Doctor to the TARDIS where he'll be safe. However, she twists it into a much less proactive action when she states that her reason for going to the TARDIS is that "Now all we can do is run, and hide, and I'm sorry." AAAH! Her griping about Jackie's tea is absolutely the last straw (the ungrateful little...) so I'm glad Jackie snaps at her and tells her to stop moaning. She was very much speaking for the audience with that one (or at least for me!). I get that Rose is upset and confused, but I want to see her move past that as best as she can, and be the strong Rose that she usually is. I do not want to see Rose wallowing in self-pity to the point that she won't even lift a finger to try to save her world. (Billie Piper's assertion in the newspapers that "the Doctor's in bed the whole time and I have to carry the show" led me to believe that Rose was going to be actually moving the plot along... I did not expect this.)

Then we've got Harriet. Poor dear Harriet. I adore her to bits, but she makes some very strange choices here. First: what world leader in their right mind holds a nationwide television address to inform the world "I don't know what to do"?!?!? It's a joke! Okay, it's honest... but it is hardly going to inspire confidence! No wonder the nation holds a vote of no-confidence afterward. But that leads me to the second issue I take with her actions. Like Rose, I understand that Harriet was frightened by her experiences, but I don't understand in what way she thought that destroying the Sycorax ship could possibly be a good idea. Yes, it's important that the Earth be able to defend itself, but that's only in self-defense, when it's actually being attacked. Before the Doctor persuaded the Sycorax to leave, yes, that would have been an acceptable solution - but once they've turned tail and run, what good does it do to blow them up as they retreat?! It's cowardly and it's unnecessary. In fact, it may have even done more harm than good. Left alone, the Sycorax could have spread word across the galaxy that the Earth was not a safe place to invade (how were they to know that the Doctor wasn't from there?) but destroyed, they can't warn anyone off, so the Earth is actually more likely to be attacked again. Now, Harriet appears to have been worried that the Sycorax would mention Earth's wealth and neglect to mention its champion, but... she has the massive superweapon, so why worry? It would have been even more effective as a means of reinforcing the planet's reputation. Besides, as the Doctor points out, it's mass murder when it's not done in self-defense. Worst of all, when the Doctor confronts her, she turns downright nasty. Had she shown just a bit of contrition, things might have turned out so differently. So I'm incredibly disappointed with Harriet, who I really thought was the sort of honest and well-intentioned leader that we all want to see running our country (RTD promised! Maybe he really is another Joss, who frequently made such public promises to throw us off the scent...). But it seems that Harriet is no President Palmer, and my hopes that she would be a long-recurring character, and that Britain would have a more protracted Golden Age, are completely dashed. Maybe she'll manage to hold on to her office, or reappear in some fashion, but I'm doubtful. Speaking more generally, Harriet seems to suffer from the same problem as Rose in this episode - she gets absolutely nothing accomplished (except for destroying the Sycorax ship, which was not a good thing to accomplish) although she does at least try to be decisive throughout. (On the plus side, Penelope Wilton is still just wonderful in the role. I love her warm relationship with her right-hand-man Alex, and her offer to pour Llewellyn some coffee is quite reminiscent of her desire to do the same for Indra Ganesh.)

Sadly, the first two issues alone were enough to sink my enthusiasm for this particular story. I'm trying to be open-minded about Harriet, because at least her final decision was a justifiable plot point; it just so happens that I don't like the way it turned out, but this wouldn't be the first time I've felt that way about a plot direction. Fortunately there are a couple of elements that lift the story for me.

The first is the Sycorax. Now, they aren't without their problems either: overall their culture seems coherent, but there are a few elements that don't fit very well. The prime offender is the Ferengi-like electrified whip. They're very cool, and I love the effect they make when they fry their victims, but nothing else we see in their culture is energy-based in that way (they even use old-fashioned broadswords for duelling). However, I love the idea of an alien culture that's based around superstition and blood magic. All the talk of blood control, curses and "witchcraft!" makes me rather eager to see more of them, particularly since their blood control has its limits, which makes them seem less like an unstoppable alien menace and more like an actual alien culture. This harmony with the natural world also manifests itself in their cool stone spaceship, which makes for a unique and memorable design. Their language, particularly the guttural way it's intoned by the lead Sycorax - which carries over nicely into his translated English - also fits pleasingly with their overall aesthetic. And I like their look, both the frightening metal helmets and their actual gory visages (which reminded me immediately of the skull-masked members of Faction Paradox, from the eighth-Doctor novels). So generally I have to judge the Sycorax a success, and I wouldn't mind seeing them return at all, if only to explore their culture further.

The second, and by far the best, element that elevates the story is David Tennant, who finally gets a chance to shine when the TARDIS is teleported to the Sycorax spaceship toward the end. I'm not even sure where to start, except to say that his delivery of every single line is inspired. This man has range, and talent. From the moment I saw him in action at the end of The Parting of the Ways, I had the sneaking suspicion that I was going to prefer him to Eccleston, and boy howdy, do I. Which is absolutely nothing against Eccleston, it's merely that their Doctors have such vastly different personalities. Whereas the ninth Doctor was mostly at home being brooding and commanding, the tenth Doctor has a very solid line in boyish enthusiasm and wacky behaviour. This alone would make me love him; however, there's an undercurrent to him, of unpredictability and the same sort of dark coldness that Eccleston's Doctor had - except that where the ninth Doctor's vengeance was motivated by anger, the tenth Doctor's is motivated by moral conviction ("No second chances."). I'm not sure that Tennant's Doctor is as immediately adorable (yes, I did use that word, didn't I...?) as McGann's, but there's plenty of time yet and the tenth Doctor already seems quite loveable. I'm delighted that this incarnation does do domestics, and despite teasing her, seems to bear no genuine ill will toward Jackie. The scene at the end, when he gives her a big hug and she responds with a very caring "Are you better?", is very sweet.

Oh oh, I nearly forgot the third thing that, Tennant aside, is my favorite element of this story: the wardrobe scene. For numerous reasons: a) we finally get to see another room in the TARDIS, and the wardrobe is an awesome place to start; b) the room looks really cool (I particularly love the spiral staircase, and the scarves on Tennant and hanging up are a cool touch); and c) that song. Now, I was all set to mildly bash poor Murray Gold for turning in another unexciting episode score, littered with previously-used themes and childish squawking, but then he goes and writes this beautiful and brilliant piece of music and all is forgiven. I really love Tim Phillips' singing, too. For the first time ever, I actively want a score CD from the new series of Doctor Who, because that's probably the only way I'll get to hear "Song for Ten" unsullied and in its entire form. Excuse me while I go hum it now...

It's a decent outing for Clarke and Coduri, whose worries about Rose's safety tie in nicely to The Parting of the Ways. Coduri is ever-reliable as the amusingly self-absorbed Jackie (her scene griping about Rose suddenly arriving home for the holidays is very telling), and Clarke's acting has improved to the point where I'm actually enjoying Mickey's appearances (although his genius-hacker abilities continue to defy belief!). Penelope Wilton makes a very welcome return appearance, although sadly I find my repeat viewings of this adventure thoroughly colored by Harriet's actions at the end, and for now, at least, I can't say that I enjoy Harriet's participation as much as I did the first time through. The supporting actors as a whole didn't greatly impress me, although I did like Adam Garcia as Alex and Daniel Evans as Llewellyn. Cathy Murphy is great as the mother trying desperately to get her family to stop walking zombie-like down the street. And of course there's Sean Gilder, who acts his socks off as the Sycorax Leader. I particularly love the moment when he gradually eases into mixed English and Sycoraxic, which really isn't at all obvious at first, he does it so skilfully.

James Hawes does a very nice directorial job, as before; my favorite is the shot of the spilled tea inside the TARDIS as Rose and Mickey scream outside. Special effects are certainly very good throughout; I've already mentioned the stone spaceship and the Sycorax whips, and I really love the shot of the piles of smoking bones after the Sycorax energy whips have done their damage. As for the incidental music, my feelings broadly are a couple of paragraphs up, but I also quite liked the music that plays just before the Christmas Tree of Death starts to spin (although the "look! something's going to happen!" plonk-plonk music is very much out-of-place).

Minor points:

• Now there's a creative TARDIS materialization - probably the most interesting since Fury from the Deep!

• Immediately following his exit from the TARDIS, Tennant somehow manages to channel the hyperactive post-regeneration Davison more than anybody. I'm not sure what it is about his performance that seems similar to me, but every time I watch it, I feel like I'm watching Castrovalva. (Wish I could say that about the rest of the story...)

• I'm kind of sad that the opening credits don't get changed for the tenth Doctor. (I'm even more sad that the logo doesn't get changed, but that's neither here nor there.) Glad the music stayed the same, though - I find that I've become very fond of it.

• "Anything else he's got two of?" asks Jackie, and the room erupts in shocked giggles. (Surely they weren't thinking of that?!)

• What exactly does Rose take out of the fridge? It looks like a mini potted cheese, or a tiny bologna or something.

• A nice line for Mickey... we all sort of knew he was thinking it, but it's good to hear him admit it!

  Mickey: "Oh yeah. That's fascinating, because I love hearing stories about the TARDIS. Ooh, go on, Rose, tell us another one, 'cause I swear I could listen to it all day. TARDIS this, TARDIS that..."
  Rose: "Shut up."
  Mickey: (mimicking Rose) "Ooh, and one time, the TARDIS landed in a big yellow garden full of balloons!"

• The Santas are interesting, although I still don't understand what they were. The pilot fish analogy implies that they're a separate race of beings who just happened to travel along with the Sycorax (and their motivations are apparently different to those of the Sycorax) but if this is true, we never find out what they are. However, they teleport the same way the Sycorax do, so either they use the same technology or they are some sort of Sycorax advance party. Either way, it's confusing and fractures the narrative into the "Christmasy bit" with the mysterious aliens, and the "proper plot" involving the Sycorax. There's also no explation whatsoever as to why these aliens use Christmas trappings to try to destroy their victims, without which it all feels a little too convenient. I find it a little easier to forgive the spinning tree, if only because in full-speed action, it looks far scarier than it did on the 10-second promo (my reaction to which was, "and I should be scared of that because why?"). However, I think it would have benefited from having something like knives or needles to make its destructive potential even greater. (The original idea was apparently along these lines, but I guess for some reason it got dropped.) I do love the fact that it continues to blare music as it spins murderously down the hall - it's actually pretty scary to watch it chase Rose and the gang. And the cutout it leaves in the wall is very funny. (But with all that spinning, why don't the ornaments fly off in all directions? They could have been mini-explosives! Way destructive, but cool.)

• As the Doctor convulses on the floor, he coughs up a great big plume of energy that wafts past Rose, Jackie and Mickey - but do they even notice it? Not in the slightest! Maybe they're so utterly worried about the Doctor, they just ignore it, but it would have been nice for at least one of them to watch it float away.

• The Doctor never does actually tell Jackie what it is that he needs. Personally, I was amused by Jackie's desperate attempts to guess what he wanted, but if she had just shut up from the beginning, she might have found out. I do like this exchange, though:

  Doctor: "I need you to shut up!"
  Jackie: "Oh, he hasn't changed that much, see?"

• I'm torn about the moment when the Doctor finds fruit in his pockets and suddenly becomes completely lucid and symptom-free for a few moments. David acts it beautifully, but it's still scripted in an awkward hold-the-plot-so-I-can-fit-in-this-joke kind of way.

• Regarding pilot fish, Mickey says, "the little fish swim alongside the big fish" - and on his computer screen, we do indeed see a (rather conveniently appropriate) CGI video of two little fish swimming next to a larger fish. But then - in a completely unrelated-to-pilot-fish kind of way - a shark swoops by and attacks the camera, and Mickey decides that that is the big fish that the pilot fish are accompanying. I wanted to say, "No, Earth isn't getting attacked by that shark, it's getting attacked by that mackerel." Unless they were implying that all of the first three fish were pilot fish? But it isn't presented that way. (Wikipedia informs me that pilot fish actually are mackerel (go me!), and they do have a symbiotic relationship with sharks, so I guess my only complaint is actually that whoever created the video footage made it misleading. Basically, we should have seen two little mackerel accompanying a big shark, not two little mackerel accompanying one larger mackerel with a big shark lurking nearby.)

• A nice Harriet quote:

  Harriet: "Never off duty."

• How many alien species has Harriet encountered since the Slitheen, I wonder? Apparently she didn't have any problem dealing with them, so they must have been puny little invasion forces.

• I love that this episode finally ties together the separate explanations of language-comprehension given in The Masque of Mandragora and The End of the World - it is the TARDIS that actually does the translating, but the Doctor has to be conscious (or, at least, some particular part of his brain has to be active) in order to transfer that ability to his companion. (However: why, at the end, does he also share this ability with Mickey, Harriet and Alex?!)

• More Torchwood hints... hmmmm. I am intrigued.

• The linguist in me really wants to know just how these translation devices work. It's rather astonishing that, given a very limited subset of Sycoraxic, it's able not only to translate it perfectly, but also to take English words that are not in its small English-Sycoraxic lexicon, and translate those too! That should be utterly impossible, unless it somehow has access to a larger database of Sycoraxic. Otherwise the machine's just randomly guessing! It would be difficult enough to accurate translate a mere half-minute of Sycoraxic - look how long linguists have been working on things like the early Mayan glyphs, or Linear A, with very little success. (And their device does not translate everything the Sycorax Leader says - but then again, maybe that just proves my point! Ha!)

• This line just cracks me up, especially the offhand way that Adam Garcia delivers it:

  Alex: (reading the translation) "...you belong to us, to the Sycorax - they seem to be called Sycorax, not Martians - we own you..."

• The image of all those people lined up on rooftops around the world, ready to jump, is really creepy and one of the great moments of this story. (But, when the sonic wave hits, causing the ground to shake, the Gherkin to shatter, and big chunks to fall off some of the buildings, surely some of those people fall off?!?)

• Another very funny line, as the Sycorax Leader prepares to remove his helmet:

  Llewellyn: "It's a helmet! They might be like us!" (the Leader's very inhuman face is revealed) "...or not."

• Why does Rose think they need to bring food supplies into the TARDIS? Surely it has plenty already! (Although I suppose if they have to restock their milk every five days, maybe it's not such a bizarre suggestion after all?)

• Hee! A running joke since Aliens of London finally gets a payoff, as Harriet introduces herself to the Sycorax:

  Harriet: "Harriet Jones, Prime Minister."
  Sycorax Leader: (bellows in Sycoraxic)
  Alex: (reading translation) "Yes, we know who you are."

• So Rose's knowledge of how to fly the TARDIS is now forbidden? Does that mean the Doctor couldn't teach her how to operate the controls, or just that it doesn't want her looking into its heart again?

• A nice quote for Mickey:

  Mickey: "Tea. Like we're having a picnic while the world comes to an end. It's very British."

• Compounding her deliberate omission from before, here Rose looks Harriet straight in the eye and tells her that the Doctor isn't there! What would have been the big problem with telling her "yes, but he's unconscious" or "...in a coma"?

• I do love that the key to reviving the Doctor is not celery juice this time, but tea! How very appropriate. It makes me wonder if we're going to have another quintessentially British Doctor á la Davison (although Tennant's deliberately wandering accent may indicate precisely the opposite!).

• Finally, for the first time since the start of the episode, Rose starts to feel like her old self again:

  Rose: "Someone's gotta be the Doctor."
  Harriet: "They'll kill you!"
  Rose: "Never stopped him."

  And she really does try, but she sounds so nervous that it's really no surprise they don't believe her.

• How on earth is the Doctor able to just grab the Sycorax energy whip? He certainly isn't indestructible! Is it meant to be another lingering effect of his regeneration? Or does the whip have to hit a certain part of the body to do its work?

• I adore this quote. I don't know why people keep complaining that it's a reference to Billie's ex, Chris Evans, because it's clearly meant to refer to all those future red-haired Doctors that keep appearing in fanfiction.

  Doctor: "Am I... ginger?"
  Rose: "No, you're just sort of brown."
  Doctor: "Aw, I wanted to be ginger! I've never been ginger."

  Shortly followed by:

  Doctor: "Ooh, that's rude! Is that the sort of man I am now, am I rude? Rude and not ginger?"

• It occurred to me around this point that the tenth Doctor and Lynda would have gotten along sooo well. Plus they seem to have rather similar speech patterns!

• One of my favorite David Tennant moments in this story, which was certainly a difficult thing to pick:

  Sycorax Leader: "I demand to know who you are!"
  Doctor: "I don't know!"

• How did one vial of (probably very old) human blood give the Sycorax enough to fill their control matrix? Do they have the ability to replicate a sample? Or was it a tiny little reservoir that the Doctor dipped his finger into?

• Super line:

  Sycorax Leader: "You stand as this world's champion?"
  Doctor: "Thank you. I've no idea who I am, but you've just summed me up."

• I love the moment when the Doctor insults the Sycorax Leader - Tennant handles the Sycoraxic words really well, making them sound hugely insulting even though we have no idea what he's saying.

• I know they were filming against a backdrop, but it still irks me that the camera very obviously avoids showing us the ground as the Doctor and the Sycorax Leader are fighting. It's fine in close-ups, but not when we go to medium and three-quarter-length shots that are obviously avoiding revealing the characters' feet.

• Eek, they chopped off the Doctor's hand! But I love that as a result, we get to learn about a cool new side-effect of regeneration that we'd never heard of before. And it makes sense, too.

• The shot of Rose throwing the sword to the Doctor reminds me very strongly of something from the McCoy era. I thought for a while that it was Ace and the hot poker from Happiness Patrol, or maybe something out of Battlefield, but it's just hit me that it was the scene of the Doctor using the powers of the Dark Circus to transmute a piece of metal into a sword, in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.

• Blurring the lines between "fact" and fiction yet again:

  Doctor: "Not bad for a man in his jim-jams! Very Arthur Dent. Now there was a nice man."

• How does "Don't you think she looks tired?" bring down Harriet's government? Surely, even if Alex had decided it was true and spread the word, one man's opinion does not a problem make. Which means that it must have been true and Harriet was sick, but we have absolutely no evidence for this conclusion whatsoever.

• Nice touch to have the tenth Doctor checking out his teeth in the mirror!

• After opening her cracker, Rose pulls out a pink crown and exclaims, "It's pink! Mum, it should be yours!" Has she forgotten that she is the one in the family who seems to really adore red and pink? Maybe she's really more of a red fan and just wears pink as an occasional accent, in honor of her mother.

• I'm curious to know why the ash doesn't burn up in the atmosphere... unless, I guess, most of it did, but this ash is the result of the larger chunks of Sycorax ship burning up?

• Why does the Doctor think that Earth will no longer be able to deny the existence of aliens? If they can deny having seen the Slitheen, surely they can concoct a cover story for the Sycorax that people will believe.

• Ha, Tennant channels Eccleston. But let's make this a one-time thing, 'kay?

  Doctor: "And it is gonna be... fantastic."

• The ending is kind of low-key, with the Doctor and Rose just kind of vaguely talking about where they might want to go next. But I do like the bittersweet feeling of it.

• Now the promo for upcoming episodes, that gets me excited. Sarah!!! Pauline Collins! Anthony Stewart Head shrieking! (hands-down the scariest thing in the promo... I was terrified by it before I even realized it was him!) Rose's cool blue dress! (at least, I think it was Rose...) And I must say that rumors of upcoming werewolves have me very excited.

If it weren't for the participation of David Tennant, I would rank this one as one of the more bog-standard RTD-penned episodes. But every time he's on screen, he lights it up. Watch it for Tennant's official début, and watch it for the interesting Sycorax culture, but don't expect too much out of it.