Review - The Christmas Invasion

After a little break, I'm back with the retro reviews, so off we run with a brand new Doctor in the first of the annual Christmas Specials, The Christmas Invasion.

Christmas Special 2005 - The Christmas Invasion

We begin presumably not long after the closing scenes of The Parting of the Ways, with The Doctor still in the throes of Regeneration. We also kick things off with one of the most laboured executions of the "Doctor Who?" line ever committed to screen. Seriously, even with The Doctor's new face, it just doesn't seem like something Jackie would say at that point. That pales into insignificance next to the outrageous In-Who-Endo she delivers in the next scene. I know I've let Jackie off on the Hunka hunka burning Doc front before, but this is just silly.

Is there anything else he's got two of?

Mickey gets to show off his newly found hacking skills, lessening his perceived uselessness in the ensemble. He has a good crack at the Deathmas Tree too. Say what you will about him, he's got guts and heart to spare.

U.N.I.T. really shine in this episode. A very slick military operation. I quite enjoyed the casual way they talked about alien life, ensuring some continuity with classic Who episodes from the Third Doctor years and onward. In many ways I'd have liked to see U.N.I.T. get a spinoff over Torchwood.

Like S.H.I.E.L.D. only with a better acronym.

Speaking of Torchwood, they are heavily referenced in this episode, with clear implications that they are a secret organisation with access to alien tech. It was a solidly integrated reference, rather than a random word thrown in. It played a part in the story, even if it was to seemingly throw Harriet Jones under the bus.

Harriet Jones as Prime Minister was a nice touch, but the catch phrase / running joke was grating from the outset. Despite that, they manage to make her believable as a strong, decisive leader. Mostly they do that by having her stick it to the US, which reminded me somewhat of Hugh Grant in Love Actually.

They were really pushing the continuity with this one though. Nine tells us that Harriet Jones PM leads Britain to a Golden Age. Then, what can't be more than nine months later, despite Jackie referencing Britains Golden Age, Jones' supposed "three successive terms" evaporate thanks to The Doctor. I guess he's not all that interested in maintaining history. Of course they could already have been looking ahead to the Season 3 Saxon arc, but I'm not sure I can give them the benefit of the doubt on that one.

The timeline is a bit iffy here anyway. I'm not sure nine months is enough time to plan, build and launch a Martian space probe, much less for it to get there. But this is a science fiction show, after all, so let's just ignore that for the time being.

This episode has a case of Too many monsters, with the crew facing the "Pilot Fish" Santas and the Deathmas Tree which are both quickly discarded when the Sycorax turn up. None of the monsters are particularly threatening and don't have a chance to shine. The Santas are just Auton clones and the tree, whilst the most physically threatening of the three, was gone as soon as it appeared. The Sycorax themselves were a bit lame. If the Earth could be defended by a sword fight, there are plenty of humans who would have done as well as The Doctor. Of course it took him to know he could challenge. 

The whole thing was very Doctor light too. He spent most of the time unconscious and when he was awake he put a lot of effort into making sure we all knew he didn't know who he was. To a degree this is for the benefit of newer fans who aren't familiar with Regeneration, but it's almost as if they hasn't worked that out themselves yet. With such little screen time The Doctor is given no chance to show us who he is now. I'm left feeling that who The Doctor is, is angry.

Angry Doctor.

Get used to this sight.

So, a reasonably entertaining episode, albeit with a few flaws. Not a favourite, but still re-watchable.

7/10

Can we fix it?

I think the first fix here has to be the monsters. The idea of the Santas being like pilot fish was interesting, but ultimately made little sense in the context of the Sycorax being the shark. The Sycorax were drawn to Earth by the Mars probe, not The Doctor's regeneration energy, which created a disconnect between both races. Ideally the Sycorax should be demanding Earth hand over the source of the energy, unaware that it is The Doctor, perhaps thinking it's the TARDIS. They would still take the Martian Probe, allowing the whole blood control thing, but realisation of where the energy is coming from would only come when The Doctor regenerates his lost hand.

This opens up some interesting options for The Doctor to realise that whilst he may save the Earth, he is also endangering it. We could even have Harriet Jones use this as justification for using Torchwood to destroy the Sycorax.

"You brought us to this, Doctor. I was defending us from a threat you brought down on us."

Shooting someone in the back is one thing, but shooting them in the back and then blaming someone else is another thing entirely. Especially when your words have the ring of truth.

Resolving the timeline issues is tougher, but could be fixed by bumping the timeline forward a fraction more. It would be hard to jump an additional 12 months, but that may make things easier to swallow with regards to Harriet Jones. Another option would be to simply not have her as PM yet. Nothing said she needed to begin her reign immediately after World War Three. Of course with all that happens in the resolution of the Saxon Arc, that causes all sorts of other issues. That said, if Jones was still PM at the end of this, the Saxon Arc could play out entirely differently, with Saxon battling Jones for the top job using his knowledge of the future. That could have been fun.

The timeline stuff I could live with, but the changes to the monster situation would make it a much more cohesive episode.

Lost Episodes recovered!

There's been a persistent rumour for a while now that a whole bunch of lost episodes (some said up to 100) had been recovered in Nigeria. Today, the BBC announced that this was sort of true.

Film recordings of eleven episodes of Doctor Who – nine of which were considered ‘lost’ - have been discovered in Nigeria. 

All six episodes of The Enemy of the World and five of The Web of Fear were found by Phillip Morris, director of Television International Enterprises Archive, in a television relay station in Jos, central Nigeria.

Now whilst this is nowhere near the number originally rumoured, the recovery of nine lost episodes is monumental, and makes me very happy indeed. Of particular interest is the recovery of (most of) The Web of Fear, which saw the first appearance of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, one of my favourite all time companions.

This discovery gives me hope that somewhere in the dusty vaults of a near forgotten TV station storeroom lay other lost treasures just waiting to be reclaimed.