Day 710: The Christmas Invasion

This feels weird. In case you hadn't noticed, I took most of November off to focus on my studies, deciding that an appropriate stopping point would be 'The Parting of the Ways', the last story to feature Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor. So today I resumed this grand adventure with 'The Christmas Invasion', with a new Doctor: David Tennant. And it felt a bit weird because it had been a long time since I sat down and watched an older episode of Doctor Who. Whilst I have been keeping up to date with the current series, this story still felt like a step back into the past, and I'm not sure that I was ready for it. Everything felt slightly different, from the lighting to the direction, to the writing, everything just didn't quite gel. Which is weird, as I've watched this story countless times, so I should know it like the back of my hand.

I loved Tennant's first series when I was younger. In many ways, I was the perfect age for it: 11, going on 12, a young kid ready to be excited by alien monsters and eccentric heroes. And watching this episode, I can't help but be reminded of how much I loved that time. Because this story feels like it's part of a completely new era: one filled with energy and adventure. There's so much action in this story; within the first ten minutes we're attacked by robotic Father Christmases, then in the next ten, we're facing a deadly Christmas tree. And that's not forgetting the sword-fight that makes up the climax of the story. It's all a stark contrast to the last episode we encountered, where there was action, but it was all leading up to a key inaction by the Doctor, opposed to here, where the action leading up to the Doctor arriving only intensifies when he finally appears.

But the interesting thing that I found about this story is that it takes such a long time for Tennant to appear. He comes and goes in brief flashes throughout the story, but he only fully appears in the last twenty minutes or so. And this is an incredible gamble on the part of Russell T Davies, writer and showrunner, to hold off introducing his new Doctor for such a long time. Because he runs the risk of him not being fully formed in the role, leaving the audience with half of an idea of what the Doctor is rather than being fully prepared for their new hero (remember that 'Rose' featured the Doctor fairly regularly for much of its 45 minute running time, and similar things will be said about forthcoming post-regeneration stories 'The Eleventh Hour' and 'Deep Breath'). But it's a gamble that arguably works, with Tennant arriving into the role and giving a performance that's reasonably consistent with what we'll see throughout his tenure. He's energetic, bright, and has flashes of darkness that can disappear at an instant, but return again with more fury than you can possibly imagine. And it's a performance that can allow you to forgive the story for not letting you experience that Doctor for longer because that single short burst is more than enough to get you engaged and excited about the story.

And so Tennant's performance became this story's saving grace for me. I went from being slightly challenged by the different form of storytelling employed for this adventure to being excited for the time that I have ahead of me with this New Doctor. And, as I look at the ever dwindling list of stories that I have left to cover, I can look ahead to them and say We've Got Work To Do!