Merry Christmas! Oh wait, it is May, and with this episode it is not-so-happy suicide pact-mas! I can’t avoid it, so let’s talk briefly about something that’s going to come up, Christmas and suicide. I’ve seen the horrible side of suicide, not just the end but also weeks and months before. Around Christmas, suicide rates go up, if you think someone is even slightly at risk any time of the year, try talking with that person and try helping them. If you do have feelings leaning towards suicide, please call helplines (such as the US and UK lines) or talk to a friend. It is hard to do on either side, but at the very least try. Not for me, but yourself, your friends and your family.

I hate to gloss over it, but it’s all we can do without bogging ourselves down in a review. Now on to Doctor Who, a happy space adventure show for kids… sometimes. As I said it is Christmas (back in 2005), and much like any other day, Jackie doesn’t know when or if Rose is coming back. The last time she saw her was after Jackie called in that favor from Rodrigo with the tow truck, giving the TARDIS a bit of a jump start and nearly killing her own daughter. In the meantime, Mickey started work as a mechanic and in true British Christmas fashion, Slade is playing on the radio.

Demanding the radio be switched off, Mickey and Jackie can hear the roar of the engines in the distance. Meeting in the courtyard of the estate they live on, they stand about looking for it as it comes crashing down, nearly killing a postman and knocking over two bins. Stumbling out amazed at being able to fly properly, The Doctor meets Jackie and Mickey who are confused, who is this? They knew a northern bloke with ears the size of Satellite 5. Of course thanks to his regeneration, he is now a Scottish bloke with a fake English BBC accent, wearing the previous Doctor’s clothes telling them “Merry Christmas” and collapsing. Both wonder where their bloke is, the one they know.

Asking Rose where he is, she points to him and says he’s right there. “What do you mean, that’s The Doctor? Doctor Who?” Thanks Jackie, can always count on you to say that line as the wink to the audience. Laid up in bed, Jackie and Rose tend to The Doctor after Jackie steals a stethoscope. Though it’s never established if the stethoscope has the concave piece for cardiologists, Rose checks his hearts. She tells Jackie that both are working, “what do you mean both?” she asks as she wasn’t told that Timelords have more than one. She then asks “anything else he’s got two of?” You dirty minx Jackie! Laying there he spills out some regeneration energy that is released into space.

Asking why she’s got a set of men’s pajamas, Rose is inquisitive of what Jackie has been up to. Howard from the market has been staying over for about a month. We know he must have two of something then. After being interrupted by the Prime Minister on the TV, Rose recognizes the voice, Prime Minister, Harriet Jones! Jones is being questioned on the costly effort of the space probe “Guinevere One,” a probe aimed at taking pictures of Mars on Christmas day. There’s a problem, it has hit a big rock with sliding rock doors that invite it in for an alien peruse.

Out for a walk with Mickey, Rose needs twenty quid to get her mum something. Of course, she also takes the time to talk about life in the TARDIS. Mickey knows she’s having great adventures that he can’t compete with, and is a bit fed up with these stories. Rose notices strange men dressed as Santa with plastic faces, playing a brass version of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” as Mickey natters on. The Santas start following her, stop playing, and start holding their instruments like weapons. More specifically, like flamethrowers, shotguns, and a grenade launcher, just what I asked for from Santa, though not in that way.

Hopping in a cab back to Jackie’s, Rose and Mickey make their way to safety, wondering why doll-faced Santa’s were after them. The simple answer is because of The Doctor. They manage to get back to the flat, barging in and hanging up the phone Jackie has been on with Bev. The three of them ask each other where a safe place is. Jackie is moving about the room when Rose notices a well-decorated tree, a tree that begins lighting itself, singing, and spinning. Running for The Doctor’s bedroom, they start moving things in front of the door in an effort to stop the killer Christmas tree. “I’m gonna get killed by a Christmas tree!” Sometimes I wonder why Jackie’s lines are more natural than that whole BAD WOLF business.

Whispering in his ear, Rose says, “Help me!” to The Doctor. Much like the Scotsman-turned-Englishman that died in San Francisco on New Year’s Eve in 1998; the newly regenerated Doctor sits upright to save the day. As much as I like the 8th Doctor, that was a bit of a crap movie. Now it is time to see David Tennant in full swing as The Doctor. Tennant is what a lot of people wrongfully call the greatest Doctor. Straight to business, he wants to know who was controlling the tree, why these Santas were pilot fish, and why there is an apple in the dressing gown he’s wearing.

He passes out again, requiring nurse Rose to sit by him while he nearly boils to death. It is now midnight and the ground team have found the probe. Mickey finds the Wikipedia article on pilot fish, and the first images from the probe come through. An alien with bones for a face (I fought him in MGS V) appears, causing the BBC to be impartial while stating that the big scary alien with bones showing might just be misunderstood for his foreign policy. Meanwhile, the Americans are halfway to war with the image, and Indian news hardly gets a second. U.N.I.T guides the leader of the probe team to their headquarters in the Tower of London.

“Harriet Jones, Prime Minister,” he has gone to meet someone lovely that I’ll hate by the end of the episode. What is a weird choice by Davies is to make the British space agency member and leader of a Mars probe team, a person who doesn’t believe there is a chance of life in space. Instead, it is the Prime Minister Harriet Jones, who knows all about aliens and talks freely about them as if she’s standing in the HQ of a military operation trying to deal with the paranormal and extraterrestrial. Once again, Harriet has to meet with someone and she still introduces herself, yet once again people know who she is.

Sally has found that the probe wasn’t broadcasting from the surface of Mars, it was broadcasting above it. Now, correct me when I’m wrong, but the probe didn’t look like the type to land. In fact, it looked like it was meant to stay in orbit. Nonetheless, they know it is on the alien ship, and Llewellyn, the project manager for the probe suggests they might not even be from far away. Of course not, Martians look completely different, they look like that kid from Good Will Hunting. These new aliens are coming right towards us, and coming fast. Sycorax Rock!

Asking if they’ve seen a “Code nine,” Harriet asks if U.N.I.T know if The Doctor has been spotted nearby. Failing that, she asks about this “Torchwood,” and they just sound like a bunch of Welsh perverts prancing about with knock-off Ghostbusters weapons. Translating the Sycorax, U.N.I.T is getting an understanding of the impending alien threat, a small-minded race of self-assured conquerors. It is also the point where I start hating Harriet Jones, Prime Minister. “Tell them, this planet is armed and we do not surrender,” it is not what she said, it is how she said it; with anger and like there is no other choice.

In response on the morning of Christmas day in the UK, the Sycorax simply do some hand movements. Suddenly, hundreds of millions of people are blindly marching, being begged by family and friends to stop. Millions march to the edge of high-rise buildings. Hundreds of people all standing on the edge of anything high, lining buildings in family groups. Though there are never husbands and wives together, just blood relations. On Guinevere One was a sample of blood, A+ samples. On Christmas day the Sycorax are holding people ransom under the assumption of mass suicide, over 2 billion people.

Taking to her office, Harriet begins a broadcast warning the public that The Queen’s speech has been canceled because the royals are on the roof, and she begs for help. She doesn’t ask for help from another world power. Much like Rose when she was being threatened by a Christmas tree, she asks for help from The Doctor. Still laid up in bed, he doesn’t respond. His lack of response is right on time, as every pane of glass in London shatters when the Sycorax enters the atmosphere. London is now clouded by mile and miles of flying rock. It is so big, that it covers central London and parts of Greater London.

“All we can do is run and hide,” Rose tells Jackie in what can only be described as the perfect example of what Doctor Who is all about. Meanwhile, the Sycorax ask for the leader of the world and no, it is not an American from Connecticut. Harriet steps forward and is promptly teleported on-board with her assistant, Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen, and the Major. The four of them, stand in the heart of the Sycorax-based beast. All this happens as Rose and Mickey drag The Doctor down the stairs and into the TARDIS. All Jackie is carrying, as mothers do, is several hundred bags of everything.

As aliens tend to, the Sycorax threaten to push the big red button “releasing the final curse,” and causing 2 billion to jump. Llewellyn steps forward calling this mess his doing, and is promptly whipped to death, as is the Major a moment later. Harriet Jones, Prime Minister, steps forward to introduce herself. They respond with “yes, we know who you are,” and she asks why the human race should surrender to these skinless monsters. An ultimatum, one half sold into slavery and they live, or one third will die now.

Rose, Mickey, and The Doctor are in the TARDIS as Jackie goes to get more food, the former two play with buttons, knobs, and switches. The Sycorax teleport the TARDIS just as Jackie comes to the door, and Rose goes to check on her, walking out to face the Sycorax. The Doctor is left alone in the TARDIS, as a thermos flask of drips hot tea on some of the TARDIS elements. Since Rose was the first one out of the “clever blue box” she speaks for the planet. She is The Doctor in the eyes of the Sycorax, and she’s in harm’s way.

Stumbling through a bunch of phrases I love using to confuse my editor: The Shadow Proclamation, Raxacoricofallapatorius, Gelth, Might Jagrafess, and “Oh, the Daleks;” I’ve got a feeling the Sycorax can smell Bullshot when they smell it. Laughing at her, they continue to talk and the TARDIS can’t translate for Rose, she assumes because The Doctor is out for the count of 10. Using Alex, Harriet’s PA to translate, the Sycorax leader pontificates greatly about his power, until Rose can hear English again.

One creaky door later, you have yourself a miffed Scotsman pretending to be a bit English, in another man’s pajamas, standing in the door of his spaceship. His spaceship is on-board a bigger spaceship that’s smaller on the inside. What you’ve got right there, is a Doctor in the shape of David Tennant. Lighting up like a Christmas tree, Rose knows it is all about to change. All the fun begins from here on out. The Sycorax tries to whip The Doctor to death, but with Missy in his future, I’m sure whips are the least of his worries. He also snaps the Sycorax’s staff in half; “You just can’t get the staff.“

Molding myself in this scene, The Doctor asks Rose how he looks. He says he always wanted to be ginger, but sadly he’s not ginger. He also gets a bit rude to Rose because she gave up on him, asking himself if that’s who he is now, rude. Harriet asks who the bloody is this? Same man, just a new face, a new everything, including two new hearts. However he still has the same old memories of “World War Three.” After being asked who he is by the Sycorax, he goes off on a tangent about not knowing if he’s right-handed, left-handed, a smoker, a choker, a joker, coward, or even just a bit curious about big red buttons. Walking up to the button, he figures the last one out.

Building the tension as the scene wears on, he gets a bit closer and a bit closer, all until he pushes that great big threatening button knowing exactly what will happen. Quoting The Lion King, he tells the Sycorax to just get a jog on and leave humanity alone, the weak, defenseless children that they are. The Doctor, standing as the earth’s champion, challenges the Sycorax to a duel. Battling out into the ship’s exterior garden-like area, Rose almost gets involved. In a quick moment of being caught off guard, the Sycorax cuts The Doctor’s hand-off. By mere chance The Doctor is still regenerating and forms himself a new hand.

Winning by virtue of laying the Sycorax on his back by the edge of the ship, The Doctor commands him and his people to leave and never come back. He then starts walking away, checking the pockets of the dressing gown. The Doctor finds a satsuma to play with, and with his back turned the Sycorax charges at him, sword raised and standing on a retractable platform. Throwing the satsuma to hit another button, we discover what kind of Doctor this is, one that doesn’t give second chances, kind of.

Leaving, the Sycorax that are left drop the TARDIS, Alex, Harriet Jones Prime Minister, The Doctor, Rose, and Mickey off on Earth. Alex gets a call from Torchwood, they are ready and Harriet gives to go-ahead. She fires on a fleeing race of scared aliens, blowing up their ship, and killing all of them. This causes ire in The Doctor, rage not against a monster-of-the-week, but the monster of the human race that wants to barge into space with arms out wide, killing for “defense.” He tells her to fear him, fear the only six words that could destroy her.

“Don’t you think she looks tired?” he asks Alex, who is a bit confused at this reference that put doubt in Thatcher’s reign. Worried, she asks him what was said, but not with regret for what she did. The fact that there were consequences for her actions made her regret it. It is the rise and fall of Harriet Jones, from charming backbencher to a monster feared by all. Following a closet montage of him picking out his new clothes, we get a Christmas dinner, and Harriet gets questioned on her vote of no confidence. Outside it is “snowing” as everyone piles out into the ashes of the Sycorax falling on London on Christmas night.

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"The Christmas Invasion"

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• I always love an episode with Harriet Jones.
• The Doctor's anger towards the end.
• All the references to last series' episodes in Rose's speech

Cons

• We're in U.N.I.T HQ and no mention of the Brigadier or Sarah Jane?