In The Writer's Tale, Russell T Davies says of The Christmas Invasion: "It was the first time we were making a programme that we knew to be a success... the return of Doctor Who had gone from being this potentially odd, cult, short-lived experiment to a primetime bonanza - now with a Christmas Day slot! I think that's when we really set our eyes on the horizon, and decided to go for it."
The difference is marked. The first Christmas special has something of Dalek about it in the confident, almost brazen way, it goes about its business. This episode is about the absence of the Doctor. By keeping him bedridden, by withholding the new Doctor from us, RTD creates a sense of expectation, a need that builds and builds. Nobody can fill the void he has left, not Rose or Mickey, not UNIT, not Torchwood, not even the Prime Minister. It's a bold ploy and it really works. The longer we are kept waiting, the more exciting the Doctor's arrival becomes - and by the time Tenant throws opens the TARDIS doors we have already convinced ourselves he is the Doctor. Because who else would we be waiting for? It's the anticipation that makes this marvellous entrance work: another great punch-the-air moment, that steals up on the viewer as the Sycoraxic gently blurs into English.
But this story is also about the absence and return of Doctor Who itself. When Harriet Jones pleads on live television for the Doctor to reappear, she is speaking for the nation watching at home as much as those perched on the roof tops. After so long without the Doctor on our screens, this episode takes the time to revel in the success that the show has achieved. "Did you miss me?" asks the Doctor, personifying the swagger that the show now allows itself.
The change in the Doctor is fascinating and I can't help but think that the show's success is responsible. In that quote above RTD talks about the odd, short-lived experiment that he feared Season One might turn out to be. Perfectly reasonable, of course, but did those doubts, those low expectations find their way into the Ninth Doctor? It's astonishing how the Tenth Doctor instantly leaps into the centre of the action, taking on the Sycorax leader in a sword fight of all things! Eccleston's Doctor would never have done that and the difference is not anything to do with regeneration or Time War catharsis: the difference is surely the fear of failure, the anticipointment (love that word), dissolving from RTDs' brain as Doctor Who became a runaway success.
Success, though, can go to the head. I'm not suggesting for one moment that any of the production team suffered from big-headedness following that first year but, having now fixed the Doctor, Series Two's bugbear looms: Rose and her insufferable conceit that she and the Doctor will always be together. With that in mind, it's refreshing to see her behave normally in this episode. Those moments with Mickey, ambling around the Christmas shops, are delightful and remind us how surprisingly good these two are together. Later on, as the crisis deepens, Rose panics and flails about as if she was an ordinary human being and not the Most Important Being in Space/Time. Her ordinariness is a good thing. Her bravery here, when she tries to stand up to the Sycorax and falters, is much more endearing and impressive than, for example, the way she trash talks Dalek Sec as in Doomsday.
That's all to come. For now, The Christmas Invasion is a great episode, a very good post-regeneration story, and an impressive start for the Tenth Doctor and the new tradition of Christmas specials. It garnered scores of eight and nine from Will and Chris respectively. William liked the sense of scale (the largeness of the Sycorax ship, the threat of two billion ready to jump, the involvement of the Prime Minister), but he ruefully pointed out that Rose just couldn't cope when the Doctor was out of action. Chris loved the new Doctor and said the episode just wasn't very scary - but sometimes it impossible to tell whether or not that's a criticism.
NEXT TIME...
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