The Christmas Invasion

Dear Gary—

“Tell them, this is a day of peace on planet Earth. Tell them, we extend that peace to the Sycorax. And then tell them, this planet is armed and we do not surrender.”

Harriet Jones. Good old Harriet Jones. Leave it to Harriet Jones. Harriet Jones, Prime Minister.  I start with this simple response of Harriet Jones to the alien threat to her planet because it addresses several of the major points I want to discuss about this episode, The Christmas Invasion.

First is that day of peace she mentions, the Christmas of our title. And I’ll start with the purely superficial nature of it. We have the music, the decorations, the presents; all setting the mood and establishing the atmosphere; Jackie full of longing and sadness as she contemplates the gift she has set aside for her missing daughter; Mickey desperately trying to hang on to some semblance of happiness as he attempts to shop with Rose on the bustling holiday streets. A touch of normalcy that Rose comments on as ephemeral and unreal compared to her TARDIS life.

And then the Santa-faced robots of death, the unreal masked in normalcy, reestablishing the standard in Rose’s topsy-turvy life. These are only nominally dealt with as ‘pilot fish.’ They kind of come and go, just a distraction really. “Remote control; but who’s controlling it?” That question is never satisfactorily answered. But it is never really important; they are summarily dismissed by the action to follow as the pilot fish they signify; a precursor to the real threat; dispersed into space when the real action heats up; purely the superficial.

There is a deeper layer to that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. But I hope, in the Doctor Who world of The Christmas Invasion, that it is unintended. I hope that I have read too much into it. Because the promise of that ancient day celebrated through the ages, the implication of eventual rebirth and resurrection—I really and truly hope that Doctor Who did not deliberately link this religiously symbolic day to the Doctor’s regeneration. (Now if this had taken place at Easter . . . .)

“Doctor, help us. God help us.” Harriet Jones again. It is that—that linkage of the Doctor to some all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present being—that makes me pause; that makes me shiver; that makes me wonder, along with Harriet Jones, “What does that make you, Doctor? Another alien threat?” Heaven help us if the Doctor Who universe ever dares to make the Doctor not a super hero, not an idol, not a superstar, but a god. The whiffs of super hero and idol and superstar are bad enough; setting the Doctor up as a god, whether of tin or gold or dalekanium, would be catastrophic. (To quote another Christmastime fare Christmas in Connecticut: “Catastrophe, what is it?” “It’s from the Greek: it means ‘a misfortune, a cataclysm, or a serious calamity.’” “It is good?” “No sir. That’s bad.”)

But let me set that aside, because these are only whiffs and hints and suppositions.

Let me instead just settle on the regeneration. I don’t mind a purely superficial linkage to the day, and given Doctor Who’s disdain of the spiritual I can take this on a simple secular level, Harriet Jones’ ‘day of peace’ aside.

This ninth regeneration that the Doctor undergoes hits him hard and he is laid up for much of the episode. This allows for an exploration of two of the other elements embodied in the above quote that I opened with, and those are Harriet Jones and the nature of leadership. With the Doctor sidelined it is up to the rest of the cast to deal with life and with the Sycorax, the alien threat who were also mentioned in the opening quote.

Rose proves to be predictably dependent on and useless without the Doctor. Threatened by a marauding Christmas tree all she can do is fumble around for the sonic screwdriver, place it in the Doctor’s limp hand, and pathetically plea for help in his unconscious ear. Even on his sick bed the Doctor is able to sit up and with the flick of his finger save the day. When the Doctor lapses back into his comatose state Rose just gives up and hides in the TARDIS. Directly confronted with the Sycorax she does manage some bravado, although they understandably laugh in her face.

Jackie is more practical in her approach, offering suggestions, and even if rejected at least she is trying, not to mention highly amusing. Her interactions with the Doctor are some of the best moments. And even though Rose is dismissive of and rude to her mother, it is Jackie’s common sense provision of tea that ultimately cures the Doctor.

Mickey more or less stands in the background and still hasn’t seemed to have learned his lesson with regards to Rose. However he does have the presence of mind to look up pilot fish and he at least attempts to hold off the deadly tree with a chair.

It is Harriet Jones, however, who really steps up. She might not have the answers, but she has the confidence, the poise, and the determination necessary to lead (apart from her rather hokey and desperate address to the nation). “I’m proud to represent this planet,” she tells the Sycorax, taking full responsibility.

She is brave, but she does not possess the knowledge that only the unconscious Doctor has. Revived by Jackie’s healing tea, the Doctor emerges from the TARDIS just in time. This newly regenerated and Tenth Doctor is first finding his voice; he does not yet know who he is; he is still defining his leadership style.  He emerges from the TARDIS and is relaxed, casual, charming, disarming; he ignores the Sycorax as he reunites with old friends before turning his attention to the “great big threatening button” and flippantly deriding the alien threat, calling the Sycorax bluff.

“You stand as this world’s champion?” the head Sycorax asks in response to the Doctor’s challenge.

“Thank you,” the Doctor replies. “I’ve no idea who I am, but you just summed me up.”

Not quite declaring himself a god, this Tenth Doctor nevertheless holds himself forth as protector of the Earth, placing the fate of the world in his newly and doubly regenerated hands. It is a bit presumptuous, but then Harriet Jones had done the same. The Sycorax hold over the Earth has been exposed for the “cheap bit of voodoo” that it is, the hypnotic spell over all of the A Positives has been broken and they have all stepped back from the edge (although surely one or two of these billions would have toppled over either accidentally or on purpose—whether by murderous or suicidal intent), and all that remains is the huge spaceship full of menacing aliens to be warned off for good. With sword in hand the Doctor duels his way to victory and sends the defeated on their way.

And then, this newly regenerated Doctor who hasn’t fully defined himself but who fancies himself Earth’s Savior does something that is unforgiveable. He breaks one of the most important and dearly held Laws of Time, the one Law that he has consistently championed throughout his many generations until now. He blatantly and deliberately and irresponsibly alters history. With six words. (Never mind that the whole idea is ludicrous.)

Up until that point the Doctor had been touting Harriet Jones as the architect of Britain’s Golden Age. With his six little words (no matter how ludicrous) he single handedly ensures that this apparently momentous era never comes about. (And he wonders why the future Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire is stunted, or looking ahead a season, how Harold Saxon ever came to power.)

I can only look back to the Third Doctor and The Silurians. When the Brigadier blows up the entrance to the Silurian cave the Doctor calls it what it is, murder; and he finds it hard to forgive; however he does not let it stop him from continuing to work with UNIT and the Brigadier. Never once does he intimate that the Brigadier is unfit for duty. And the Brigadier was never the architect of any Age, golden or otherwise.

I’m going to continue on my soap box, Gary, and I’m going to present a hypothetical. What if the Sycorax had not encountered Earth at the time and place they did? What if instead they arrived in 1861 Washington, DC? What if instead of Harriet Jones it was Abraham Lincoln who met and eliminated this threat? Would the Doctor have acted the same?

Beyond the altering of the time line, I have to wonder if the Doctor’s action (no matter how ludicrous) is justified. Harriet Jones did fire upon a retreating enemy, there is no doubt. However it was not a decision she made lightly. Her drawn and haggard face tells the tale of the toll this day and this decision has taken on her; it is something that she will have to live with for the rest of her life; but it is something that she stands by and takes full responsibility for. She perhaps acted hastily and arguably without authority; but she had to act fast; and this was one of those tough calls a leader must make, right or wrong.

 Harriet Jones does have some compelling arguments on her side. She has seen what the Sycorax are capable of and knows that they are likely to return. She has seen the Sycorax murder two men before her eyes; she has seen their defeated champion break his sworn vow and attempt to stab the Doctor in the back; she has witnessed them taking one third of the population hostage and demand half the population as slaves. She has no guarantee of peace from the Sycorax regardless of the Doctor’s efforts. And she has no guarantee that if the Sycorax do return the Doctor will be there to meet them.

“I’m sorry, Doctor,” she tells him, “but you’re not here all the time. You come and go. It happened today. Mister Llewellyn and the Major, they were murdered. They died right in front of me while you were sleeping. In which case we have to defend ourselves.”

Harriet Jones did not make her decision lightly. When the Doctor hears her defense, when his grand and glorious gesture as Champion and Savior of the World is not perhaps met with all the halleluiahs that he would expect, when he is told that he cannot always be counted on, he makes his snap decision with cold calculation. “Don’t you think she looks tired?”

“I don’t know,” the Doctor says when trying to define his new self. “See, there’s the thing. I’m the Doctor, but beyond that, I just don’t know. I literally do not know who I am. It’s all untested. Am I funny? Am I sarcastic? Sexy? Right old misery? Life and soul? Right handed? Left handed? A gambler? A fighter? A coward? A traitor? A liar? A nervous wreck?” And then later, after killing the Sycorax leader: “No second chances. I’m that sort of a man.”

There is one more word the Doctor should add for his consideration: sanctimonious.

That was my long-winded diatribe, Gary, and I’m glad to have gotten it off my mind. Because I really do enjoy the Tenth Doctor. The overwhelming defining word I would give to David Tennant’s portrayal would be entertaining. And this premier episode is most entertaining, even if those few brief moments at the end mar it for me.

Just skimming along the surface and ignoring the troubling undercurrents, The Christmas Invasion is amusing and witty and thrilling; “very Arthur Dent” to use the Doctor’s own words. The final Christmas celebration and the Doctor’s contemplation of a new wardrobe are a joyous contrast to the often somber Ninth Doctor scenes. The TV reports calling for the downfall of Harriet Jones just a scant few hours after some whispered insinuations is idiotic, but I’ll let that go. And then there is just the touch of solemnity as the Doctor points out that the snow everyone is making merry in is actually the charred remains of the Sycorax before he and Rose plot out their next course for fun and adventure.

I’m looking forward to that next course, Gary.