The Time Warrior

[1973/1974, Season 11, Serial 1]

The Time Warrior stands at an interesting point in Doctor Who's history, and is an important story.  First off, it has an awesome new title sequence, created with the slitscan technique from 2001: A Space Odyssey and introducing the logo that would become synonymous with Tom Baker's era.

It's the opening of the 11th season, which producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks decided would be their last.  It's clear even here that their era is coming to an end.  With Roger Delgado tragically killed in a car accident, the Master was no longer the kind of recurring character he had been, and wouldn't be seen again for several seasons.  Jo Grant, who had been the Doctor's companion for three years, had exited at the end of The Green Death the previous season.  UNIT no longer carries the importance of the previous four seasons.  The Brigadier gets a few good exchanges with the Doctor at the beginning, but disappears before the end of the first episode.

The Time Warrior is also one of the earliest "pseudo-historicals", the tales set in Earth's past but with a sci-fi plot.  It had been done a few times before - The Time Meddler is probably the best example - but in general, it was still a fairly rare concept.  Nowadays, it takes up about a third of every season...  It also introduces the Sontarans, a race who define themselves entire through war.

But none of that is what makes this episode really important.  No, what truly makes this one of the turning points of the show is the companion: Sarah Jane Smith.

Sarah Jane is the perfect template for a companion.  She's strong, brave, resourceful, and independent.  She gets captured in this story, but she always breaks herself out; she doesn't need the Doctor to rescue her.  In fact, she rescues the Doctor on more than one occasion.  She shows supreme self-confidence, and is more than willing to cut the Doctor down to size.  Here, in her first adventure, she spends much of the story believing the Doctor to be the villain, and takes a long time (understandably) to fully trust him.  It's a blast to watch her carry so much of the story through her own strength.  And she abjectly refuses to make coffee for the Doctor.

But she can also be vulnerable and scared when necessary.  Elizabeth Sladen is wonderful throughout.  She was cast for her ability to show both fear and courage at the same time, something she does superbly, but Sladen pours herself into every moment of the role.  Her first scene, meeting the Doctor, is terrific.  He almost immediately sees through her cover story for sneaking into a top secret science complex, but she just as quickly figures out that he probably won't give her away; her knowing smile when she asks him why he won't give her up is a perfect touch.  Later in the story, I love the scene where she meets Irongron, and is so fiery that he decides not to throw her in the dungeon and just leaves her standing around for awhile so her antics can amuse him.  She's funny, wistful, and just totally charming.  And she has great chemistry with Pertwee; it's just a blast to watch them together.  She's completely engaging and full of personality, and single-handedly elevates the tale. 

Not that it isn't good anyway.  It's a Robert Holmes script, and as expected, it's more dialogue-driven than anything else, but what awesome dialogue!

The Doctor: A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting,

Sarah Jane: You're serious, aren't you?
The Doctor: About what I do, yes.  Not  necessarily about the way I do it.

Linx: What is this?
Irongron: Oh, just a girl, taken in the forest.

Linx: Girl?  You have two species on this planet?!
Irongron: How say you?
Linx: The girl is not of your kind, Irongron.  The hair is finer, the thorax of a different construction...
Irongron: Oh, Hell's teeth, have you no girls beyond the stars?  No women to do the lowly work?
Linx: Ah, I understand.  You have a primary and secondary reproductive cycle.  It is an inefficient system.  You should change it.

Sarah Jane: Oh, I could murder a cup of tea.


He does a nice job with the medieval dialogue - it's wordy enough to sound convincingly old-fashioned but not so much it's ever confusing or distracting.  More importantly, it has as much wit and style as the more modern dialogue.  And as you'd expect from Holmes, The Time Warrior has a gallery of great characters.

The villains are a blast together.  The arrogant Irongron thinks he's far, far smarter than he really is, and keeps trying to undermine the technologically and intellectually superior Linx, and gets by with a couple minor victories in their verbal sparring through sheer persistence.  David Daker is hilarious as the bandit, but manages to be intimidating and threatening as well when need be.

Linx is the more memorable of the two, though, as the first Sontaran to show up in Doctor Who.  Despite a few rough edges, the makeup design is excellent, and makes him one of the most convincing aliens on the show.  And the race itself is interesting: a clone race of warriors, inherently tough physically anyway, but with the addition of their armor, incredibly difficult to kill except for a small vent on the back of the neck.  They prefer it that way, so that they're always forced to face forward in battle, and can never retreat.  Very cool.

The third villain, Bloodaxe, is Irongron's right hand man, and thinks he's pretty much the coolest guy in the entire world, and remains completely oblivious to what an idiot his boss really is.  John J. Carney is highly amusing in the role.

Irongron: I'll chop him up so fine not even a sparrow will fill its beak!
Bloodaxe: [in awe] Yours is indeed a towering intelligence!

There are two other major supporting characters.  The first, Rubeish, is a charming, witty variation on the absent-minded professor.  He's so near-sighted that, because he doesn't have his glasses, Linx can't hypnotize him, allowing him to help the Doctor to what little extend his near-blindness allows.  Mostly, though, he just adds to the overall sense of fun.

Rubeish: I haven't seen my wife and family for three days.
Doctor: Well, I'm sorry to hear that.
Rubeish: Ah well.  Just shows there's always a silver lining.

The other is Hal the archer, played forcefully and charismatically by Jeremy Bulloch.  He's likable and engaging enough that he might have even made a pretty good companion, though with Sarah Jane around, he wasn't really needed.

The less important characters are also good - the Lord and Lady of the nearby castle, despite only having a few scenes, have a well-developed relationship and personalities.  You get a real sense of who they are in just a handful of lines.  Even minor one-sceen characters are interesting individuals - they all have interesting things to say and do and add to the setting.

And, of course, there's the Doctor, who's as brilliant as ever.  Pertwee is at the top of his game, swinging from chandeliers, passionately decrying evil, wittily cutting down his opponents, and just generally being the dashing, heroic figure he so perfectly created in his version of the character.

Director Alan Bromly generally does a good job giving a dialogue-dirven script plenty of energy and capturing the midieval atmosphere well enough.  Unfortunately, though, while it's a perfectly adequate approach, he doesn't bring any passion to his storytelling.  In particular, he doesn't seem terribly interested in the action scenes - they're competantly staged but indifferently shot and edited, and as a consequence, exciting enough but nowhere near as thrilling as they should be.  Barry Letts tells a story that for the climax, which called for a castle to be blown up, he told Bromly that they could, in fact, blow up a model castle (and it's worth noting here that blowing up models is the one special effect that Doctor Who consistently does well) ... and Bromly turned it down, saying he would cut it together in a way that would work.  He spliced in two seconds of a quarry blowing up.

Bromly should have been ashamed of himself.  NOTE TO ALL DIRECTORS OF ANY AND EVERY FILM OR TELEVISION MEDIUM: If your producer tells you that you have the resources, money, and time to film the massive explosion your climax calls for, don't turn him down.  That may just be the worst decision every made by any director in the history of television, possibly excepting the entirety of the Star Wars Christmas Special.  Seriously, what was Bromly thinking?

Point being, the climax, while not unexciting, isn't the thrill ride it should be, despite big stunts, various acts of derring-do, treachery, archery, and a castle blowing up (or what was supposed to be a castle blowing up).  But, to be fair, Holmes doesn't come up with a perfect conclusion. (though the castle blowing up was an excellent idea, Bromly) It's satisfying enough, but the Linx/Irongron double-act doesn't fully pay off, and there's nothing particularly memorable about the way he wraps up outside of those few elements Bromly botches.  Really, though, it's more Bromly than Holmes; with a Douglas Camfield or David Maloney or Graeme Harper directing, I'm sure it would have been terrific.  Heck, if Letts himself had directed it like he originally planned, it would have been great.

Ultimately, The Time Warrior has all the elements of a classic, but falls short due to Bromly's lack of adventurousness and Holmes not quite figuring out how to wrap things up.  But it's a total delight nonetheless, consistently entertaining and a lot of fun, and is a must-see for the introduction of the greatest companion the Doctor ever had in Sarah Jane Smith.

RATING:

* * *


SIDENOTES:

• Jeremy Bulloch is probably best known for playing Boba Fett in the original Star Wars films, but he also played another character in Doctor Who about ten years earlier in The Space Museum, although that role mostly just asked him to stand around with his arms akimbo.  He's much, much better here with an actual role.
• The DVD is one of the occasional releases where the Restoration Team added CGI effects to try to make up for the low-budget old ones.  While I certainly appreciate their efforts, I've always found these to be a bit hit-or-miss.  When they work, they lift the story to an even higher level - Dalek Invasion of Earth and Earthshock come to mind.  But too often, they're jarring because the CGI often looks like CGI.  This, unfortunately, is one of those cases.  Yes, it's nice to see the castle blow up, but they're too obviously CGI flames.  Yes, it's nice to see the spacecraft flying toward the earth, but it looks just as cheap as the original shots, even if they are a tad more dynamic.  But hey, you can't get it right all the time, and I'm really glad for the times when their additions work. (and I'm really looking forward to their version of Day of the Daleks) And I'm especially glad that they consistently make the original version the default way of watching, and their altered versions in the special features.

An Unearthly Child/The Cave of Skulls

[1963, Season 1, Episodes 1-4]

“Nothing about this girl makes sense...”

Susan Foreman is a strange girl.  Two of her teachers, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, wonder together just what it is that makes her so odd.  Her intelligence is stunning in many ways, and Ian’s science experiments and Barbara’s history lessons are child’s play to her.  But she’s also completely lost in other, seemingly simple matters.  When Ian asks her to solve a problem with three variables, she insists that the problem can’t be solved without five, because you can’t approach the world without seeing all five dimensions.  In Barbara’s class, she doesn't know how many shillings were in a pound, and claims she had forgotten that Britain hadn’t changed to the decimal system yet.

It gets stranger when Barbara tries to meet her mysterious grandfather, and finds that the address listed by the school is just an abandoned junkyard.

Ian and Barbara, obviously close friends, decide to follow her home to try to figure out just what, exactly, is up with her.  They follow her to the junkyard.  Inside, they don’t find her, but they do find a police box for some reason.  Soon after, an odd old man comes in.  They confront him and figure out quickly that he is Susan’s grandfather.  He acts very suspicious, even sinister.

Then they hear Susan’s voice coming from inside the police box.  They rush inside to find a gigantic, otherworldly room inside the small box.  The old man locks them inside and tells them that it is his ship that travels through space and time.  Susan confirms it.  Barbara and especially Ian are extremely skeptical.  Then the old man decides that they can’t leave, and will have to travel with him.  And thus he kidnaps them out of their own time and their own world, and off to strange new adventures…

The first ever Doctor Who episode opens with an amazing theme song. Ron Grainer composed an eerie, minor-key melody, countered by a major-key bridge and driven by a pulsing bassline. But Dellia Derbyshire's arrangement, produced electronically, but sounding nothing like a synthesized score, creates an utterly unique, mysterious sound with a sinister but melodic theme.  And the title sequence matches it for mysterious strangeness.

An Unearthly Child drips with atmosphere from the opening shot.  The camera is mobile and lively, but slow enough to never be distracting.  The direction, camerawork, and lighting are superb.

But the script is equally strong.  It’s tight, well-structured, character-driven science fiction of the highest order.

Ian and Barbara are the focus of the episode, and they’re exceedingly well developed without slowing down the plot.  A bit old fashioned, likable, and engaging, they seem like good teachers.  It’s also obvious in the performances by William Russell and Jacqueline Hill that they’re close friends.

Very close...

 Their following Susan home comes across as somewhat mischievious curiosity.  Barbara wonders if they really should be following her, even though it was her idea, but Ian dismisses it because it is a mystery they really do want an answer to.

Susan, the titular unearthly child, is every bit as interesting.  Carole Ann Ford seems very relatable and likable, but there is something strange and otherworldly about her.

But William Hartnell as The Doctor, despite not appearing until halfway through the story, walks away with the episode.  He’s grippingly charismatic and absolutely fascinating.  He’s also an eerie, threatening figure; even the way he holds his flashlight is somehow threatening.  It’s a terrific performance.

The first two-thirds of the story masterfully build mystery and interest, but the really impressive part is the final third, when they go inside the ship.  The revelation is even more interesting than the mysteries.  Inside, the drama and intensity builds superbly, enhanced by the brilliant hum of the ship.

"The point is not whether you understand.  What is going to happen to you?"

The TARDIS interior is an amazing piece of work - it really does seem like nothing on earth.  It's not futuristic so much as completely otherworldly.  None of the subsequent redesigns have matched the sheer impact of this initial version. (although the Eighth Doctor's is pretty impressive)

The Doctor shows more and more layers while still remaining completely mysterious.

            Ian: You’re treating us like children!

            Doctor: Am I?  The children of my civilization would be insulted.

            Ian: Your civilization?

Doctor: Yes, my civilization.  I tolerate this century, but I don’t enjoy it.  Have you ever though what it’s like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension?  Have you?  To be exiles…  Susan and I are cut off from our own planet, without protection.  But one day, we shall get back.  Yes, one day… one day…

Ian and Barbara’s incredulous reaction to all this is completely credible.  Susan tells them, “I was born in another time, on another world.”  They don’t believe her, either, understandably, even seeing the wonders of the TARDIS.

When the Doctor tries to kidnap the teachers, Susan’s response is firm:

            Susan: I won’t go!  I’d rather be in the 20^th century than in the TARDIS with you!

            Doctor: Now you’re being sentimental and childish.

            Susan: No, I mean it!

            Doctor: Very well.

But he ignores her instead, flying into the unknown.

An Unearthly Child’s 25 minutes are stunning – introducing four characters with incredible depth, introducing the concepts and premise of the show, and above all, telling a tense, tight, exciting story.

The general consensus on the first four-part serial is that the first part is great, and the rest is rubbish.  It’s an understandable reaction, though it has more to do with the far the drop in quality than the actual merits of the next three episodes.  Still, The Cave of Skulls, despite one of the coolest titles ever, is certainly lacking in many respects, and its two successors, The Forest of Fear and The Firemaker, don’t pick up the slack.  It’s a different plot entirely, although it certainly follows very directly from Unearthly Child and reflects it in interesting ways.  But all in all, it’s a different story, and I’m going to treat it as such in my ratings because this is my website, dammit.

This three-part tale, which I’m going to refer to overall as The Cave of Skulls because that title is way too cool to not say as many times as possible, concerns a tribe of cavemen on an unnamed planet struggling to survive without fire.  There was a man who used to know how to use it, but the knowledge was lost when he was killed.  His son, Za, is obsessed by the notion that if his father knew it, he can learn it.  Za is leader of his tribe, but the elders are increasingly impressed by the stranger Kal, who has been providing meat to the tribe daily, while Za only tries without success to make fire.  This power struggle is thrown wildly out of whack when four bizarre people come in a large blue box, and throw great confusion into the midst.

Did I mention there's a cave with skulls in it?

Cavemen are rarely depicted convincingly in movies and television.  And by “rarely,” I mean Quest For Fire and that’s it.  Almost every other attempt goes for b-movie silliness, and only delivers on occasion.  The second-best caveman film is probably One Million BC on virtue of a couple minutes of Harryhousan effects and Raquel Welch in a bikini in virtually every scene.

Quest For Fire is different: it takes it seriously, and sets out to tell an engaging story while capturing the grim realities of its setting.  Unlike a few other serious attempts at the subject (like, say, Clan of the Cavebear), it doesn’t compromise with laughably-written attempts at feminism (or the 1980s Hollywood version) or outrageousness: it commits fully to its ideals, and the strength of its convictions make it a funny, exciting, and fascinating epic. (Since writing this, I've seen Fred Schepisi's terrific Iceman, which makes two good cavemen movies.)

Cave of Skulls, despite being what was intended as a children’s show, aims for the same goal: a grim, gritty, realistic vision of horrific times.  And, given the agonizingly low budget, it does a good job.  The sets are small but atmospheric, the costumes simple but effective.

The plot itself, though… the plot is a political struggle between two incredibly simpleminded idiots, with political intrigue provided by other simpleminded people.  Within about two minutes, every possible avenue they can think of is used up.  The story, unfortunately, takes over an hour to unfurl.  The setting may be well-established, but that doesn’t make it terribly interesting.

What is interesting, however, is the characterization of the Doctor, Ian, and Barbara.  Ian and Barbara react very convincingly to the strange world they’ve been dropped into.  Even after the TARDIS lands and they see the other world on the monitor, Ian still isn’t convinced, not until the Doctor leads him outside.  After finding his footing in this new world, though, Ian still stands up to the Doctor without hesitation.  He’s willing to call the Doctor the “tribe leader”, but for the most part, he takes charge.  He also insists on helping a wounded caveman, even though the caveman was wounded following them.  He’s the hero of the group, and William Russell does a great job of it.

Barbara doesn’t show the same strength, but Jacqueline Hill’s performance is superb.  Her expression of fear is totally convincing.  Further, though, there’s a strength in her fear: she’s scared, yes, but she’s also trying as hard as she can to not fall apart.  Even better is her telling off of the Doctor late in Forest of Fear, when he callously wonders why they would consider helping a wounded enemy.

Most fascinating, however, is the Doctor.  After laughing at Ian and Barbara for being, to him, part of a backwards civilization, he’s dropped into a world far less civilized, and captured and at the edge of death, he finds himself defeated by a people who can’t even manage to light a fire.  He begins begging for his life, saying he’s merely an old man, then offering to give these people the secret of fire before realizing that he dropped his matches.  It’s only when the other three show up to save him that he begins to become effectively manipulative, saving Ian’s life by telling the savages that he will not give them fire if they kill the young man.  It’s not out of compassion, however; he simply sees Ian as a means to escape.  In this first story, the Doctor is a cold, dark figure, willing to kill a helpless, wounded caveman with a rock simply because it seems expedient to him.

It’s here that a crucial piece of character development begins for the Doctor: Ian and Barbara insist on compassion and mercy.  These two traits over the years come to define the Doctor; that he learns the traits from two humans, the first two he really knew, makes his love for the planet Earth totally clear.  It’s never been said explicitely, and doesn’t have to be; it’s crystal clear, right here, where he begins his journey into the complex hero he would become.

 

Not that he becomes a hero in this story, or even comes close; but the beginnings are here.  Still, what does become obvious is his intelligence and skilled manipulations.  The beginning of episode four has a brilliant sequence where he tricks Kal into admitting his murderous activities.  It’s impressive not because of who he tricks, since Kal isn’t exactly one of the more intelligent forms of sentient life out there, and could probably be outsmarted by a rock.  It’s impressive because of the immediacy of the Doctor’s actions: the very moment Kal shows a weakness, the Doctor knows exactly how to trick him, and does it with stunning efficiency and coldness.  It’s a thrilling, sensational sequence; he may be tricking an idiot, but he’s doing a magnificent job of it.

The picture next to "cunning" in the dictionary.

Hartnell’s performance is astounding throughout.  The Doctor may not be likable at the beginning of his travels – at times, he’s downright detestable – but Hartnell’s presence and charisma are enrapturing.  Masterful, gripping work by a brilliant actor.

These relationships are also well-established.  By the end, Ian and Barbara are, by necessity, part of the crew, and they are beginning to show how they contribute to the team.  Ian and the Doctor, for all their clashing, are able by the end to work together during dangerous situations.  It’s solid television writing.

Susan, unfortunately, doesn’t fare as well as the other three.  She does bravely charge into the tribe to save her grandfather, but her freak-out when she first sees that he’s missing is a bit much, and she spends most of the story screaming and cowering in fear.  While fear is understandable, she brings it a bit too far.  It seems perhaps she was right to want to stay in the relative safety of the 20^th century.  All in all, she doesn’t get much here beyond “the Doctor’s granddaughter.”  Still, Carole Ann Ford remains likable.

The Cave of Skulls has one great strength, and that’s in the characterization of three of the four leads, which is compelling throughout.  The main story is slow and dull, but it’s a backdrop, really, to the continuing development of Ian, Barbara, and the enigmatic Doctor.  That and the compellingly-captured setting are enough, in my mind, to give it a weak three stars.

An Unearthly Child, on the other hand, is one of the series’ greatest achievements, reaching a peak only a handful of stories in the entire half-century history of Who can reach.

RATINGS:

An Unearthly Child:    * * * *

The Cave of Skulls:     * * *

·        The DVD contains a fascinating extra: the original unaired version of An Unearthly Child.  On the whole, it’s not as good as the actual version, but the differences are interesting.  There are some odd little changes to the title theme, and the opening shot on the whole is less effective.  But one of the biggest differences is immediate almost immediately: the relationship between Ian and Barbara.  Rather than a strong, relaxed friendship, they seem more like professionals, which makes their actions much less explicable.  William Russell and Jacqueline Hill are still clearly good actors, but they aren’t nearly as good in the role as they are in the aired version; it’s as though between showings, they got to know each other better, and the friendliness showed through, enhancing their own character work as well.  The banter and performances are still good, but they just aren’t anywhere near as sharp, and they flub lines like Hartnell in some of his later episodes.

The camerawork and lighting, while still well-designed, are pretty clumsy.  I like the ambition in the roving camera, but it’s really struggling to hit its marks, and it doesn’t really gel until the last few minutes.  It’s also very strange to hear such different sounds coming out of the TARDIS.

There are two differences, though, that make some Whovians actually prefer this version.  The first is Hartnell’s portrayal.  He’s pretty threatening in the aired version, but here he plays the role like one of the gangsters that were his bread and butter in his pre-Who days.  It’s outright villainous, and it’s hard to believe this man could ever have evolved into the compassionate figure he became.  I like Hartnell when he’s being threatening, but I find this to be a little be too much, personally.  Still, it certainly makes for a very different interpretation.

The other element is Susan.  Carole Ann Ford plays her otherwordliness to a much further extreme.  She doesn’t just seem unearthly; she’s from a different universe.  It’s actually pretty creepy.  “I like walking home in the English fog,” is a wonderfully odd line anyway, but Ford’s delivery is incredibly unnerving.  Instead of looking at a book about the French Revolution and criticizing its inaccuracy, she creates a rorschach test, then destroys it for some reason; it’s a moment riveting in its strangeness.

After all her weirdness, her cries of “Grandfather, let them go!” near the end, as she sheds the inhuman bizarrities and becomes much more relatable, have a tremendous effect.  Ford’s performance here is astounding.  It’s a tragedy she wasn’t allowed to play Susan this way.

Also, her costume is awesome.

Other than Susan, though, I don’t think the Pilot version works terribly well.  The technical areas are much rougher, the reveal of the inside of the TARDIS isn’t as shocking, and the less interesting Russell and Hill performances make it a lot less involving.  But it definitely makes for a fascinating watch.

If you haven’t seen the story before, when you get a hold of the DVD, don’t use the “Play All” feature, which includes the pilot version; go to the episode selection, and go through the story that way, then check out the Pilot version later if you’re interested.  It’s certainly worth a look, but on balance, it isn’t really the superior version, and even for this show, it’s wildly out of continuity with the series overall.  But its version of Susan is fantastic.

·        The later three-episode arc is variously known as “The Tribe of Gum”, “100,000 BC”, “The Paleolithic Age”, “The Stone Age”, and generally with its predecessor as “An Unearthly Child.”  I stick by “Cave of Skulls”, and hope very deeply to start a trend in Dr. Who fandom.  Spread the word!

·        Incidentally, the German version of the novelization is translated as “Doctor Who and the Child From the Stars”, which is itself a pretty cool title.  The French version, on the other hand, translates as the uninspiring “Doctor Who Takes the Stage.”

·        The cliffhangers are strong in all four episodes.  The howling wind and eerie visual of the ancient world in one is hard to top, but the skulls in the second and the spear-wielding tribe in the third are excellent, as well.  The final one, though, really is the best, a simple camera move on a small detail that’s more gripping than the entire three episodes that preceeded it, and that propels them into their next adventure, where the show really begins…

See this, series?  This is how you do a cliffhanger.

The Christmas Invasion

Post-regeneration stories are tricky.  They have to establish the new Doctor's personality and quirks while capturing everything that makes him The Doctor, deal believably with the companion's reaction, and tell a compelling story on its own, and then somehow balance all these elements so they're all satisfying.  Oh, and also, having every cell in your body renew itself and turn you into a different person causing a lot of stress and trauma, so there's that, too.  It's a lot like the pilot of a TV show: there's a lot to do and very little time to do it in.

The first two post-regenerations, in Power of the Daleks and Spearhead In Space, managed to pull the balance off very nicely, but the other classic stories tended to struggle.  Robot did a terrific job of establishing the new Doctor, but stuck him in a lousy story.  Castrovalva had a pretty good story, but dragged in the middle, and focused on the companions, leaving Five to really establish himself in Four to Doomsday. (which he did very nicely) Twin Dilemma certainly had a grabber with a crazy, homicidal Doctor and a companion trying desperately not to get killed by him, let alone everything else, but stuck them in one of the most boring plots in one of the shoddiest productions of the entire series.  Time and the Rani is so bad it kicks puppies and kills kittens.  And the TV movie spun its wheels for over a hour before the plot was actually able to get off the ground (and not terribly coherently at that).

So the fact that The Christmas Invasion pretty much gets everything right isn't just cool; it's pretty unlikely, and all the more satisfying for it.

It opens with a terrific scene of the TARDIS materializing on Christmas Eve just outside Jackie's apartment... way up in the air, after which it bounces and crashes to a halt on the street.  Then Ten pops out for about two minutes of hilarious dialogue before going totally unconscious.  Rose then has to somehow explain that this skinny blond dude actually is the Doctor, in a new body.

The plot then gets started, and it's a pretty good First Contact story -- our first contact with aliens being a group that has the ability to control blood, and threatens to kill every human on earth with Type A blood.  It's not the most original tale in the world, but it's a solid story, nicely paced and well played.

But while that's going on, just to keep the energy up, there's the scene with the "Pilot Fish", which is one of the highlights of the entire story.  Less than ten minutes in, Mickey and Rose are attacked by an unseen group of assassins in Santa costumes with creepy Santa masks on.  And then, when they do reach the apartment to make sure the still-unconscious Doctor is safe, they're attacked by the Christmas Tree.  It's a thrilling scene that doesn't really have much to do with the plot, but it's exactly the scene a Doctor Who Christmas Special really needs.

And then the Doctor jumps up and saves the day, and again, Tennant only has a couple of minutes to be Doctorly, but he makes the most of every second.

Still, one of the best things about this episode is how good it is when Tennant isn't onscreen.  The characterizations of all the politicians and UNIT and scientists are great, but the best is Harriet Jones, returning from Aliens of London/World War III, now Prime Minister.  She still has that wonderful habit of introducing herself and her title to everyone, and them responding "Yes, I know who you are."  She's grown into her role as PM with genuine presence, dignity, and decisiveness, but still pours coffee for others without thinking a thing of it.  Davies and Penelope Wilton give her quite a lot of depth, and she's a joy to watch throughout.

Billie Piper is great as Rose as usual, and her chemistry with Tennant is evident right from the beginning.  She gets a particularly great piece to herself, though, when she tries to bluff and bluster enough to get the aliens to fly away, and succeeds only in making them laugh. (which, I might add, is great alien laughter: creepy and inhuman, but clearly laughter.  Bravo to the sound effects crew.)

Mickey's character arc is turning out nicely by this point.  In Rose, he was cowardly and frightened.  Here, he's still understandably scared of things, but bravely stands up to an assault from a killer Christmas tree and refuses to turn tail and cower when he's onboard the alien craft.  His scenes with Rose are very effective, as she continues to mistreat him (although not as badly as before) and he responds classily but with a proper undercurrent of jealousy.

And then Tennant comes in full force for the last twenty minutes, and he's absolutely sensational.  Not surprisingly, he's side-splittingly funny, and charming and appropriately smug at times.  But there's a moment late in the story, after the swordfight, when he turns on a dime to a darker, colder intensity than Eccleston ever hit before returning to his joyous normal self.  It's a gripping moment that shows how fully he nails the Doctor right from the beginning.

Then, having defeated the invaders, Davies includes a genuinely shocking coda that makes an otherwise fun romp suddenly turn very, very dark like it's the early 70s again.  Harriet Jones' decision is overzealous and painful, but the Doctor's response is itself a pretty intense overreaction, and as usual, he doesn't stop to think of what the consequences will be before running off into the universe again.  It's a great ending, complex and thoughtful.

The Christmas Invasion doesn't quite hit the heights of Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways, but it's very worthy of its immediate predecessor in the series and a pitch-perfect first episode for Tennant, who was born to play this role.

RATING:

* * * ½


SIDENOTES

• I love every line Tennant says in this story, but far and away my favorite is the way he says "A great, big, threatening button."
  
  
• The Doctor's method of getting Jones removed from office is inspired.
  
  
• For all the things the episode gets right, it somehow messes up the climactic swordfight.  The dialogue is great, but the choreography of the fight feels clumsy and off.  Mostly, they're trying to fight with broadswords in ways that broadswords are not meant to be used.  Broadswords are all about power and force, and hopefully disarming your opponant.  The original Star Wars films look like broadsword fights; Highlander mostly looks convincing.  But if you are going to try to make it fast and full of finesse, watch the fights in First Knight: they're fast and smooth while still remembering that broadswords are freakin' heavy and difficult to use.  Here, it looks like the actors are having to pour their whole beings into just managing to hit their marks.
  
  

 

• Hooray!  We get to see another room in the TARDIS!  And it looks predictably great.