Say WHO?

It has been ages since I wrote on here. I've just been so tired and what little energy I have had left has been consumed by other things. For a lot of people that wouldn't leave them worn out, but for me it means I have just been soooo busy it isn't even funny, given that I am normally functional well under 11 hours out of 24 on a good day.
 
So busy, in fact, that although there are only about 8 TV shows in a week that I will definitively reserve time for, I've mostly had to record them or get them from torrents after they aired. Sometimes I wish we had TiVO but... half the time it would probably fill up with stuff I would never get around to watching.
 
However, there are some shows I will always make time for: those being Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica and the 2 Stargate series. All have been on hiatus and all but Doctor Who are not available on regular television in Canada until far after they have been broadcast in other places. That means that almost universally I have to get torrents of them and watch them in bed with my laptop. And that's where we stand right now, that's what all this preamble has led to: I JUST finished watching Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion, and it was SO DAMN GOOD I had to write about it NOW. Now, because it airs on CBC tonight at 8pm and if anyone keeps up with my blog at all I don't want them to miss it.
 
This is possibly the best Doctor Who episode EVER made. I know, "The Christmas Invasion" brings up images in everyone's mind of some hokey lame-ass Star Wars Christmas Special idea. Come on, you know when you were 10 years old that show seemed good for 5 minutes but then it sunk in that, like that smell emanating from Kentucky Fried Chicken, you were drawn in by the "Star Wars" - but when you actually tasted it, you realised - THIS FUCKING SUCKS. ON top of that is the sometimes-campy aspect that Doctor Who has shown in the past causing you to think this might be just one big joke. I even saw a post on an IMDB message board making that exact statement: "The Christmas Invasion? Is that a JOKE?" NOTHING could be further from the truth. The Christmas Invasion is exceptional: brilliant, quirky, and hilarious.
 
The Christmas aspect isn't pounded into the story like a tree graft, it is merged into it seamlessly. Although there are fun bits like a killer brass band of Santas and a malevolent and destructive Christmas tree, it is merged into the early part of the story with humour and that borderline horror aspect of delicious good-things-gone-horribly wrong irony. You want to laugh but if you have any investment in the characters at all, you are also terrified by what is happening to them. Even those who have not watched the new Who, or perhaps never watched the Doctor's adventures at all, will find it entertaining.
 
After the dark turn of Christopher Eccleston - which although I enjoyed immensely, didn't feel like the same confident Doctor of the past - David Tennant brings back the old aspects of the Doctor. You feel like there is some Pertwee, Troughton, Davison and McCoy in there now. You can also feel the Eccleston Doctor's influence in that there is clearly a darker side to the Doctor, but he seems more balanced in Tennant. Time will tell.
 
Of course, that previous paragraph is only going to be understood by long-term Who fans. What we get in this show is an episode that allows you to step into the Doctor's Universe without having watched all the old incarnations of the Doctor. If you came into this with only a passing interest and little knowledge of Doctor Who, you can still enjoy this special. Amazingly, the writing has taken a slightly Whedonesque turn as well, and I certainly mean that in the best way possible. The subtle pop-culture references are there including a throwaway comment by the Doctor about Arthur Dent. The story has the pacing and structure of some of the best action type feature films of recent years. It is a worthy debut for our new Doctor, and a brilliant portrayal of what happens to the Doctor's companion when he regenerates. Rose shows all the inecurities that a real person would: will I like the new person? What happened to MY Doctor? Billie Piper shows great acting skills in passing along that sense of grief and loss that the Doctor that she knew and loved IS DEAD and she has no idea where Rose will be without him.
 
When the Doctor recovers to save the day, which of course, he always does (I wouldn't consider it much of a spoiler to say it) - it is in the truest action-hero style the Doctor has ever shown. He also shows that he is still a guardian of the Universe and not Earth alone in how he addresses Prime Minister Harriet Jones in the post-attack scene. The closing Christmas dinner scenes are paced just right so as not to drag the whole thing down from being overloaded with red and green paint. It all makes nice, balanced sense. The Doctor (& the TARDIS), ailing from a complicated and difficult regeneration, brings home Rose in time for Christmas only to stumble into a planetary crisis, a crisis which is accellerated by the Doctor's presence on Earth in an incapacitated state. It could have happened any time since this is a time-travel show, but it just happened to occur at Christmas. No further ridiculous plot explanations necessary.
 
The story is a fun romp with great pacing, emotional upheaval (which for followers of the series is gut-wrenching, tear-inducing stuff), great effects and lots of humour. It even respects the continuity of the series in some nice, subtle ways like seeing Big Ben/The Westminster Palace clock tower still under repair from the damage suffered in "The Alien Invasion" in a wide shot of London's cityscape. Then, at the end of the show were the tantalizing previews of the upcoming new series of Who episodes, including Giles (Tony Stew Head) of the Buffyverse and Sarah Jane Smith of the old Who.
 
Seriously, see it on CBC tonight if you have access to it, or download a torrent and grab it with BitComet or some other bittorrent client. You won't be sorry. Unless, of course, you are a Scrooge.