Merry Christmas! Now that I am into the modern series, it will be Christmas roughly every two weeks for the next few months. Cheerful! I am in the midst of a run-up to a software release, so I've been buried in code all day. I don't have much time to spend on this one.

But I did spend seventy minutes on the treadmill this morning watching the 2005 Children in Need special and then the Tenth Doctor's inaugural adventure. So let's talk about that.

Children in Need Special (2005)

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

After appearing briefly at the very end of The Parting of the Ways, David Tennant's first real appearance as the Tenth Doctor actually happened a month before the Christmas special. This mini-episode ran seven minutes long, and is basically Rose's first conversation with the newly-regenerated Doctor. It is nicely done, but by design it is of very little consequence. I particularly like the moment when the Doctor realizes he has a mole. It's just a weirdly lovely moment. You can check out the whole thing here:

The Christmas Invasion

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

And now the meat of this morning's viewing.

The gist of the story is that the Doctor takes Rose home to her mom's apartment building on Christmas Eve and then promptly collapses due to the fallout from his regeneration. He spends at least 3/4 of the story unconscious, leaving Rose to deal with the titular invasion. Being a Christmas story it has plenty of nice Christmas-y bits like brass band Santas with flamethrowers, and a marauding spinning Christmas tree. The story also introduces Torchwood, although only by name. And of course the story features the return of Harriet Jones, who is now Prime Minister after a special election in the fallout from the Farting Aliens story.

There is a running gag in which Ms Jones keeps introducing herself as "Harriet Jones, Prime Minister" to which <whoever> will reply, "I know who you are..." This culminates in her addressing the invading Sycorax in the same way, and there response has to be translated. Of course they reply, "We know who you are."

Ultimately, of course, the Doctor wakes up and confronts the Sycorax on their spaceship hovering over London. Also of course, he defeats the aliens and sends them packing. The surprising bit, then, is that after all that as the spaceship is flying away never to return, Harriet Jones blows it out of the sky via a secret Torchwood weapon. The Doctor does not take kindly to this, and sets in motion the downfall of Jones' political career.

"No second chances. I'm that sort of a man."

On the whole it is a perfectly enjoyable episode. It is mostly light and fun, aside from the bits that aren't. By design David Tennant is still figuring out what his Doctor is like, and up until the final scene in the TARDIS dressing room he spends the whole story in pajamas. We don't really meet the Tenth Doctor until the closing moments when he finally dons his trademark pinstripe suit and long overcoat. He looks so young! It doesn't seem like it's been that long, but here we are thirteen years later.

So tomorrow begins the proper run of the Tenth Doctor. Unfortunately, it gets off to a bit of a wobbly start.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Tenth
Companion(s): Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, Harriet Jones
Episode(s): The Christmas Invasion
Steps Walked: 9,140 today, 2,642,187 total
Distance Walked: 4.65 miles today, 1,373.61 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 58 today, 599 total
Weight: 252.02 lbs (five day moving average), net change -55.08 lbs