Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion (2005) on Netflix
TV-PG20051hAdventureDramaSci-Fi
The newly regenerated Tenth Doctor collapses on Christmas Eve. Rose, Mickey and Jackie are left to face robot Father Christmases and a Sycorax invasion demanding half the world as slaves.
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- IMDb8.0/109,870 votes
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Plot summary
The Tenth Doctor, newly regenerated, brings Rose Tyler back to her London estate and collapses in front of Mickey Smith and Jackie Tyler, who put him to bed in Jackie's flat. Rose and Mickey go Christmas shopping and are attacked by robot Father Christmases whose trombones turn out to be flamethrowers; at the flat a Christmas tree spins with razor-sharp blades. The Doctor destroys it and loses consciousness again. On Christmas morning the Mars probe Guinevere One is intercepted by a huge ship. A Sycorax appears and uses blood control to put a third of the world into a hypnotic state, threatening that these people will jump from high buildings unless half of humanity is handed over as slaves. Prime Minister Harriet Jones is teleported aboard to negotiate.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion (2005)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
Penelope Wilton returned as Harriet Jones, a comeback written to link the Ninth and Tenth Doctors. A fan of her character, Wilton begged that Jones not be brought down at the end of the episode, but the script stayed unchanged.- The Doctor Who pages of the Christmas Radio Times carried a hidden puzzle: Russell T Davies confirmed in the episode commentary that oversized first letters on many paragraphs, read consecutively, spell out "A cup of tea", the message explaining what saves the Doctor.
- Although "The Christmas Invasion" was the first Doctor Who story clearly labeled a Christmas special, the seventh episode of The Daleks' Master Plan, "The Feast of Steven", had already been written as a Christmas episode, complete with William Hartnell breaking the fourth wall to wish viewers a merry Christmas.
- Russell T Davies wanted an enemy whose prosthetic face kept the actor's real eyes and mouth, and he found the idea of Santa, "an old man creeping into children's rooms at night", creepy, so the special pitted the Doctor against the Sycorax and murderous robot Santas.
- Production of the special and of the whole second series began before the first series aired, so Russell T Davies and his team had no idea whether the script would ever be made.
- The Christmas Radio Times of 3 December 2005, with a Doctor Who cover, was the first Christmas edition cover for the show in its forty-two-year history and the first Christmas cover for a single BBC drama since EastEnders in 1986, the magazine normally using generic artwork.
- The closing credits used a new arrangement of the Doctor Who theme that restored the traditional "middle eight" section dropped from the 2005 series, played by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Murray Gold and reused for the 2006 series' closing titles.
