3. The Christmas Invasion "Big Threatening Red Button"
"I DON'T KNOW! I mean, I know I'm the Doctor, but beyond that, I-I just don't know. I literally do not know who I am. So I'm testing. Am I funny? Am I sarcastic? Sexy? I mean, judging by the evidence I've certainly got a gob! And how am I gonna react when I see this? A great, big, threatening button. A great, big, threatening button which must not be pressed under any circumstances, am I right?...Which leaves us with a great, big, stinkin' problem: I really don't know who I am. I don't know when to stop. So if I see a great, big, threatening button which should never ever ever be pressed, then I just want to do this."
This is the speech that mad Tennant "the Doctor" for millions. It made him my Doctor. It's not a speech with hidden depths, like a lot of the ones I've talked about before. It's got more giggles than tears. Its audience isn't a god, or a devil, but casual invaders. What it is, is the Tenth Doctor. One of the Great Doctors perhaps the greatest. He's mad, he talks like he's nuts, and he can't not press a button. Because no Doctor has ever existed who could resist a great big threatening button, and Tennant's gloriously freewheeling performanc ehere makes that wonderfully apparent.
Rebecca Kulik lives in Iowa, reads an obsence amount, watches way too much television, and occasionally studies for her BA in History. Come by her personal pop culture blog at tyrannyofthepetticoat.wordpress.com and her reading blog at journalofimaginarypeople.wordpress.com.
