Every Doctor Who Christmas Special Ranked From Worst To Best

9. The Christmas Invasion (2005)

Doctor Who The Christmas Invasion
BBC Studios

David Tennant's first full episode as the famous Time Lord is an odd one, in that he's barely in the damn thing. After an opening sequence which sees him crash the TARDIS in the middle of London, he faints, and aside from a short sequence, is out of action for the next 30 minutes.

It's a weird way to introduce a new Doctor, and it doesn't always work. On the one hand, spending more time with his companions - the trio of Rose, Mickey, and Jackie, in this case - helps develop them into distinct, well-rounded characters, rather than disposable TARDIS-fillers. But on the downside, the absence of the Doctor means we spend a lot of time in control rooms with stern government officials staring at screens. Everyone just looks bored, like they're waiting for the Doctor to return themselves.

This story would have been better off as a regular 45-minute episode - at a full hour, it's stretched woefully thin, and it's just not interesting enough in that middle stretch of Doctor-less plot. When Tennant finally emerges, however, things liven up considerably, and his wacky, gleeful, edgier Doctor is a joy to watch for the final 20 minutes.

The episode also features a giant spinning alien-controlled Christmas tree attacking Rose, Mickey and Jackie, which is probably the most Doctor Who thing that has ever happened. So points for that.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!