Doctor Tennant

· culture ·

There were also the requisite child-terrifying moments, and full marks to the writers for planting the seeds of potential Christmas phobias in the kiddies with the flame-throwing Santa band and the buzz-saw Christmas tree. I also felt that this particular episode was rather a good political satire. Harriet Jones's robust response to the un-named US President had us punching the air, yelling "YES!", and wishing that she was our real Prime Minister. We were still thinking that right up until the point when she had her 'Torchwood' moment and started acting like the genuine article.

Now for the downside. When I went to start my car on Christmas day so that we could go and visit Mr. Bsag's folks, I turned the key in the ignition and...nothing. No spark. Lifeless. That was more or less how I felt about David Tennant's Doctor. It wasn't that his acting was bad (though his accent veered annoyingly between Mockney and vaguely South East England-ish), but it just didn't have any life to it. Near the beginning, Rose wondered if this was her Doctor, then near the end she had supposedly decided that he was, but I wasn't convinced that she was convinced, if you see what I mean.

Perhaps I'm being harsh. He did spend more than half the show unconscious in his jim-jams, with glowing ectoplasm coming out of his mouth (something that left limited scope for demonstrating his acting abilities), and it does sometimes take a while for a new Doctor to establish himself, but I was convinced from Eccleston's first line that he was the real Doctor.