MONDO EXTRAS

Realizing finally, through the haze of his madness, that he's scaring her, the Doctor tries to explain: "The regeneration's going wrong. I can't stop myself." He's returning to what he remembers most about Nine: always running. "Run." "Faster! Let's open those engines!" A bell begins to sound, warning them about a coming crash-landing, and he laughs hysterically: "Too late! Out of control! Oh, I love it! Hot dog!" He hops about. "Hold on tight! Here we go! Christmas Eve!" And...that's the Pudsey Cutaway, which somehow didn't make it onto SciFi, but maybe that's because it was a charity thing, and in any case: he's nuts, Rose is not sold, that's the score right now.

The Christmas Invasion

Zoom down on Earth from space and into London, into Jackie's flat, where she picks up a red ornament and hangs it on a white flocked tree. Yuck. She picks up a present and stares at it, willing her daughter home. "To Rose, Merry Christmas. Lots of love, Mum. X." Jackie sighs. How long's it been? The last time she saw her daughter Rose, they helped her get back into the TARDIS; they willingly let her go. It's only fair that she should return.

In the car shop where Mickey (apparently and of course) works, the radio is blaring when he hears something, a VWORP kind of sound in the middle of the day. Now, you may or may not know that this thing we're watching right now is the first Doctor Who thing I ever saw, ever. And there are reasons that this episode is the best of all possible options for getting me over my presumptions about the show. There's linguistic meta all through it, which is a good start; plenty of Shakespeare references, always notable; there's everybody not knowing what the Doctor's about, including himself, which is fun and sympathetic; and there's Christmas, which is always mysterious to me. But the funniest thing about all this is that I literally could not hear the VWORP because I didn't know what to look for, so it's like this audio Where's Waldo that, if you're into the show or know the TARDIS at all, you can hear just as well as Mickey right now, but me? I was like, "And then Mickey and Jackie go nuts." So Mickey tells the guy to turn the radio down and then tears off down the street, TARDIS-bound.