With Christmas being a time to eat, drink and watch tonnes of telly, Doctor Who fans are planning their own festive watching on the big day.

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Emily Cook, a former editorial assistant of Doctor Who Magazine and organiser of Doctor Who: Lockdown!, rallied the troops via Twitter with the following callout: "OK, by popular demand, let's do a tweetalong of The Christmas Invasion! Christmas Day @ 7pm GMT

'This is a one-off. No extras or surprise guests, just fans coming together (I know some are on their own) to celebrate Who at Xmas & David Tennant's return in 2023," she announced.

As Doctor Who fans will know, the episode was written by Russell T Davies and aired on Christmas Day 2005. It was the first official special in the franchise and David Tennant's first full episode as the Tenth Doctor.

He crashes the TARDIS in London on Christmas Eve, before fainting, which is alarming in and of itself, but the Sycorax have also arrived in the capital to enslave mankind, which makes matters significantly more challenging.

Alongside Tennant, there was Billie Piper as Rose Tyler, Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler and a raft of other familiar faces including Penelope Wilton, Adam Garcia and Paul Anderson.

While promoting Sky comedy-drama I Hate Suzie Too recently, Piper was asked if she'd change a plot point or ending in any of her projects (via BuzzFeed), and this is what she had to say:

"Oh my God, for sure, the Doctor Who ending where I go off with the second Doctor instead of the real Doctor to the parallel universe.

David Tennant as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler in Doctor Who: The Impossible Planet
David Tennant as the Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler in Doctor Who: The Impossible Planet. BBC

"It's not a criticism of Russell T Davies, because he is the master, but I struggled with that. Mainly because the second Doctor is less good than the real one!"

She was also asked if she'd sign up to a Rose Tyler spin-off if the opportunity arose: "If it was shot in London – sorry that's a really loveless answer!

"There’s a running theme here, I don’t want to work much. It was like four episodes all shot in London, then yeah, I'd be like a rat-up-a-drainpipe for that."

Doctor Who is available to stream on BBC iPlayer with episodes of the classic series also available on BritBox – you can sign up for a 7-day free trial here.

Check out more of our Sci-Fi coverage and visit our TV Guide or Streaming Guide to see what's on tonight.

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Authors

Abby RobinsonDrama Editor

Abby Robinson is the Drama Editor for Radio Times, covering TV drama and comedy titles. She previously worked at Digital Spy as a TV writer, and as a content writer at Mumsnet. She possesses a postgraduate diploma and a degree in English Studies.

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