Reception
The Daily Telegraph's Hugh Davies commented on a number of political allusions made through Jones' characterisation as Prime Minister in "The Christmas Invasion". He felt that her rebuttal of aid from the US president after aliens invade is a "swipe at Blair and Bush over the invasion of Iraq". He also compared Jones' destruction of the fleeing Sycorax —a decision heavily criticised by the Doctor— to Margaret Thatcher's decision to sink the Argentine warship General Belgrano during the Falklands war. Russell T Davies responded to observations of political commentary by stating that there is "absolutely an anti-war message" present in the episode due to Christmas being "a day of peace". Of Harriet Jones' development, Stuart Galbrainth of DVD Talk felt that she begins as a "charming neophyte minister" but becomes "suddenly much less charming at the end of "Christmas Invasion," when she becomes just another politician". However, Cliff Chapman of Den of Geek felt that the episode's denouement was flawed by trying to "make out that Harriet Jones is awful for doing something perfectly reasonable." Similarly, io9's Chris Cummins commented that the character had "noble intentions" and that she was proved right upon her return in the fourth series.
Charlie Jane Anders of io9 placed the "glowing nobility" of Jones' sacrifice in "The Stolen Earth" as the most prominent of the "super-heroics" displayed by the returning characters in the episode. Though tired of a running joke throughout the series where Jones would introduce herself only to be told "I know who you are" Anders remarks that in the face of her demise "she was able to turn her usual schtick into a moving speech of defiance." The Daily Telegraph's Chris Hastings felt that by the time she is killed off, Harriet was "one of the show’s most popular characters". SFX placed the character of Harriet Jones at number 12 in a 2009 article listing the 27 things they loved best about the revival of Doctor Who, citing the running joke associated with the character.
Read more about this topic: Harriet Jones
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
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“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
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