The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe (TV story)

The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe was the 2011 Christmas special of Doctor Who.

Synopsis
It’s Christmas Eve, 1938, when Madge Arwell comes to the aid of an injured Spaceman Angel as she cycles home. He promises to repay her kindness – all she has to do is make a wish. Three years later, a devastated Madge escapes war-torn London with her two children for a dilapidated house in Dorset. She is crippled with grief at the news her husband has been lost over the English Channel, but determined to give Lily and Cyril the best Christmas ever. The Arwells are surprised to be greeted by a madcap caretaker whose mysterious Christmas gift leads them into a magical, wintry world. Here, Madge will learn how to be braver than she ever thought possible, and that wishes can come true.

Plot
At the conclusion of one of his adventures, the Doctor crashes in England just before the Second World War. He's wearing a collision suit with the helmet on backwards and his face is obscured. His kindly rescuer, a woman named Madge Arwell, helps him find the TARDIS. He tells her to call on him whenever she needs help. All she has to do is make a wish.

A few years down the road, Madge's pilot husband, Reg Arwell, dies when his plane goes down. She doesn't tell their children, fearing it will ruin their Christmas. Madge makes her silent wish and bundles up the kids for a trip to Uncle Digby's country estate, where the Doctor is the caretaker. He's spiffed up the place with all kinds of wonderful toys and hammocks and gizmos to delight the kiddies. One of the treats is a gift-wrapped box that leads to a distant planet and a forest of natural Christmas trees. Madge's son Cyril crawls through the box before he's supposed to and finds himself trapped by people made of wood.

The Doctor and Cyril's sister Lily go looking for him and then Madge goes looking for them. While the Doctor and Lily encounter the tree people, Madge meets three Harvest Rangers and learns these Androzani Trees are about to be converted into a fuel source. This involves melting them with acid rain. The trees are aware of this and eager to escape. This is why they've lured Cyril to them, but they realize he is too weak to carry their life force off the planet. To the Doctor's chagrin, he is also too weak. Lily, they decide, is strong, but too young.

Cue Madge's entrance, as she manages to drive a giant robot and find her offspring. Madge is just the vehicle -- or "mother ship" as the Doctor puts it -- the trees need. She carries them off to the time vortex and then gets everyone else back to Earth under the Doctor's supervision. He tells her to wish for home, but she inadvertently brings up an image of her husband about to crash to his death. Her children realise she's been keeping a secret from them. As she tells them of his death, it turns out she's also somehow guided her husband's plane safely home, as well.

Madge realizes the Doctor is the spaceman she helped years earlier. With her encouragement, the Doctor visits Rory and Amy for a Christmas visit in 2013, two years after he last saw them. After he is invited gratefully in, The Doctor starts to have tears of sentiment before he closes the Ponds' door, joining them for Christmas dinner.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Matt Smith
 * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan
 * Rory Williams - Arthur Darvill
 * Madge Arwell - Claire Skinner
 * Cyril Arwell - Maurice Cole
 * Lily Arwell - Holly Earl
 * Reg Arwell - Alexander Armstrong
 * Co-Pilot - Sam Stockman
 * Wooden King - Spencer Wilding
 * Ven-Garr - Paul Bazely
 * Droxil - Bill Bailey
 * Billis - Arabella Weir
 * Wooden Queen - Paul Kasey

Planets

 * The Doctor says that the planet is one of the safest planets he knows.

Story notes

 * Alexander Armstrong (Reg Arwell) previously supplied the voice of Mr Smith throughout the run of The Sarah Jane Adventures and in the Doctor Who stories The Stolen Earth / Journey's End.
 * Arabella Weir (Billis) previously played an alternative, female version of the Third Doctor in BFDWU: Exile.
 * Spencer Wilding (The Wooden King) previously played the Minotaur in DW: The God Complex.
 * This is the first Doctor Who story of the Matt Smith era where neither Karen Gillan nor Arthur Darvill's names appear in the opening credits. Claire Skinner's name appears instead.
 * At seven words, this episode has the longest title of any Doctor Who episode.

Ratings

 * UK Overnights: 8.92m (34.2% share)
 * UK Final: 10.77m
 * UK Live+7: 12.88m

Filming locations
to be added

Production errors

 * The plane Reg was flying is an Avro Lancaster, which didn't see active service until 1942, but the episode is set in 1941.

Continuity

 * The Doctor mentions the Magna Carta. (DW: The King's Demons)
 * The Harvest Rangers are from Androzani Major. (DW: The Caves of Androzani)
 * The Doctor refers to a tree from the Forest of Cheem fancying him, referencing Jabe. (DW: The End of the World)
 * The sonic screwdriver doesn't work on wood. (DW: Silence in the Library, The Hungry Earth)
 * The Doctor's respiratory bypass system has previously let him survive briefly in the vaccum of space (DW: Four to Doomsday)
 * Madge Arwell aims a Webley revolver at the Harvest Rangers. The same type of revolver has been carried by Jack Harkness and Wilfred Mott.
 * The Doctor describes crying when happy as being "humany-wumany", much like he described time as "more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey...stuff" to Sally Sparrow. (DW: Blink)
 * It has been two years since the Doctor last met Amy and Rory, suggesting the closing scene takes place at Christmas 2013. If so this marks a return to the "one year after the real world" dating for present-day Doctor Who, which had been dropped after the end of Series 4, only now it appears the gap is two years.

For the Doctor

 * This story occurs after: WC: Prequel (The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe)

For Amy and Rory

 * This story occurs after: DW: The Wedding of River Song
 * This story occurs some time before they wave at their past selves in: DW: The Hungry Earth

Home video releases

 * The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe will be released on a standalone DVD and Blu-ray on 16 January 2012.