This post originally appeared as a guest post as part of a Sci-Fi Christmas in July series on the lovely & talented Joanna Wilson's Christmas TV History blog. It's one of our favorite holiday-related blogs and you should most definitely go check it out! (Thanks for letting us re-post this, Joanna!)
Aired 25 December 2011 in the UK and US
It's Christmas, 1938.
Above the Earth, The Doctor (
Matt Smith) narrowly escapes incineration
on an exploding spaceship. He falls to Earth wearing a spacesuit that
he donned as both he and it fell from the ship. In his
(understandable) haste, the suit's helmet gets put on backwards.
He meets Madge Arwell (
Clare Skinner), who not only doesn't bat an eye
at an impact crater containing a “spaceman, possibly an angel,” she
helps him find his way to the TARDIS (the Doctor's ship, for the
uninitiated). Since the Doctor's space helmet was back-to-front, Madge
never actually sees his face. The Doctor thanks Madge, and tells her if
she ever needs his help, all she needs to do is make a wish.
Now we cut to three years later during Christmas 1941, World War II is raging.
Madge's husband Reg (
Alexander Armstrong) is in air battle and is lost at sea. She receives a telegram
telling of Reg's death, but doesn't tell her children, Lily (
Holly Earl)
and Cyril (
Maurice Cole). She will tell them after Christmas, so that
they won't think of Christmas as the time their father died.
Madge
arrives with Cyril and Lily at a mansion in Dorset, presumably to escape
the Blitz. They meet the Caretaker…who turns out to be the Doctor!
(Marge doesn't yet realize this though.) He gives them a tour of the
house… it looks like it is going to be a rather brilliant holiday for
Cyril and Lily with special enhancements courtesy of the Doctor
including a very elaborate Christmas tree, a nursery with the Magna
Carta, a model of the house they're in (“not to scale, sorry”) and
hammocks to sleep in and even a tap in the kitchen that dispenses
lemonade. Madge is a bit concerned that he may be overindulging the
children.
The Doctor has also brought them a Christmas present in a giant box.
Cyril cannot wait until Christmas morning, so he sneaks downstairs and
opens it that night.
The box turns out to be a portal to a Narnia-like snow-covered forest,
where Christmas ornaments grow on trees. Cyril sets out to explore,
following a mysterious creature that emerges when one of the
“ornaments” breaks. Before too long, the Doctor discovers Cyril's absence and follows him into the portal with Lily.
 |
Lily : Where are we?
The Doctor: In a forest. In a box. In a sitting room. Pay attention! |
Madge realizes that her children are missing and follows them into the box where she meets a team of
space-suited miners from an alien world (
Bill Bailey,
Paul Bazely and
Arabella Weir) who are preparing to harvest the trees using acid rain,
killing everything in the forest!
Maybe, just maybe, the Doctor, Madge and the children can escape from this predicament unscathed.
And maybe, just maybe, they'll find that wishes can come true - you'll have to watch the episode to see
what happens!
RigbyMel says:
There is a heck of a lot going on in this episode, but it hangs together remarkably well considering how
involved the plot is. I particularly enjoyed all the Narnia-ish
references and thought that Madge was a wonderful character to play
against the Doctor. Madge is imaginative enough to go along with
whatever the situation throws at her and even discovers courage she
probably didn't know she had – yay for strong female characters!
The atmosphere is magical and a bit scary, just as it should be in a
Doctor Who episode and the
Christmas-y themes tie in perfectly (there's even an ecological message tucked neatly into the episode).
There are also a few moments that are quite touching without being the least bit maudlin. As an
example here's one of my favorite bits (an exchange between Madge and the Doctor while the children
are elsewhere):
Madge:
Lily and Cyril's father—my husband—is dead and they don't know
yet because if I tell them now then Christmas will always be what took
their father away from them, and no one should have to live like that.
Of course when the Christmas period is over I shall... I don't know why I
keep shouting at them.
The Doctor:
Because every time you see them happy you remember how sad
they're going to be. And it breaks your heart. Because what's the point
in them being happy now if they're going to be sad later?
The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later.
This does bring me to one complaint about the episode though – the
Doctor talks about “happy crying” as being “humany wumany”, I found to
be a cloying and weak reference to a fun line from a previous episode
that the current writers seem determined to beat into the ground.
“Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff” was fun in “Blink”, it gets less fun
every time Steven Moffat overuses it.
Overall, a fun addition to the
Doctor Who Christmas special tradition.
RigbyMel's rating:
3 candy canes (it might have gotten 4 but for the “humany wumany”)
J.A. Morris says:
I agree with RigbyMel about the "humany" line, but I liked this special just slightly more than she did.
I'll say up front: I'm not a huge fan of Matt Smith as the Doctor. He's okay, just a far cry from the two
previous Doctors. But I think he works best in specials and episodes where he isn't teamed up with
regular companions. I think he had great chemistry with all the members of the Arwell family here.
I'm not familiar with Claire Skinner, but she's great as Madge. Early
in the special, Madge almost comes across as almost scatterbrained, but
in the end, Skinner is convincing as a mother who will fight an army to
save her family.
Comedian Bill Bailey, always a welcome presence, is good as Droxil,
leader of the forest mining crew. He also looks very funny in his
spacesuit. But for me, the biggest surprise comes from Paul Bazely, who
plays a miner named Ven-Garr. Bazely (another actor who is new to me)
gets the funniest lines of the "forest" scenes, but Bailey's reactions
to them are just as funny.
"The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe" is a Christmas generally a fun
ride and something you should be able to watch with relatives around the
Holidays even if they're not hardcore fans of
Doctor Who.
My rating:
3 and a half candy canes.
 |
| l to r: RigbyMel, actor/comedian Bill Bailey, J.A. Morris |
Post script:
We mentioned earlier that
Bill Bailey plays Droxil in this special. We
were fortunate enough to see Bailey perform his stand-up act in New York
in September 2011, shortly before filming began for this special. He's
one of the best comedians working today, integrating lots of music &
songs into his comedy. He gave a great performance that night, if you
ever have the chance to see him live, please do so. Bailey was also
extremely kind to us (and the dozen or so other hardcore fans who waited
to meet him post-performance). We took the train from Richmond,VA, he
said that's a further distance than anyone ever traveled to see him
perform in England!
