'The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe' (Story Code 6.X) by Steven Moffat

“Where are we?” – Lily Arwell

“In a forest, in a box, in a sitting room. Pay attention!” – The Doctor

A massive alien spaceship appears in orbit around the Earth, training its vast array of weaponry upon the planet below as its commander begins broadcasting an ultimatum of surrender to the world’s population; but then the invading ship is suddenly wracked with explosions – an intruder is aboard! Inside the vessel, the Doctor runs frantically through collapsing corridors bursting with flames, only just managing to reach the safety of an airlock before a fireball can incinerate him. Unfortunately, as the Doctor seals himself inside the chamber the side of the ship blows away – leaving the Time Lord clinging on for dear life to a strand of loose cables, the only thing stopping him from being sucked out into the harsh vacuum of space. Seeing a spacesuit on the floor beside him the Doctor makes a grab for it, but the suit gets pulled into space – and then, so does the Doctor! As the spaceship explodes behind him the Doctor plummets towards the Earth, desperately reaching out for the protective suit just inches ahead of him…

England, Christmas Eve,1938: housewife and mother Madge Arwell is cycling home when something crashes into the field beside the road, knocking her into a nearby hedge with the force of its impact. Investigating, Madge finds a man in a silver spacesuit lying in the middle of a crater; answering his cries for help, she lifts the visor of his helmet and discovers that the man is wearing the suit back-to-front – apparently he got dressed in a hurry! Unable to see, the man asks his rescuer to help him find a police box; Madge rushes home to borrow her neighbour’s car, and then drives the spaceman to a police box that sits incongruously in the town. Now that his impact-suit has almost finished repairing his body from the crash, the man is able to totter towards the police box; thanking Madge for her assistance, he promises that if she were to ever need his help then she should make a wish; bidding goodbye, he then stumbles into the box… and promptly steps out again after walking into the back of it – it was the wrong police box! Sometime later, having successfully seen off her strange visitor, Madge returns home; sitting beside her husband, Reg, in the living room she comments on the headline of the newspaper he is reading, which warns of approaching war...

Three years later, during the Second World War: R.A.F. pilot Reg Arwell is flying his Lancaster Bomber on a mission when his damaged plane’s controls suddenly malfunction; unable to tell his whereabouts, Reg breaks the bad news to his crew...

A few days later, back in England, Madge Arwell wakes from a terrible nightmare; her mind is troubled by the telegram she recently received, which brought news of her husband's death while on a mission over the English Channel. Later on, as her children, Lily and Cyril, complain about being evacuated from the Blitz to their uncle Digby's house in Devon, Madge tries to put on brave face; hiding her awful news so as not to spoil Lily and Cyril’s Christmas, she gazes out of a window and makes a wish as the children break a turkey wishbone... and out in space, a certain blue police box whizzes past the Earth...

On Christmas Eve, Madge, Lily and Cyril arrive in Devon at the manor house that will be their home for the duration. With their uncle away in a home the family expect to be met by his caretaker, Mr Cardew, and so are somewhat surprised to be welcomed by a rather boisterous young man who introduces himself as 'The Doctor'; this new caretaker takes his guests on a whirlwind tour of the house, showing off all the crazy "repairs" he has made to its rooms (dancing chairs, lemonade on tap and hammocks in the children's bedroom). However, Madge calls a stop to the man’s madcap antics, and, after sending Lily and Cyril downstairs, informs him of her husband's recent death; the Doctor is very sympathetic, understanding Madge’s need to keep the news from her family until after Christmas. Heading downstairs they join the children, who have just found the huge, rotating Christmas tree in the sitting room. As Madge promises her children that they will have the best Christmas ever, Cyril catches sight of a huge, blue present addressed to the Arwell family that lies under the tree: curiously, the box seems to glow and whisper to Cyril...

Later that night, Lily ventures into the attic and finds the Doctor fiddling with a mound of cables and electrical equipment. When asked why he has a police box standing next to him, the Doctor refers to it as his "wardrobe"; turning back to his workbench, he asks Lily to check that Cyril is safely in bed before he resumes his work. Lily complies, and on seeing a huddled shape lying under the bedclothes in her brother's hammock she reports back to the Doctor, who begins rewiring a cable. However, Cyril is actually downstairs, his curiosity about the present having finally gotten the better of him; opening up the box, Cyril is astonished to find that it contains a portal that leads to a vast, snowy forest. Here Cyril watches in amazement as what look like Christmas tree baubles spontaneously appear on the limbs of a nearby fir, and when he picks one of them, it begins to grow. Spooked, Cyril scuttles back through the portal and into the sitting room; finding his courage again, the inquisitive boy returns to the forest and finds that the 'egg' has since broken open, and small footprints lead away from it... Back at the house, the Doctor decides to double-check on Cyril and discovers a pillow and teddy bear lying under the boy’s blanket. Racing downstairs with Lily in tow, the Doctor sees Cyril sneaking into the opened present; after crawling into the box and emerging in the magical snow-bound forest, the Time Lord and Lily look for Cyril, but the boy is nowhere to be found – time flow differently through the portal, and all that can be seen now are the boy’s footsteps in the snow, which follow a second set of prints that are growing steadily larger... Meanwhile, Cyril comes across a tall, lighthouse-like structure in the middle of the woods, its apex surmounted by a geodesic dome. Stepping inside, the boy sees a giant, wooden man sitting impassively in a wooden throne; as Cyril heads up the spiral staircase that leads to the top of the structure, he fails to see the giant’s wooden eyes blink. Reaching the top of the structure, Cyril enters a circular room containing another throne and another wooden statue, this one a 'queen' holding a metal crown. Elsewhere the Doctor and Lily continue to make their way through the forest; the Doctor remarks to Lily how pleased he is with his choice of gift for the Arwells: a surprise journey to a world of real Christmas trees; however, when he hears the whispering sound the Doctor realises he may have made a mistake: the murmuring is the trees talking to each other, and something is very wrong... Back at the house, Madge finds the open present box; knowing full well what her children have done, she crawls inside and is amazed to come out in the middle of the snow-filled glade of fir trees. Searching the woods the woman soon encounters a huge, three-legged vehicle that towers over the treeline; the crew emerge and confront Madge at gunpoint, demanding to know what she is doing trespassing in the forest; luckily for Madge, her three interrogators are quite inept, and it isn't long before the tables are turned and she has her husband's service gun trained on them. Following Cyril's footprints the Doctor and Lily come across the lighthouse; entering the building the Doctor makes two important discoveries: the building is actually made of wood disguised to look like stone, and the giant wooden 'king' is what grew from the egg. Pondering why such a structure exists in the forest, the Doctor tells Lily that they have been lured into a trap – one they cannot leave until they have found Cyril. As they head with haste for the top of the lighthouse, the Doctor and Lily look out of a window and see thousands of stars appearing all over the forest: the life-forces of the trees are leaving their host bodies. In the dome, Cyril is compelled to sit down as the queen comes to life and places the circlet on his head. Hearing the boy’s cries, the Doctor and Lily attempt to break into the room, but the door remains locked – until the awakened king starts moving below them, and then the door unlocks itself. Seeing the queen holding Cyril in place on the throne, the Doctor tries to remove the circlet, but he is stopped by the wooden giants; looking out of a window set in the dome, the Doctor and Lily see the stars rising up from the forest, as the trees' souls are drawn towards Cyril – they are using the young boy as an escape vessel. Back at the mobile harvester platform, Madge handcuffs the commander, Droxil, and his corporal, Ven-Garr, to pipes in the vehicle's control room, and then demands that their colleague, Billis, take her to her children; however, Commander Droxil insists that there is no time: they are in a forest on the planet Androzani Major in the year 5345, and in five minutes all the trees will be converted into fuel by an onslaught of acid rain. Billis’ attempt to locate Cyril and Lily fails, and as Madge watches helplessly, the crew are automatically teleported away to safety… Intending to wear the crown himself, the Doctor removes the circlet and is immediately shocked by an overload of power; however, when Lily takes the crown from him she is completely unharmed, and she drops the device to the floor. Just then the sound of rain can be heard falling on the outside of the dome: the acid bombardment has begun… Left without hope of finding her children, a tearful Madge sits on the floor of the foresters' vehicle; but then then the locator finally pinpoints its quarry, and the voices of Cyril and Lily ring out from a speaker set in the wall above, as Lily and Cyril cling to the belief that their mother will rescue them. In the lighthouse dome, the Doctor tries to make the children prepare for the worst – until he sees the foresters' walker approaching their location, with Madge at the controls driving it! Gritting her teeth, Madge uses the craft's speaker system to talk to her children - and also to sack her caretaker - and then parks the walker outside – which promptly topples over. Using her coat to protect her against the rain, Madge hurries inside to meet her children and former caretaker; but as she scolds Lily and Cyril for wandering off, the queen steps forward and places the circlet on Madge’s head – and then the entire forest flows into Madge’s body. When the king and queen use the woman’s mouth to talk to the Doctor, the Time Lord finally works out why the forest needs Madge: she is the perfect vessel for their people – a mother-ship. To everyone's astonishment, the dome then blasts free of the building and rockets into space, straight into a portal leading into the time vortex. The Doctor emphatically tells the king and queen that once they have got their peoples' souls to safety, Madge and her family must be released; the wooden royalty agree, so the Doctor urges Madge to pilot the craft by thinking of home. Knowing that she must think so hard it hurts Madge pulls out the telegram from her pocket; clutching it to herself she recalls her memories of Reg and of home, which are glimpsed within the vortex. Elsewhere, in a certain lost Lancaster bomber, Reg glimpses a bright light shining ahead of his plane and decides to follow it...

A little while later, Madge, Cyril and Lily awake on the floor of the dome along with a very excited Doctor; looking outside, they discover that they have arrived in the grounds of their uncle's house – they are home! Noting the inert forms of the wooden king and queen, the Doctor explains that their souls have left to join the rest of their people, who have translocated amongst the stars. When Cyril and Lily ask about their father, Madge painfully begins to explain the contents of the telegram she still holds. Leaving them alone the Doctor heads outside, but after seeing what lies next to the escape pod he rushes back inside to interrupt Madge before she can continue her account. Following the Doctor, Madge is astonished to see an R.A.F. bomber parked on the lawn, with a very confused Reg standing beside it – not only did Madge save Cyril, Lily, the Doctor and the forest, she also brought her husband home for Christmas! As the Doctor watches in delight, a very happy family reunion takes place...

Later that day, as Madge, Reg, Cyril and Lily enjoy their Christmas together, the Doctor sneaks up to the attic to make a quiet exit; but as he prepares to leave in the TARDIS he is stopped by Madge, who finally realises that he was the spaceman she rescued. When Madge asks the Doctor to stay for Christmas dinner the Time Lord awkwardly turns down her offer; Madge assumes it is because he has other loved ones to see, but on noting the Doctor's uncomfortable look, she berates him for not visiting his friends for the festivities, and then orders him to go and see them. Bullied by a mum the Doctor reluctantly agrees, and after kissing Madge goodbye, he departs in his blue box...

Arriving outside Amy and Rory’s house in Upper Leadworth, the Doctor steels himself and rings the doorbell. He is met by Amy, who is surprised and pleased to see him – and also furious it has taken him two years to come back for her! The two friends stubbornly refuse to be the first to start a hug, but quickly give in and embrace; then Rory appears and tells the Doctor that they have a place already set for him at the dinner table. As Amy and Rory head inside to prepare the Christmas dinner the Doctor pauses on the doorstep, a puzzled look crossing his face: wiping his eye, he finds he has wept a single tear. With a warm smile now on his face, the Doctor closes the door behind him...

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

Directed by Farren Blackburn
Produced by Marcus Wilson
Executive Producers Steven Moffat, Piers Wenger and Caroline Skinner
A BBC Wales production

TX (BBC 1 & BBC 1 HD):
25th December 2011 @ 7.00 pm

Notes:
*Featuring the Eleventh Doctor, with Amy and Rory

*Actress Claire Skinner shares the title credits with Matt Smith, whilst Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill are only credited at the end of the episode

*A special one-and-a-half minute prequel to this story was released on the official BBC website on 6th December: Stuck on a spaceship that is about to attack the Earth, his finger poised to release its hold on the big red button that will make the vessel blow up, the Doctor makes a frantic phone call to Amy to get her to rescue him. However, as he leaves his message on the TARDIS’ answerphone, the Doctor realises that he has made a mistake: Amy isn’t even there, she left ages ago. Bracing himself for the inevitable, the Doctor wishes Amy a merry Christmas – then he removes his finger from the button, and the spaceship explodes…

*Alexander Armstrong is better known for his role of Xylok supercomputer Mr Smith in 'The Sarah Jane Adventures'

*Actress Arabella Weir once played the Doctor, in the Big Finish ‘Doctor Who Unbound’ story ’Exile’; she was also once David Tennant’s landlady!

*Perks of the job: I was lucky enough to attend a special BBC staff exclusive preview of this story, four days prior to transmission. Previews are cool!