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Doctor Who - The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe, on BBC One (UK) / BBC America (USA)
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This is the seventh Christmas special of the revived Doctor Who series. It aired on Christmas in 2011, but I didn't see it until April 2018. I wasn't sure whether it would be, like, a Narnia adaptation in the way the previous special was a Christmas Carol adaptation. Well... it wasn't, and I'm glad. But of course it did have a slight similarity to the C.S. Lewis story. At one point, the Doctor refers to his tardis as a "wardrobe," though that actually turns out not to be the actual "wardrobe" of the special's title. That distinction goes to a rather large Christmas present sitting by a Christmas tree. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In 1938, the Doctor blows up an alien spaceship, with himself still inside it, before it could attack the Earth. He manages to escape and crawl into a spacesuit, and falls to Earth. His helmet is on backwards, however, and he can't get it off... so he can't find his way to the tardis. But he ends up getting some help from a woman named Madge Arwell. Three years later, during World War II, Madge's husband, Reg (a pilot), is reported missing in action, and believed dead. Madge doesn't want to tell her kids, Lily and Cyril, about their father until after Christmas. Meanwhile, she takes them to stay at a relative's vacant house in Dorset for the holiday. They're greeted by the Doctor, who calls himself the house's caretaker. (Madge had never seen his face because of the helmet situation, so it takes her awhile to realize he's the spaceman she'd met three years earlier.)

Anyway, the Doctor has made various modifications to the house, to make the holiday more fun. And that present I'd mentioned turns out to be a portal to another planet. A wintry world with fir-like trees that naturally grow things that look like Christmas ornaments. Unfortunately... well, the Doctor and his guests arrive at a bad time, and a life-threatening situation develops. I don't want to spoil exactly what that situation is, but of course they all eventually manage to return home safely. And they're not the only ones. So, there's a very happy ending. And then the Doctor goes to visit Amy and Rory for Christmas in their time... which turns out to be two years after the last time they'd seen him.

Not quite as plot-packed as most Doctor Who Christmas specials, but it was fun and cute and very sweet.


specials index
Christmas TV movies index

Doctor Who Festive Specials
BBC; Tardis Data Core; Wikipedia

10th Doctor: The Christmas Invasion * The Runaway Bride * Voyage of the Damned * The Next Doctor * The End of Time, parts 1 & 2
11th Doctor: A Christmas Carol * The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe * The Snowmen * The Time of the Doctor
12th Doctor: Last Christmas * The Husbands of River Song * The Return of Doctor Mysterio * Twice Upon a Time
13th Doctor: Resolution * Revolution of the Daleks * Eve of the Daleks
15th Doctor: The Church on Ruby Road