A quick summation by: Geoff Willmetts. The Doctor likes returning favours, especially after landing on the Earth in a spacesuit as he scuttles a spaceship in 1938. With the helmet on back to front, a helpful neighbour, Madge Arwell, gets him to a convenient police call box. DON’T READ ON IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE 2011 YULETIDE STORY!!!

Three years later, Madge Arwell’s husband is a pilot in WW2 and whose plane crashes in the channel on the way home. Madge and her children, Cyril and Lily, are evacuated to an old house and the Caretaker who looks suspiciously like a certain Time Lord but acts more like Mary Poppins gives them a time to remember, except Cyril walks through a time portal to a winter forest in 5345 where the wood comes to life. It ain’t Narnia despite the story title, ‘The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe’.

The Caretaker and Lily chase after Cyril and discover he’s been taken over by royalty. Madge follows later and runs into the people who are going to acid rain on the forest as the wood is fuel. There is something sentient in the forest and it needs aid to survive and it hasn’t had any cuprinol.



Any more and you’ll miss the point of the story. In many respects, the Doctor ends up being the guiding force than the actual solver of the problem spoiler of the story but the story is really about the family than him this time.

This is typical fare for ‘Doctor Who’ at yuletide although judging by the paring down of cast, definitely a show of budget control. Not that this doesn’t stop this story being interesting, just a reminder to the Beeb that as the show is its flagstone and makes masses from merchandise that they need to be reminded to invest at the rate of inflation. As earlier Doctor, Tom Baker says in an audio commentary in a DVD I’m reviewing for next deadline, there is nothing that is ever a competition for ‘Doctor Who’.

I do think it’s a bit too soon for the Doctor to reveal his presence again as it would have been interesting to see how he copes by being incognito for the two years after the autumn finale. Then again, this story could be in the future and we might see that in the past later.

Let’s hope the viewing figures are high for what is otherwise a dreary Christmas Day television day.

© GF Willmetts 2011

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