Ranking the Doctor Who Christmas Specials
By Lacy Baugher
Matt Smith and company in the key art for “The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe”. (Photo: Doctor Who, BBC)
10. The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe
This isn’t the worst Doctor Who Christmas special ever. But it’s definitely the most boring. It’s an episode you will forget virtually as soon as you watch it and struggle to recall next year. It’s really quite gorgeous to look at, but the story is sickeningly saccharine and the plot is contrived.
“The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe” revolves around a family the Doctor befriends during World War II. (The mother, Madge, did him a kindness several years earlier.) After the father is killed in action, Eleven becomes the caretaker of the family’s holiday vacation house, and tries to give them all a fantastic Christmas. This involves gifting the children with a time portal to another world, because that’s an absolutely appropriate present for strangers who are nice to you.
As the title of this episode indicates, this land is basically Narnia. It’s positively beautiful and there are some obvious references to C.S. Lewis. Except here there are also humanoid trees who are trying to escape the forest. Why? Space miners are trying to kill them all with acid rain. Look, Aslan would probably not approve of any of this.
Anyway, Madge ends up serving as a human conduit for the tree people. She manages to both save the day and get everyone back to their own reality safety by using the power of love. It’s all so perfect that they even manage to resurrect dead father Reg using the time vortex. Best Christmas ever! It’s all very schmaltzy and “God bless us everyone” by the end, but honestly, only the Doctor’s reunion with Amy and Rory afterward has any real emotional heft.