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[http://youtu.be/ieR9QumN-UE Has a prequel].
The Doctor is blowing up a space ship. This is a bad idea, [[Captain Obvious|because space ships are]] [[Department of Redundancy Department|generally in space]], so he has to quickly improvise with putting on a space suit ''after'' being thrown out of the ship by the explosion.
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Of course, little Cyril sneaks out of his hammock and into the giant present a day early. He ends up in the [[Whoniverse]]'s equivalent of [[The Chronicles of Narnia|Narnia]]. It's wintery and gorgeous, and the trees look very Christmas-like, including decorative balls. Well, eggs. One of them bursts open, and Cyril follows whatever came out of it.
The Doctor and Lily quickly follow. The Doctor is
The creature leads Cyril into a tower, where he finds [[The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe|statues frozen in time]].
Madge, of course, has followed them by now. She's greeted by [[Bill Bailey]] and his crew, wearing power suits and standing near an industrial [[Humongous Mecha]] from [[Doctor Who/Recap/S21
The statues in the tower are made of wood. Cyril is invited to sit on their throne and wear their crown. He's discarded, however, because he's "weak". When Lily and the Doctor arrive, the Doctor is quickly discarded by them as well, but Lily is considered "strong".
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Bill Bailey informs Madge that they're a harvesting crew. The wood from the forest is the universe's best power source, and they're about to go melt the forest. With acid rain. Madge is shocked and tells them that they need to save her children before it's too late, but it's impossible: the mechanism is already in place and can't be stopped now. As a last-ditch resort, Madge begs to be allowed to pilot the mecha towards her children. She doesn't care that it takes years to learn: she was in her husband's plane once, and she's a [[Mama Bear]], and with those two things combined she can do ''anything''. The crew tell her that she's mad, but she absolutely insists.
As it turns out, the tree statues are not statues: they're the souls of the trees that are about to be murdered. The tower is not built, but grown, as their safe haven. They've left their tree husks to go find a new world somewhere else. The Doctor loves it, and tells them to hop on inside his head and get on with it. Trees are good, he loves trees, one of them [[Doctor Who
As the acid rain starts, all hope seems to be lost, but the giant mecha comes stumbling out of the forest and towards the tower. It's piloted by Madge. The thing falls over, of course, but Madge manages to get out of the mecha and into the tower with only a ''few'' gaping acid holes in her coat. The trees latch onto her immediately. She's the strongest creature there is: a mother. As it turns out, the trees are speaking the universe's base language: "weak" means male, and "strong" means female, simply because females beget new life. Madge is quite happy to serve as the vessel for the trees and power up their transportation. The souls of the entire forest are absorbed into her head. She takes it extremely well. With the powerful thought of "home" to lock onto, the heroes and the tree collectively depart into the time vortex.
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[[The Fast Show|Arabella Weir]] and [[The Sarah Jane Adventures|Alexander Armstrong]] have guest roles.
* [[Action Prologue]] / [[Lead In]]: The episode begins with the Doctor escaping an exploding spaceship. While this does lead to him meeting Madge, it's otherwise unconnected with the plot of the episode.
** Also serves as a bit of a [[Lampshade Hanging]] / [[Take That]] to the Christmas specials of the [[Russell T. Davies]] era, essentially condensing the entire plot of each (large spaceship ready to attack Earth, the Doctor saves the day) into a five-minute prologue before getting on with the real plot.
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* [[Big Brother Bully|Big Sister Bully]]: Lily comes across as one to Cyril at times.
* [[Call Back]]:
** Reg's "I'm sorry, my love" when his plane is about to go down [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31
** The Doctor's line about he once knew a tree-woman who fancied him was a call back to [[Doctor Who
** The tree harvesters are from [[Doctor Who/Recap/S21
** {{spoiler|The Doctor left Amy waiting for [[Doctor Who/Recap/S31
* [[Casting Gag]]: Alexander Armstrong (one half of the ''Armstrong and Miller Show'') is [http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/clips/p00cnssw/the_armstrong_and_miller_show_raf_pilots_enigma once again a WWII RAF pilot].
* [[
* [[Chekhov's Skill]]: Madge is able to drive the robotic walker to the lighthouse because the control panel resembles that of a plane, which Reg taught her to fly once.
* [[Christmas Episode]]
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* [[Cloudcuckoolander]]: Madge comes across as a bit of one, and the Doctor is in rare form.
* [[Cool House]]: The Doctor "repairs" the estate in several ways. The sitting room has bumper car chairs, the kitchen has a lemonade faucet, the kids' room has everything but beds (can't fit everything, after all, so it has hammocks), and the Christmas tree is motorized in several places. Oh, and he set up a portal to a forest of living trees inside a box as a present.
* [[Continuity Nod]]: [[Doctor Who
* [[
* {{spoiler|[[Everybody Lives]]}}
* [[Genre Savvy]]: All of the soldiers at first don't take Madge holding a gun on them very seriously, [[Oh Crap|until she mentions that]] [[Mama Bear|she's looking for her children]].
* [[George Jetson Job Security]]: The Doctor royally screws up his caretaker job with the present portal (although in his defense he didn't count on Cyril opening the present early). Leads to this:
{{quote|
'''Doctor''': Yes?
'''Madge''': '''YOU'RE FIRED!'''
'''Doctor''': Oh. }}
* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: When the Doctor mentioned he can't take off the impact suit (which is on backwards) because it's repairing him, Madge asks if it might accidentally repair him backwards as well. The first thing he checks is his crotch.
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* [[Little Miss Snarker]]: Lily.
* [[Mama Bear]]: Madge. (And to an extent, Lily.)
{{quote|
'''Madge''': I'm looking for my children.
'''Head Soldier''': (suddenly looks quite convinced he might get shot) }}
* [[Mood Whiplash]]: The montage of the Doctor showing Madge and her kids the modifications he made to the house (which is almost magical in a way) comes to an abrupt end when Madge yells at the Doctor. And then, after she and the Doctor talk in private, ''that'' is interrupted when the children become overjoyed when seeing the Christmas tree the Doctor set up.
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* [[Shout-Out]]:
** The title of the episode is a nod to the [[C. S. Lewis|CS Lewis]] story ''[[The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe]]''. So is the plot premise: family leave the Blitz for an old house in the country, eccentric professorial caretaker, magical wardrobe, portal to snowy forest where wonderful things happen. There's even a lamppost. The Doctor also directly quotes the Professor:
{{quote|
** The foot of the walker landing in front of Madge is reminiscent of the leg of the AT-AT landing near Luke in [[The Empire Strikes Back]].
** The opening of the [[Action Prologue]] homages ''[[A New Hope]]'' (the gigantic alien spaceship flying over the camera), ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]]'' (the [[Standard Snippet]] of [[Also Sprach Zarathustra]]) and ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' (the aliens' message beginning "People of Earth...")
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* [[Tempting Fate]]: [[Lampshade Hanging|"There are sentences I should just keep away from."]]
** Madge, upon seeing Reg reading about the war looming in the paper:
{{quote|
* [[Took a Level In Badass]]: Even before Madge takes over the [[Humongous Mecha]] to save her children, she pulls a gun on her three interrogators. "Crying's so useful, isn't it?"
* [[Vader Breath]]: The "stormtroopers" that appear in the forest. May double as a [[Shout-Out]].
* [[What Happened to the Mouse?]]:
** What happened to the other people aboard Reg's plane?
** What happened to the people Madge was expecting to be waiting for them at the house? Although it isn't mentioned in the episode, Maurice Cole mentions in an interview that they won the lottery, [[Doctor Who
* [[What You Are in the Dark]]:
{{quote|
'''Droxil:''' Why?
'''Billis:''' She is a crying, unarmed, female civilian. I'm thinking of the visual.
'''Droxil:''' Nobody's looking!
'''Billis:''' Doesn't mean there's no visual. }}
* [[When Trees Attack]]: The Wooden King and Queen who live in the forest. Ultimately a subversion, as {{spoiler|all they want is to save the souls of their race.}}
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Recap]]
[[Category:Doctor Who]]
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