Just days before Christmas 1941, Madge Arwell's airman husband is lost over the English Channel. Madge dreads telling the terrible news to their children, Lily and Cyril, so instead she takes them out of London to an old mansion house owned by a distant relative. The caretaker of the estate turns out to be the Doctor, whom Madge rescued from a crisis years earlier. He plans to ease Madge's heartbreak by giving Lily and Cyril the merriest Christmas ever. But when the Doctor opens a portal to a wintry alien wonderland in the far future, he inadvertently places all of them in terrible danger.

Executive producer Steven Moffat's 2010 Doctor Who Christmas special, A Christmas Carol, was unambiguously based upon the Charles Dickens classic of the same name. When it came time to plan the 2011 edition, Moffat decided that he would again seek inspiration in a beloved novel associated with Christmas -- this time, CS Lewis' The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. Published in 1950, it told the story of the four Pevensie children, who were evacuated to a rural estate during the Blitz. There they stumbled upon a wardrobe which led to the enchanted world of Narnia. Populated by talking animals and other mythical creatures, Narnia was in the grip of the forbidding White Witch, who had imposed an eternal winter. With the help of the lion Aslan, the Pevensie siblings defeated the White Witch and became the land's benevolent rulers. Eventually returning through the wardrobe years later, they reverted to children because time ran more quickly in Narnia.

The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe became the first of seven novels, published annually, in the series now generally known as The Chronicles Of Narnia. It had been adapted for various media, including both television and film, and hence had a wide audience even beyond the book's sizeable and enduring readership. Moffat decided to adopt the general framework of the Lewis story for his Doctor Who script: it would be set during the Second World War and involve children retreating to an old house in the countryside from which they would pass into a wintry fantasy world where time ran at a different rate. Like A Christmas Carol, Moffat knew that his viewers would recognise the thinly-veiled source material, and so the special was ultimately known as The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe.

For The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill would be relegated to cameo roles

Moffat was keen for the special to stand apart from the intricate story arcs which had characterised his first two Doctor Who seasons. As part of the ongoing narrative, the Doctor's companions, Amy and Rory, had ostensibly left the TARDIS in Season Thirty-Two's The God Complex, although they continued to be a part of the programme. For The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill would be relegated to cameo roles; this would also help avoid clashing with a stage production of Doctor Faustus to which Darvill had committed during the special's recording dates. Instead, Moffat returned to the idea of pairing the Doctor with a one-off companion, as had been the case for each of the Christmas specials between 2006 and 2009. To this end, he devised the character of Madge Arwell, through whom he could celebrate the tenacity of motherhood.

Moffat began work on his script around the end of June 2011. Of his two fellow executive producers, Beth Willis had left Doctor Who at the end of Season Thirty-Two while Piers Wenger would be departing upon the completion of the Christmas special. Moffat therefore paid tribute to his colleagues by lending versions of their names to the Androzani rangers Billis and Ven-Garr. The concept of the Wooden King and Wooden Queen was an image drawn from Moffat's childhood nightmares -- in this case, a figure glimpsed standing by his bedroom door as he awoke in the dark. A late change saw Lucy Arwell renamed Lily. Lucy Pevensie was the pivotal character of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, but it was felt that including a young girl with the same name in the Doctor Who analogue was an homage too far.

The director for The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe would be Farren Blackburn; he had been invited to work on Season Thirty-Two, but was already committed to The Fades. His wife, actress Verona Joseph, had previously appeared in the Season Thirty premiere, Partners In Crime. Guest starring as Madge Arwell was Claire Skinner, a noted stage actress who was best known for her leading role in the sitcom Outnumbered. She, too, had a marital connection to Doctor Who: her husband, Charles Palmer, had directed three stories during Season Twenty-Nine.

Amongst the supporting cast was Alexander Armstrong, playing Reg Arwell. Although this would be his first on-screen appearance in Doctor Who, he had spent five years providing the voice of the computer Mr Smith for the spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures. As a result, he had also been heard as Mr Smith in The Stolen Earth / Journey's End, Doctor Who's thirtieth-season finale. Meanwhile, the role of Billis would be portrayed by Arabella Weir. She had the distinction of having played a version of the Doctor, in the comical 2003 Doctor Who Unbound audio play Exile from Big Finish Productions. Weir was also a good friend of Tenth Doctor David Tennant, and his former landlady; Tennant was the godfather to her two children.

The Doctor Who production calendar had always begun in July, but this would not be the case in 2011

Ever since Doctor Who's return to television in 2005, the production calendar for a regular season had always begun in July, but this would not be the case in 2011. Because Season Thirty-Three wouldn't begin airing until the second half of 2012, only The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe needed to go before the cameras prior to the new year. Apart from two days of recording on Season Thirty-Two's Let's Kill Hitler in mid-July, work on the Christmas special marked the first filming for Doctor Who in four and a half months. In the interim, Moffat had overseen the second season of his other show, Sherlock, which he was showrunning with Mark Gatiss.

Production of The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe began with two days at Doctor Who's regular studio home in Upper Boat. September 12th was devoted to the opening effects shots of the Doctor being ejected from the airlock, while the 13th was spent on material in the attic of Granby House. Much of the mansion was actually represented by the nineteenth-century Stradey Castle, situated between Llanelli and Pwll. Cast and crew were stationed there from September 14th to 16th for scenes in the main hallway, the sitting room, the living room, Madge's bedroom, the kitchen, the staircases, the upstairs corridors, and the building's exterior. It was back to Upper Boat on the 17th, for material in Madge's bedroom at her cottage, the Tripod control room, and the spaceship airlock. That night, the epilogue at Amy and Rory's home was filmed at a residence on Bute Esplanade in Cardiff; This was the same house seen in The God Complex, as opposed to the building later used for the Season Thirty-Two finale, The Wedding Of River Song. The 17th was the only day that Gillan and Darvill were required for The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe.

Sunday the 18th was a day off. On September 19th, recording around the base of the alien tower took place at Beechenhurst, a region of the Forest of Dean near the village of Broadwell. Next, Uskmouth Power Station in Newport provided the spaceship corridor on the 20th. From September 21st to 23rd, scenes in the otherworldly forest were recorded in Gethin Woodland Park near Abercanaid. Meanwhile, back in Cardiff, the BBC's new Roath Lock Studios opened for business on the 23rd, as production began on the second half of Casualty's twenty-sixth season. Roath Lock would become the permanent studio home for Doctor Who during the filming of Season Thirty-Three.

After the weekend, September 26th was spent on two Cardiff streets. Y Groes was the road that Madge drove down with the wounded Doctor, while a residence on Pen-Y-Dre featured as the exterior of the Arwells' cottage. The rest of the week was confined to Upper Boat. Scenes in the children's bedroom at Granby House were recorded on September 27th, and those in the tower were the focus from the 28th to the 30th. Blackburn's itinerary for the 29th also include material in the Arwells' living room and the Tripod control room, while the flashback of Reg Arwell playing with his children was taped just outside.

The first day of production in October was the 2nd, when further tower sequences were recorded at Upper Boat. All of the scenes involving Reg's aircraft were taped on the 3rd, at the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre in East Kirkby, for which the museum provided a real 1945 Lancaster bomber called Just Jane. On the 4th, the Doctor plummeted from the heavens onto a field in Merthyr Mawr. More work at Upper Boat took place on October 5th and 6th, concentrating on the completion of sequences in the tower throne room. Other sets in use on the second day included the Granby House attic and the Arwells' living room; various inserts were also filmed. Furthermore, producer Marcus Wilson recorded the Christmas special's prequel on the 6th. Set in the spaceship corridor, it depicted the Doctor talking to Amy as the vessel was about to explode -- but the conversation was revealed to be one-sided, because it had now been years since she stopped travelling in the TARDIS.

Cast and crew returned to Stradey Castle on October 7th. The emphasis was now on the concluding scenes outside Granby House, although more shots in the sitting room and living room were also taped, as were several flashbacks. After a break on Saturday the 8th, principal photography wrapped up on October 9th at Upper Boat. Alongside several pick-up shots, Blackburn filmed material in the tower, the Arwells' living room, and an ultimately-deleted sequence in Granby House's coal cellar.

With recording for The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe now complete, Smith travelled to California for a series of appearances. In an interview with cable channel VH1 broadcast on October 21st, Smith hinted for the first time that he might leave Doctor Who following Season Thirty-Three, and indicated that he hoped to spend time in Hollywood. The Christmas special's prequel was released on December 6th. Just before The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe aired on Christmas Day, Moffat announced that Doctor Who was about to undergo a major change. During the press screening for the special on December 15th, he confirmed that Amy and Rory would be leaving the programme partway through Season Thirty-Three, after which a new companion would be introduced. Gillan and Darvill had met with Moffat earlier in the year, and it was mutually agreed that it was time to draw the Ponds' story to a close.

• Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #31, 8th August 2012, “The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe” by Andrew Pixley, Panini UK Ltd.
• Doctor Who: The Complete History #70, 2018, “Story 225: The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe”, edited by John Ainsworth, Hachette Partworks Ltd.