(I'm doing Series Seven Buffy-style, sitting down with the DVD player open in one window and Notepad in another and just writing down a narration and my reactions. What's different is that what you're seeing here is my first impression, whereas with Buffy I've seen all the episodes before.)
Our episode begins with a starship cruising directly over our heads (Star Wars), going on for longer than you'd expect (Spaceballs), and then exploding. The Doctor is caught up in this, and ends up falling to Earth, desperately wrestling with something that will save him from dying the second he hits the ground (Moonraker - and by the way, Moonraker managed to look more real than this. This is not a good sign).
He gets saved by a woman who takes him into town to find a police telphone box. It's Old Times, judging by the car. Maybe 1920s-30s. The Doctor can't see a thing because he put the helmet on backwards.
So they get to the police box and the woman says her name is Madge. After an incredibly long amount of time, we learn that the police box is not the TARDIS. This sets the tone for the entire story: things we know are coming take too long to actually happen.
Back at Madge's house we learn that it's the late 1930s because WWII is about to start. And then we fast-forward 3 years to WWII, where Madge's husband gets shot down over the English Channel, leaving her to raise her two kids - Lilly and Cyril - all alone. Not that she bothers to tell her kids, who think he'll be coming home for Christmas.
Obviously this is a major problem. After all, since he lost his father in WWII, there is a non-zero chance that Cyril will learn to play the bass, join a progressive rock band, write the greatest concept album of all time, and then turn into a bitter anti-semnite, and we just can't have that.
They get evacuated from London because of the bombing and have to go to a drafty mansion. The caretaker turns out to be the Doctor - because he told Madge to just wish if she ever had a favor in mind he could repay him with, and the kids wished... something.
So the Doctor leads them on a manic tour of what Wayne Manor would be if Willy Wonka renovated it. Madge isn't really taking this whimsy well. Madge tells him that Mr. Madge died and she doesn't want her kids to know before Christmas. The Doctor says the point of then being happy now if they're going to be sad later is that they're going to be sad later. And of course Murray Gold's score is being Murray Gold's score. You will never find him in the dictionary next to the word "Subtlety."
The Doctor left them a present. It glows throughout the night. The kids go exploring. Lilly finds the Doctor in the attic - he's repainted his wardrobe blue because it is in fact the TARDIS (I think). Meanwhile, Cyril opens the present and snow comes out. He crawls inside it and finds himself in Never-Neverland. Understandably freaked, he looks at it wth a confused expression and then goes back in. Lilly tells the Doctor that Cyril is still in bed, asleep, when in fact he's wandering around some sort of winter wonderland where water freezes, turns into ornaments, and then grows. And then, apparently, hatches.
The Doctor cottons onto the fact that Cyril's in the magic box, so he and Lilly go in after him. He explains that Cyril has a 20-minute head start because time moves faster in demon dimensions (y'know, just in case you thought the Buffy ripoffage stopped when RTD left). He also decides to be phenomenally rude to Lilly. Like, Hartnell levels of rude. They find that Cyril is following footprints, and those footprints he's following are getting bigger. They find another one of those trees that makes the growing ornaments. And they hear ominous whispering. It's the trees talking to each other. The Doctor evidently can't understand them, but he does see his face change into a wooden man's in the ornaments' reflection.
Meanwhile, back at home, Madge finds the box. Now at this point, Lilly and the Doctor should have like a day's head start on her because of the time-flows-differently-here-rule.
Cyril finds a tower in the middle of the forest and goes inside. He finds a wooden king statue inside. The footprints lead right up to it, and stop, and the feet are the wooden king's size.
Meanwhile, Madge is captured by yellow stormtroopers. She has a complete and total breakdown in front of the complete and total strangers.
Cyril continues climbing the tower. A door closes behind him. He reaches the top and finds a wooden queen, standing behind a chair, with a crown in her hand, like she's about to put it on the chair's occupant's head.
The Doctor finds the wooden king at the base of the tower and (thank Santa) notices that the footprints prove that the king is what hatched out of the ornament.
Meanwhile, Monty Python's Yellow Stormtroopers are "interrogating" Madge. By "interrogating," I mean they're telling her about themselves. They're from Androzani Major, it's the future, and oh yeah she's got a gun. (Their weapons detectors don't work on wool. Because, um, plot.)
Meanwhile, the wooden queen is putting a crown on Cyril's head. And "the stars are coming out of the trees." The Doctor says it's "pure life-force," whatever that means.
Since they're busy stargazing, Cyril gets his crown, and the king at the base of the tower rises. (Note from Jim-Who-Has-Finished-The-Episode? Who is the king? Why did he rise when Cyril got the crown? I get that he was part of a trap to lead Cyril to the throne, but why did he stop at the base of the tower instead of leading Cyril right to the throne room?)
Meanwhile, Madge has captured the yellow stormtroopers and taken them back to their harvester. Androzani trees are the greatest fuel source ever. And they're going to melt down the forest with acid rain. I don't know which is more annoying: the silly continuity nod or the acid rain.
Cyril is unconscious. The king confronts the Doctor and Lilly. The Sonic Screwdriver is useless because it doesn't do wood. The wood guys use Cyril to communicate. They're scared.
Meanwhile, the yellow stormtroopers get beamed out, leaving Madge inside the rusty AT-AT. Cyril tells the Doctor that the stars in the trees are evacuating because of the rain that burns and Zeus frak it, this is a damn environmental message.
Also, the "stars" are parasites. They need to travel inside living things. They're turning Cyril into a lifeboat. And then they start talking directly through Cyril. Cyril's too weak to contain all the "stars," so the Doctor volunteers.
Cuz, y'know, being the good guy means helping out a bunch of creepy parasitic stars that like possessing children.
Anyway they say the Doctor's too weak too, but he grabs the crown and starts screaming in pain. Lilly grabs it next and learns that she is strong, but she is young. Whatever that means.
And the rain starts. Cyril decides he's not going to go with the Doctor through the acid rain to the magic portal. Madge drives the harvester to the tower and tells the Doctor that he's fired as caretaker of Creepy Wonka Manor. Madge gets inside the tower and gives the kids a tongue-lashing about not opening their presents early. Cuz, you know, that's their biggest concern. Then she gets hypnotized by the crown, I guess, and absorbs the entire forest.
The Doctor finally cottons on to the fact that people with wombs are "strong" and people without are "weak" because Gaia wasn't enough, now the episode has to do the fish/bicycle thing too. Frak this.
And then Madge brings them home through the power of heartbreak, I think. And the Doctor's doing the same thing he did with Bracewell in "Victory of the Daleks," because that wasn't effing stupid enough the first time. The viewscreen then reveals Mr. Madge's plane on the night he died, Madge freaks out, and the kids realize that their dad died.
Then the Doctor technobabbles, because nothing breaks up pathos like Matt Smith being silly. And then we're back to "oh, yeah, your dad died."
The Doctor goes outside while Madge breaks the news - "there were no stars to light his way" - oh frakking hells. Oh, frakking, frakking hells.
So then the utterly predictable happens.
Madge tells the Doctor that nobody should think he's dead on Christmas, so the Doctor finally goes and tells Amy that he's not dead, two years after she thought he was. (I wonder if the whole "Girl who Waited" thing isn't a metaphor for Doctor Who fans who see their show's schedule get pushed back around the calendar.)
To end this review on something positive: the season will have to try very, very hard indeed to get worse.
1 out of 10. This is the worst piece of crap with the Doctor Who name attached to it since Dimensions in Time. It is worse than "Fear Her," "Love & Monsters," the end of "Last of the Time Lords," Buffy's "Go Fish" and BSG's "Epiphanies" put together.
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