The Story of a mad Man with a box series 6 (Doctor Who)

The Doctor, the Widow, and the WardrobePt 1

[Prequel]

(On a spaceship, the Doctor is making a phone call to the Tardis.)
DOCTOR [OC]: Amy. Amy? Hello? Amy, it's me, the Doctor. Hello. Bit of a situation.
COMPUTER: Intruder alert.
DOCTOR: I've got my finger on a button, which is fine, but as soon as I take my finger off the button the spaceship is going to explode. (Sparks.)
DOCTOR: Argh. Which is good in one way, because the spaceship in question is about to attack the Earth, but bad in another way, because I'm on the spaceship and I'm going to get all smithereened. Now, plan. I'm going to send you the coordinates so you can fly the Tardis here and rescue me. Only three flaws in this plan as far as I can see. One, I don't have the coordinates. Two, you can't fly the Tardis. Three, oh dear, you're not even there. You left ages ago. Oh, well. I think I just wanted a chat before all the smithereens. Merry Christmas, Amelia.
(He closes his eyes and releases the red button. The spaceship starts to go KaBOOM!)

[Earth orbit]

(Cannons of mass destruction protrude from the flanks of an impossibly long spaceship.)
ALIEN [OC]: People of Earth, you stand alone.
(Boom. Parts of the spaceship explode and it starts to fall apart.)
COMPUTER [OC]: Intruder alert. Intruder alert.

[Spaceship]

COMPUTER [OC]: Intruder alert.
(The Doctor runs along a disintegrating corridor. He sonics his way into the spacesuit storage area by an airlock, then an explosion blows half of it away. He is hanging on to the end of a frayed cable.)
DOCTOR: Ah! Come here, spacesuit. Come to Doctor.
(Another explosion blows him and the suit into space.)

[Earth orbit]

(The Doctor catches up with the suit just before the atmosphere.)
DOCTOR: Got it!

[Country lane]

(It is the late 1930s. A woman is bicycling along when she hears an Argh! and a Whumph! as something hits the ground at speed. She falls off her bicycle into a hedge, then goes to investigate the crater in the field nearby. It contains an occupied spacesuit.)
MADGE: Hello? Hello? Hello, are you all right?
DOCTOR: Ow.
MADGE: Are you hurt? Did you fall? Where did you fall from?
DOCTOR: Helmet.
MADGE: All right, just just let me. I don't want to hurt you.
(She raises the solid protective visor, then the transparent one, to reveal a lot of hair.)
MADGE: Oh.
DOCTOR: I can't see. I'm blind!
MADGE: Oh no, love, no. I think you've just got your helmet on backwards. How did you manage that?
DOCTOR: I got dressed in a hurry.

[Living room]

(A bespectacled young boy in pajamas is looking through a telescope.)
MADGE: Cyril, what are you doing awake?
(His older sister is also in her night clothes.)
LILY: It's the moon's fault, apparently. It's too interesting.
CYRIL: It's astronomy.
LILY: Don't make up words. He's always making up things and breathing.
MADGE: Where's your father?
CYRIL: In the garden.
MADGE: What's he doing in the garden?
CYRIL: Agriculture.
LILY: You're not fooling anyone.
MADGE: Listen, Cyril. Tell him that I've borrowed Mister Goldsmith's car. That I found a spaceman in a field, possibly an angel, but he's injured and I can't get his helmet off, so I'm having to take him into town to find a police telephone box, all right?
CYRIL: All right.
MADGE: Good boy.
(Madge leaves.)
REG: Was that your mother? Where's she going?
CYRIL: Out.

[Town]

(There is a police box by the green. Madge stops the car by gently running into a wooden bollard.)
DOCTOR: Ow! Did we just bump into something?
MADGE: No, no.
DOCTOR: We seemed to bump into quite a lot of things.
MADGE: Well, a lot of things get in the way. It's hardly my fault. You need to take that silly thing off.
DOCTOR: Can't. Impact suit. It's still repairing me.
MADGE: Repairing you?
(She helps him out of the car.)
DOCTOR: Yeah, well, you know, that's the idea.
MADGE: Won't it repair you all back to front?
DOCTOR: No. No.
MADGE: Well, that's good. Oh, that's a street lamp.
DOCTOR: Yes, I got that impression.
MADGE: Round this way. Don't you want me to take you to hospital or something? You're welcome to come to our house.
DOCTOR: No, no, no. I'm fine. I just need to find the, er, the key.
MADGE: Do you want me to do it with a pin? I'm good with a pin.
(She takes out a hair grip.)
DOCTOR: Multi-dimensional, triple encoded temporal interface. Not really susceptible to pointy things.
MADGE: Got it.
DOCTOR: Okay. Suddenly the last nine hundred years of time travel seem that bit less secure. Thank you for taking care of me. You didn't have to, you know. You've been very kind.
MADGE: Oh, don't be silly. It's Christmas Eve. No one should be alone at Christmas.
DOCTOR: What did you say your name was?
MADGE: Madge. Madge Arwell.
DOCTOR: If thre's anything that I can do for you, let me know.
MADGE: How?
DOCTOR: I don't know. Make a wish. That usually works.
MADGE: Does it?
DOCTOR: It did for me. You're here, aren't you? Well, don't wait around here. Just off you go home. I'll just go and, and wait inside here.
(He goes inside the police telephone box.)
DOCTOR: Ow! Wrong one. Do you think we could try again?

[Living room]

(Reg is reading his newspaper, the News Chronicle. The head line is War Looms. Madge enters.)
REG: You were a long time. Been taking home strays as usual?
MADGE: Just the one. What have you been reading? Not the war again. People keep reading about the war, then it will actually happen. And then where will you be?

[Bomber]

(Three years later, in the RAF, that's where, flying a damaged plane. Probably a Stirling, as the Lancaster didn't come in until 1942.)
CO-PILOT: Sir, Anderson's in a bad way. Where are we?
REG: I don't know. Somewhere over the Channel.
CO-PILOT: What do I tell Anderson?
REG: Tell him, tell him, tell him we're going home for Christmas.
CO-PILOT: Yes, sir.
REG: I'm sorry, my love.

[Living room]

(Madge wakes up and sees the dreaded telegram on her bedside table. Regret to inform you etc night of 20th Dec Deepest Sympathy. Later, after dinner but before the big jelly is attacked for pudding.)
CYRIL: When's Father coming back?
LILY: For Christmas, like he always does. Now, hurry up and think of something.
CYRIL: But we're going to Uncle Digby's house. Will he be there?
LILY: He will, won't he, mother? Daddy will be there.
MADGE: Of course he will.
LILY: See? Now, have you thought of anything?
CYRIL: Er, yep.
LILY: Count of three, then. Make a wish. One, two, three!
(As her children pull the wishbone, Madge makes a wish.)

[Outside Uncle Digby's house]

(Christmas Eve outside a massive old house. Probably a Victorian rebuild of something much older.)
CYRIL: Is it haunted?
LILY: Is it draughty?
MADGE: Oh, this is no good. Where's Mister Cardew? He was supposed to be here.
(Madge goes to knock on the door.)
CYRIL: Maybe it's haunted by the ghost of Uncle Digby.
LILY: Uncle Digby is still alive. He's in a home in Battersea.
MADGE: Mister Cardew!
CYRIL: But why do we have to come here?
LILY: Because of the bombing, stupid.
CYRIL: I like the bombing. It's exciting.
LILY: Will Father be here? Well, he will, won't he? You said he'd meet us at the house.
MADGE: He'll be here. Of course he will. You don't need to keep asking about it.
(Someone unbolts the door from the inside.)
LILY + CYRIL: Father!
DOCTOR [OC]: Sorry, it's the door. It's developed a fault.
MADGE: Oh, hello? Mister Cardew?
(One of the double doors is pulled off its hinges.)
DOCTOR: There we go. Well, come in. In you come.