Doctor Who fans get a special treat under the Christmas tree today with the arrival of “Joy to the World,” this year’s special holiday episode. But they got an even better gift wrapped inside it: because beyond the broad holiday plot of the episode, this great inner journey has a side story that can stand alone as a good episode WHO in its rights.
About a third of the way into its “Joy to All the World” moment it takes a sideways step. After stopping at the Time Hotel the Doctor is staying at—a multi-gated business that’s now set to send visitors through every Christmas in history—we quickly pass through those doors as he follows a strange suitcase that bounces around in handcuffs, it seems. empty hosts. The Doctor and his current boss, the Silurian manager of the hotel, find themselves walking through the door of Christmas 2024 in London, where they both meet a young woman named Joy in her dingy hotel room. Some chaos later, the Doctor discovers that the suitcase is somehow dispersing the hosts after it jumps into another: the Silurian dies and Joy is imprisoned as the latter’s bag manager, prompting him to sing ominous warnings about the blooming starseed. Before the Doctor can figure out what’s going on with the suitcase… the Doctor walks in the door.
This Doctor, from the future, takes his predecessor’s anger away from him by not giving any information about how to solve the mystery of the bag, as he starts to take Joy out of the room and leaves “our” Doctor, forced to think things over. The door closes, and we stay in the perspective of “our” Doctor, who realizes that he is now stuck in 2024 with no TARDIS and no way back. throughout the year.
What follows is an extended sequence that has the potential to be a killer episode Doctor Who itself. With no money or place to stay, the Doctor must offer his services to the hotel manager, Anita (Steph de Whalley, in a truly delightful way), who does odd jobs, renting out property. it was Joy’s room. The Doctor works on trying to find a suitcase in his spare time, sure, but he’s still forced to live a certain amount of time, in one place, and actually live a life he doesn’t usually have.
This is not a concept Doctor Who It’s not at all familiar, of course. The first part of the Third Doctor’s existence was built on the premise that the Doctor was exiled to the Earth of that time and forced to fend for himself, but he still went on his travels as UNIT’s scientific advisor. The Fourteenth Doctor’s arc ends with him being given the grace to exist and live a life with Donna and her family, freed from the need to be the Doctor. Steven Moffat in particular, who wrote “Happiness to All the Worlds,” was interested in this idea during his professional career; Episodes like “The Lodger,” “Three Powers,” and even the previous holiday special, “The Husbands of River Song,” all deal with the idea of the Doctor, by choice or circumstance, giving up his life temporarily as a doctor. who wanders in the fourth place to live “normally.”
But unlike this sequence of “Happiness to the World,” those previous episodes are only vaguely self-examining, the fact that the Doctor spends so much time in one place, in one moment, mostly in the background against the database. the real reason for that. And that, honestly, because Doctor Who it’s the show we all watch to see the Doctor travel through time and space, fight monsters, and save worlds from catastrophic destruction. Getting him to live a normal human life is rare because, as the Doctor begins to exert himself here, it becomes a boring sci-fi adventure show.
However, in the third part of the episode—and arguably the best episode—we are asked to stay with the Doctor as he lives this year, to get to know Anita better, to know what life is like. like thisbetter, until the time comes that his year is over and he has to say goodbye to his new friend, it’s almost as painful as losing a friend. There is no great threat or mystery, the Doctor doesn’t even consider time travel, even if he knows he has Joy’s hotel room booked for just a year, instead the entire series becomes about exploring the power of this unique lens. in the life of the Doctor and in his mind.
What’s worse, is the time it takes for this Doctor to heal, to make a friend and then part with him in this way. Not just because it’s the last season of Doctor Who He really struggles with the domestic aspect of making the Doctor and Ruby feel like friends the series has always told us they are friends, but because it doesn’t exist with Joy, the special de facto “friend” that the Fifteenth Doctor is dealing with is his loneliness after the breakup. and Ruby. There is only Anita, and it is her connection and inspiration that pushes her forward after losing her first friend, one of the first people she imprints on in this incarnation. Again, this is a past holiday special that’s touched upon as well—”Runaway Bride” and the Tenth Doctor’s feelings for Rose, and “Journey of the Damned” and, uh, the Tenth Doctor’s feelings for Martha—but their ultimate endings are reminders. that the Doctor needs someone to share adventures with.
For a moment, and very clearly, “Happiness in the World” asks us and the Doctor alike whether life itself is a journey that needs to be shared with someone, rather than Time and Space.
Now you can watch Doctor Who“Universal Happiness” on Disney+ worldwide, and on the BBC in the UK and Ireland.
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