It’s coming back Doctor Who playwright Russell T. Davies may have pioneered the modern era Doctor Who holiday specials—The Monsters of Christmas, a high-profile spectacle, the occasional Kylie Minogue figure—but it’s arguable that her successor, Steven Moffat, nailed the act of measuring just how good it is. Doctor Who A Christmas story should be. The answer, ironically, isn’t a very good sci-fi story—or at least, that’s not as important as the committed, almost emotionally charged romance of the season. This year’s offering, Moffat’s first Christmas script since 2017’s Twelfth Doctor sent “Twice In Time,” excels in that intriguing balancing act and time-twisting. Doctor Who entertainment adorned with festive charm—one that really depends on the ending to help make up for a few missteps in the beginning.
The title, “Joy to the World,” which airs next week on Christmas Day, is a bit of a tie-in with Ncuti Gatwa making his full debut as the 15th Doctor in last year’s holiday episode, “The Church on Ruby Road,” in a way he relies on. a series of engaging performances trying to hide where their story doesn’t come together well. It trades the dramatic bent of creepy goblins abducting children for traditional sci-fi aesthetics as the Doctor stays in a futuristic “Time Hotel” for the holidays, providing Christmas-time gateways to all of human history. It also depends heavy with that seasonal beauty again, with lots of snow, tinsel, and trees, more of a seasonal feel than any old episode playing in late December.
Haunted by the mystery of a strange suitcase that seems to be fatally exchanged between hosts at the hotel, it is in this well-timed festival setting—and through the aforementioned Time Hotel gates—that the Doctor crosses paths with lonely Joy (Nicola Coughlan), as she looks into a seedy hotel in London during Christmas 2024. The mystery of why Joy is so important to the Doctor’s latest journey that the good part “Joy in the World” is set aside takes a side step to explore the effects of Time Hotels gates, and the temporal paradoxes that come with them. It’s all very Moffat-y, a mix of laughs, time-twisting storytelling, and the forced desperation that comes with his best outing as a writer, as the Doctor finds himself thrust into the life of another lonely woman along the way (Steph de Whalley’s Anita, perhaps secretly the breakout star of “ Joy to the World”). It’s a killer Doctor Who the concept of the story, which also cleverly touches on the Doctor’s loneliness after breaking up with Ruby. It just so happens that it is rightfully included in one season Doctor Who an episode that… well, isn’t given time to breathe something interesting.
“Joy to the World” makes up for those structural flaws with Joy’s storyline by really letting that part of the episode shine all over the holiday season’s emotions, with a heated narrative high on the heart-warming drama. fix the fact that it plays fast and loose with the basics of planning, especially when compared to the structure between the episode in the first part the episode has been dedicated. For the most part it works, thanks to standout performances from Gatwa and Coughlan, and will especially resonate with people who spend Christmas without loved ones. But if you find yourself too protected Doctor WhoThe cuteness of the heart is annoying at this time of year, you can find the ending a little wanting—and you wonder what the episode would have been like if it had stayed with that original plot-within-an-episode as its main idea.
But even if you don’t find yourself on board with the sentiments of it all, there’s still at least one really good episode. Doctor Who to be found in “Universal Happiness,” although it is not the main focus of the episode. There is enough here to satisfy anyone looking for a good one Doctor Who idea, or someone who just wants something big and Christmas to fill his heart with the spirit of the season as he sits with him during the holidays—and this time Doctor WhoA long history of holiday specials, that we can still find stories that can balance both is a welcome little gift under our collective trees.
Doctor Who returns to Disney+ worldwide and BBC in the UK and Ireland on Christmas Day, December 25.
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