“Written by Steven Moffat”. On Christmas Day! My god, how we’ve missed those words. Did any of us truly, in our wildest dreams, think that was something we’d ever get from Doctor Who again? It’s like thinking you’ve had all your presents only to spot a mountain bike with a ribbon around it behind the sofa. The writer responsible for some of the show’s best festive outings (and, okay, a couple of its worst) returns for a story that hits all the usual Moffatty timey-wimey buttons: clever, funny, emotionally punchy and, occasionally, absolutely exasperating. His previous Christmas specials have ranged from the sublime (‘A Christmas Carol’, ‘The Husbands of River Song’) to the flaky (‘The Return of Doctor Mysterio’, ‘The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe’), and ‘Joy To The World’ sits somewhere in the middle — though thankfully closer to the former than the latter.
As so often happens to the character at Christmas, we find Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor alone after bidding farewell to his latest companion, Ruby Sunday, back in the summer’s season finale. Here he stumbles across the “Time Hotel”, a futuristic establishment offering guests the chance to spend Christmas at any point in history. Want the Orient Express in 1962? Base Camp at Everest? The dawn of the dinosaurs? All are accessible via those oddly locked doors you sometimes get in hotel rooms. And especially appealing for the Doctor, it also has a breakfast buffet. It’s the kind of concept Moffat excels at: the promise of doors that could lead anywhere speaks to the same part of our imagination that loves the wardrobe to Narnia or Santa coming down the chimney or, indeed, a silly blue box that’s bigger on the inside and can take you anywhere.
Naturally, an “old enemy” (the Doctor’s words, though it’s not an enemy the casual viewer will know — don’t expect the Cybermen or the Weeping Angels) is lurking in the corridors with a plan that could … well … spoilers. But if they pull it off, it’ll be pretty bad. The villain’s plot is classic Who — overcomplicated, slightly nonsensical and just about held together by sheer momentum. The whole episode is not without its “hang on a minute?!” plot holes (if time travel is commonplace enough to be a hotel feature, why do our antagonists need the hotel at all? Wouldn’t they have access to even better forms of time travel? If the Doctor needs help why doesn’t he just call Ruby? It’s not like she had her memory wiped, got stuck in another dimension or was turned into a Cyberman. The answer we’re given feels rather hand-wavy), but the episode moves fast enough that you probably won’t notice them until after the credits roll. That’s hardly a new critique for this particular show.
We’re also introduced to our one-off companion for the day: Nicola Coughlan’s titular Joy, checking into an ordinary London hotel in 2024. Coughlan, a genuine superstar these days, especially after that Bridgerton season, is as luminous as she always is, just as charismatic and charming as Gatwa himself, so it’s a shame the episode never gives her enough space to really develop. When she does get room to breathe – particularly during one blazingly furious speech that will probably divide viewers, but for our money absolutely lands – she’s excellent. The Derry Girls star has both the comic timing for the lighter moments and the dramatic weight for the heavier ones, making it all the more frustrating that we don’t get more time with her character. We’re on a mad dash to save her life (and the rest of humanity while we’re at it) but we never quite know her well enough for the stakes to really feel that weighty.
Across the board the supporting cast make decent use of limited screen time. Joel Fry (how has he never been in Doctor Who before?) brings charm and pathos to the hotel’s put-upon concierge, while Steph de Whalley finds genuine depth in what could have been a throwaway role as modern-day hotel worker Anita. She might be the episode’s highlight. All three actors do a lot with a little, finding humanity in the margins of Moffat’s plot-heavy script.
Ncuti Gatwa, meanwhile, continues to prove himself as the Doctor, bringing both a wonderful lightness of touch and nuclear-levels of charisma to a role he’s clearly mastered. His Doctor feels both ancient and youthful, carrying the weight of his years while maintaining a childlike enthusiasm for adventure. Eyes brimming with tears, a grin that could outshine any star in the sky. He’s wonderful.
There’s lots to like here. The Time Hotel is a perfect concept for Who, giving the show the bigger canvas Christmas specials demand as the Doctor hops from the second World War to the Orient Express to … well, that would be telling. The Disney+ budget is evident on screen, particularly in a dinosaur sequence that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago, and would probably have struggled in the recent Chibnall era. It’s a beautiful looking, beautifully performed story. Yet there are issues. The final confrontation feels flat after a strong build-up. Coughlan and Gatwa are doing the lord’s work trying to sell a concept that the audience never gets a real handle on — it’s an occasional problem in Moffat’s scripts, where the clever conceit can overshadow the narrative payoff.
‘Joy To The World’ does what a Doctor Who Christmas special needs to do: it’s accessible, fun and self-contained enough for casual viewers and there’s plenty for committed fans to enjoy too. It doesn’t reach the heights of the show’s best festive outings, but it’s solid entertainment, even if it does play it safe when perhaps it could have pushed harder. After all, this is a show that has scared the bejesus out of a generation of kids on the cosiest evening of the year several times (those creepy wooden monsters in the snow? The facehuggers? The Empress of the Racnoss?). This is a show that once killed Kylie Minogue on Christmas Day. Just last year we had baby-eating goblins on a flying galleon, who paused mid-episode for a musical number. There’s none of those audacious, big swings here. As Doctor Who heads into its second season under Russell T Davies’ new era, with high stakes and persistent rumours about its future (aren’t there always?), this feels, just slightly, like treading water rather than making waves.
It’s not quite the game-changer some might have hoped for from Moffat’s return to the show’s annual extravaganza, but that’s fine. It’s still a warm and entertaining hour of television that should keep everyone happy between the presents and the turkey sandwiches. Or at least between the Strictly special and the new Wallace & Gromit. Joy to the world, indeed.
