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Across six decades and several iterations, one thing has remained true about Doctor Who. The series portrays adventures across space and time. For this year’s Christmas special, “Joy to the World,” writer Steven Moffat plans to put a unique twist on the concept.
“Imagine that a hotel chain got hold of the idea of time travel,” Moffat revealed to BBC South East in a recent interview (via Total Film). “What’s the first thing a hotel would do if they had time travel? They’d realize they have an opportunity to sell all the unsold nights in their old hotels [throughout] history.”
Fans already saw a bit of that hotel’s function in a teaser released back in July. The short begins with Ncuti Gatwa‘s Fourteenth Doctor popping into various visitor spaces throughout space and time, offering a ham and cheese toastie and a pumpkin latte. Halfway through, we meet Joy, a kind but lonely young woman played by Nicola Coughlan. As soon as Joy gets into her room, she’s interrupted, first by a Silurian in a business suit and then by the Doctor, once again bringing breakfast.
Moffat’s explanation helps us better understand what’s happening in that teaser. The Doctor is investigating the hotel chain, going through its various rooms and looking for a person who can help, a person who loves ham and cheese toasties and pumpkin spice lattes.
The meal is a classic Moffat tautology, in which wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff puts the effect before the cause. One of the most delightful versions occurred in “The Big Bang,” in which the Doctor slakes his thirst with a drink he steals from the past, which makes him parched in the first place. Then there’s the River Song plot throughout Moffat’s episodes, in which we meet the Doctor’s wife as a woman moving backwards through time and eventually learn that she’s the daughter of Amy Pond. But the best might be from Moffat’s first episode “Blink,” where the Doctor communicates to Carey Mulligan’s Sally Sparrow through a message distributed across VHS tapes.
While these types of episode were common under Russell T Davies‘s first tenure as showrunner, which was followed by Moffat in charge for seven years, they more or less fell away after Chris Chibnall took over in 2018. But with Davies back for a few more seasons, Moffat’s style of Doctor Who adventure has a home once again.
In fact, they work particularly well within the series’ current overarching mystery, which began with last year’s Christmas special, “The Church on Ruby Road.” That special introduced Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday, the Doctor’s latest companion, whose true identity vexes the Doctor. Given that Ruby’s Christmas Day birth in general, and the hooded figure who left her on a church doorstep in particular, drive the Fourteenth Doctor’s story, Moffat’s approach is welcome. Is the person who delivered the infant Ruby to the church on Ruby Road the adult Ruby herself?
The 2024 Christmas Special isn’t likely to answer that question. Instead, like most Christmas specials, it will let the Doctor run around with another special companion. But its depiction of time flattening out in a hotel might help prepare viewers to finally understand Ruby’s true identity.
The 2024 Doctor Who Christmas special “Joy to the World” airs this Christmas on Disney+ in the U.S. and on BBC and BBC iPlayer in the UK.
The post Doctor Who Christmas Special 2024 Plot Details Tease a New Take on Time Travel appeared first on Den of Geek.
