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Warning: contains spoilers for “Joy to the World”
Let joy be unconfined! Doctor Who has returned to its rightful place on the Christmas Day TV schedules with a big, heartfelt timey-wimey adventure. A lonely Doctor stumbles into a mystery involving returning corporate bad guys Villengard, who want to use the Ronseal-named Time Hotel to hatch a baby star from a psychic briefcase. Along the way, our hero makes a new friend, spends a year working as an odd job man, calls Nicola Coughlan a “sad sack human train wreck”, and nearly gets eaten by a dinosaur.
It’s good to be back, isn’t it?
Last year’s fun but uneven “The Church on Ruby Road” re-established the primacy of the Doctor Who Christmas Special, a festive tradition that had lain dormant for five years. It would be hyperbole to say that ‘Chris Chibnall ruined Christmas for half a decade’, but the phrase is in handy quote marks so by all means reproduce it out of context. Now we have “Joy to the World”, Steven Moffat’s first festive episode since 2017’s “Twice Upon A Time“, and naturally fans have been curious about how he would approach it. A cheerfully broad romp like “Voyage of the Damned”, specifically designed for viewers semi-tranquilised on turkey, yule log and sherry? Or something spikier and sadder like “Last Christmas”?
The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is a bit of both.
“Joy to the World” generally plays it pretty safe, giving us a Christmas episode that could almost have been designed by committee, were there not such verve and energy coming off the screen. In the parlance of the times, Moffat understood the assignment – reintroduce the idea of the festive special, give us a bunch of fun concepts and gags, provide Ncuti Gatwa with some opportunities to remind us that he has more charisma in one tooth than most British actors working today, wrap it all up in a nice big sentimental bow, and send us off to pick at the Christmas leftovers with a warm feeling in our hearts.
It makes perfect sense as an approach. This is a Who Christmas episode largely free of continuity, so you can comfortably stick it on to enjoy with your family without the need for an accompanying PowerPoint presentation (I still have flashbacks to watching “The Time of the Doctor” with my family and having to provide a running commentary on three years’ worth of dangling plot threads, references and lore, which made me sound completely unhinged). The central emotional throughline – the Doctor misses his companion – doesn’t really require any background knowledge to understand. The Time Hotel is a fun conceit whose mechanics Moffat is careful to explain and reiterate at regular intervals.
Even the returning villain is just a faceless weapons manufacturer, perhaps the easiest instinctive boo-hiss imaginable. The references to last season’s “Boom” are fun continuity fodder for fans, but it’s not like you’re going to have to explain to your great-auntie who Rassilon is.
As well as being accessible, the episode is full of delights. Nicola Coughlan lights up the screen, even if she ultimately doesn’t get a huge amount to do (and considering that the climax of her arc is literally ‘becoming a star’, that shows how thinly sketched the character is). The Time Hotel is clever and allows for some great jokes, like the kitchens being 30 minutes in the future. The Doctor having to go to the future “the long way round” allows the episode to slow down for some lovely character moments, even if it’s an idea we’ve seen Moffat explore several times in the past (and it’s not the only one). The scene where the Doctor deliberately riles Joy is effectively brutal, and Gatwa beautifully plays both the viciousness and the subsequent regret. There’s also a big dinosaur, because it’s Christmas and it’s been a hell of a year, and we deserve a big dinosaur.
And eventually it turns out that the star that guided various shepherds, kings and donkeys to Bethlehem was actually the result of an experiment in renewable energy by an evil corporation from the future, which is audaciously cheeky.
All that being said, the broad, welcoming energy that makes “Joy to the World” effective on a macro level also makes it slightly sickly on a micro level. From an emotional perspective, the episode is at its most winning when it’s being quiet, allowing space for the melancholy that so often coexists with happiness during the Christmas period – and that made “A Christmas Carol” and “Last Christmas” such standouts in the pantheon of Who specials.
But too often it goes for the big swing, and over extends itself as a result. The Doctor’s year-long friendship with Anita, for example, is played wonderfully by Ncuti Gatwa and guest star Steph de Whalley, but what works about it is how low-key, almost mundane it is. The massive swelling tearful goodbye – and the implication that Anita’s feelings for the Doctor are romantic – feels overblown where it should be quietly bittersweet.
See also Joy’s big outburst revealing why she checked into the hotel alone, and why she’s bubbling with rage. Again, Nicola Coughlan plays it very well. But it feels like it’s grasping for a level of emotional impact that hasn’t really been earned, and the references to the pandemic and Partygate feel somewhat heavy handed. Cutting to Joy’s mum in hospital at the end is also tonally awkward, shifting that plot thread from a memorial for an intimate family tragedy – and by extension all the millions of other intimate family tragedies suffered during that horrible period – to a bit of hand-wavey sci-fi magic. It’s undoubtedly well intentioned, and perhaps some will find it cathartic, but for me it left a slightly odd taste in the mouth.
And then there’s the matter of the Doctor. Ncuti Gatwa is wonderful, of course. But there is a slightly uneasy feeling that the show is unsure of what to do with the character, emotionally. We’ve seen the Doctor moping around and missing their departed companion before. We’ve even seen it at Christmas. We’ve also seen them experience and appreciate a period of normal living among humans, and we’ve heard them advised by other characters that they shouldn’t travel alone. The beats all feel very familiar.
And it’s not like Ruby’s even dead! The Doctor can pop in and see her whenever he likes! Considering the terrible events that separated previous Doctors from beloved companions like Rose, the Ponds and Clara, a companion choosing to stay at home and spend time with her mum just doesn’t have the juice to support this level of hand-wringing.
But OK. Speaking of hand-wringing – enough. It’s Christmas, and Doctor Who is on TV, and the episode is good. Elements of it are even great! And it brings a message of hope – something that, however heavy handed and ingratiating, is sorely needed here, halfway out of the dark. It’s lovely to have it back.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to pick at the leftovers.
Compliments of the season to all Den of Geek readers!
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