Doctor Who Duo Talk Up Christmas Special (‘A Highly Sugared Show for a Highly Sugared Day’), If Joy to the World Teases Season Ahead
What does every Doctor Who Christmas special have in common?
“Snow,” says, flatly, Steven Moffat, the franchise’s former showrunner who penned this year’s holiday outing. “Always snow.”
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Beyond the fluffy white stuff, though, any given holiday special “exudes Christmas,” Moffat notes. After all, “you’ve got a hero that’s the closest to Santa Claus!
“Doctor Who is not about subtlety and neither is Christmas Day,” Moffat continues in a jolly manner that makes you think he could speak on the topic all day. “I like Christmas because it’s sparkly and twinkly and good taste has been told to bug off. We can just have flashy bits and it’s great! This is a highly sugared show for a highly sugared day.”
In this year’s special, Joy to the World (arriving Stateside on Disney+ a little after noon ET on Christmas Day), Nicola Coughlan (Bridgerton, Derry Girls) plays the titular Joy, a young woman whose life “is forever changed when she meets the Doctor,” the Irish actress previously previewed.
“When Joy checks into a London hotel in 2024,” the official synopsis tells us, “she opens a secret doorway to the Time Hotel — discovering danger, dinosaurs and the Doctor (played by Ncuti Gatwa). But a deadly plan is unfolding across the Earth, just in time for Christmas.”
The cast also includes Steph de Whalley (Cyber Bride) as Anita, Jonathan Aris (Avenue 5) as Melnak, Joel Fry (Our Flag Means Death) as Trev, Peter Benedict (Dark) as Basil, Julia Watson (Casualty) as Hilda and Niamh Marie Smith as Sylvia.
But, save for one brief cutaway, the cast features no Companion with a Capital C, seeing as Fifteen and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) parted aways at the close of last season. And that makes this outing just a bit unusual.
“We don’t see the Doctor for long periods on his own, mostly,” franchise vet Moffat observes. As such, “he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself” as Joy to the World gets underway. “He can go anywhere and do anything and meet anyone, and yet he sometimes just decides to get himself a coffee. But there’s a part of him that desperately wants to show off to someone — and to show off the universe as well.”
Enter Joy, brought to life by an actress whose praises Moffat and current showrunner Russell T Davies can’t sing loudly enough.
For one, “Nicola’s got an amazing smile,” Moffat says. “It’s the very first thing you see when she steps out of that taxi at the beginning. It’s a nothing bit of the script, but it becomes the hero entrance, as she smiles at the scuzziest hotel in the world. Later, the Doctor says her smile is like ‘the lid on a boiling pot,’ and that’s what she does. There’s something else going on under that smile….”
Coughlan as Joy also ably portrays a mild-mannered hotel guest harboring the potential to rise to the occasion, as the plot demands.
“There’s a strange thing about Nicola which is we are happy to accept her as an ordinary, perhaps slightly dull person, even though she’s every inch a star. She’s absolutely radiant,” says Moffat. “You’re always going to look at that face, but nonetheless, somehow, she’s coded as Ordinary Person.”
Is Joy to the World required viewing ahead of Doctor Who Season 15, coming in 2025? Actually, this Christmas special is not much of a table-setter for the season ahead — whereas last year’s The Church on Ruby Road by design laid the foundation for a season-long mystery, and Gatwa’s first arc as the Doctor.
“Obviously the Doctor has companions always at his side, so there’s a slight passing on of the baton in a forward motion” with Joy as a “one-off companion,” says Davies. “But next season, we have Varada Sethu (Andor, last season’s ‘Boom’ episode) coming on as Belinda Chandra, who is wonderful. You will be able to watch the Christmas special and the series almost as a straight line — they flow into each other — but they’re not hugely connected. It’s a proper one-off.”
Want scoop on Doctor Who, or for any other TV show ? Shoot an email to [email protected], and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
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