Yep, the Latest Doctor Who Christmas Special Just Did That — Grade It!
The following contains spoilers from the Doctor Who holiday special Joy to the World, now streaming on Disney+.
There have been many Doctor Who Christmas specials, but never one quite like Joy to the World, which co-starred Bridgerton‘s Nicola Coughlan and dropped on Dec. 25, 2024.
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After all, “It is the first Christmas special ever to take the credit for all of Christmas!” trumpets franchise vet Steven Moffat, who penned Joy to the World.
Adds showrunner Russell T Davies, “It’s literally the one that invents every Christmas.”
How did Joy to the World pull off so fantastic a feat? Well….
The special revolved around the Doctor’s (Ncuti Gatwa) arrival at the Time Hotel, which as the name suggests, offers “all of human history as mini-breaks” with each room acting as a time portal. And right now, fittingly, the hotel is holding a “Christmas Everywhere All at Once” special, staff member Trev tells the Doctor.
Whilst in the lobby chatting up Trev, Fifteen clocks an odd man doing nothing — and continuing to do nothing — and with a briefcase chained to his wrist. The Doctor tasks Trev with tailing the man, who heads to the hotel bar and transfers custody of the case to the bartender… who then hands it off to Trev.
Each holder of the briefcase states in monotone, “The star seed will bloom and the flesh will rise.” and after handing off the case to someone else, they soon die/dematerialize.
Trev hands the case off to the hotel manager, a Silurian who has full access to all rooms/time portals, who then brings it to new guest Joy, played by Coughlan. Realizing what’s afoot, the Doctor barges in, and though those speaking through the Silurian “detect power” in the Doctor and hope to hand the case off to him, it instead winds up attaching itself to a confused Joy. The curious Doctor opens the case to assess its contents — some sort of quantum-sealed container — but to save Joy’s life after doing so, it demands he punch in a four-digit code.
Before Fifteen can start winnowing down the 9,999 options, he himself barges into the room, shouting, “7-2-1-4!” The Doctorganger takes Joy with him on the way out, advising his prime self to take “the long way around” to see Joy again. Realizing that the door is now bricked off and won’t open again until next Christmas Eve, the Doctor then parks himself there in Joy’s room at the Sandringham in London, occupying his time with odd jobs and “chair night” fun with manager Anita.
When Christmas Eve rolls around again, the Doctor and Anita bid one another a sad farewell. He then returns to the Time Hotel, we get the “two Doctors” face-off again, only this time we follow the Doctor on his way out with Joy and the briefcase. Fifteen sets out to fracture Joy’s bond with the case, by taunting her about her plan to spend Christmas “alone” in a hotel. A tearful Joy explains that her mum died on Christmas Day during the pandemic, and all Joy could do was say goodbye over iPad. Henceforth, she won’t allow herself to be with anyone on Christmas, she explains.
Fifteen explains that the briefcase will, in (untested!) theory, give birth to a star… and/or “burn every living thing” on Earth. And to create such a “functionally infinite energy source” would take time, ergo manufacturer Villengard’s use of the Time Hotel. Thing is, Villengard would need “way longer” than ever the span of human history — like, 65 million years longer — which Fifteen and Joy realize at their next stop, a room with a view of a dinosaur!
After the dino swallows the briefcase, the sonic screwdriver buzzes with a video message recorded by dearly departed Trev. The Doctor explains that they must find the briefcase and get it “off world” ASAP, and Trev points them to Room 48. There, Fifteen and Joy find a primitive stone shrine, with a locked cabinet of sorts. To yank open its door, the Doctor grabs rope from a Mount Everest climbing team he met earlier… snakes it through the Orient Express train he visited earlier… and then flings the hooked end out the back car. The hook grabs hold of some track, and the tension pulls open the door in Room 48.
But when the Doctor returns to Room 48, neither Joy nor the glowy contents of the briefcase are to be found. He ascends the stone stairs, and finds Joy consumed with the elements of the case, glowing from within. “The star seed is in me now,” she joyfully reports. “It’s in all of us.”
When the Doctor expresses concern for Joy’s fate, she reassures him, “Im not dying. I’m changing. I’m saving something beautiful” and in turn “will shine everywhere and forever.” Before fulfilling that destiny, Joy urges the Doctor, off his year living in a hotel to “find a friend, go and find one now.”
As Joy ascends into the night sky and transforms into a star, we get a montage that revisits the people from the time periods glimpsed in the cold open, reveals Anita’s recruitment by Time Hotel, and shows Joy’s mum finding grace after their final FaceTime session.
Fifteen then surveys the long-ago sky into which Joy, as a star, has risen.
“Oh, of course. Joy,” he nods. “Joy to the world!” And we realize that this new star is shining over the little town of Bethlehem circa 0001.
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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