New Doctor Who First Impressions: 2024 Christmas Special (Joy To The World)

Doctor Who totally knows what's in Marsellus
Wallace's briefcase.

You know, I straight up forgot I had to do this. Seriously, I was awaiting Christmas and all that, and knew that there was a special and I watched it, but it was not until laying in bed this morning that I was like "Oh fuck me, I write about new Doctor Who, don't I?". So here I am, in a basement hundreds of miles from home, banging this one out on a laptop. Funny, I did much the same for Empire Of Death but it was upstairs and it was hot out. Now it's downstairs and cool, so let's discuss Joy To The World. It's fine. Yeah, it's a perfectly adequate holiday offering from our old pal Steven Moffat. It is not terrible, but neither is it the best Christmas special he's ever written. I still have nice things to say about it, so let us do that now, as we so often do.

In a way, it really is kind of a bit of holiday fluff for Moffat. I know that sounds dismissive, but let me explain. The very best of his Christmas specials are tied into character arcs and the greater scope of the series they are bookending. For example, Last Christmas is not just a spooky romp with Santa, but key development for the Doctor and Clara's relationship and mending the fracture from Death In Heaven. Husbands Of River Song ties up her plotline and is this nice little coda after Clara's loss about how you spend your last days with a person you love. Compared to stuff like this, Joy To The World feels very standalone. There's no scene with the Doctor and Ruby, no real mending of that broken bridge. The Doctor has feelings about it and there are great feelings in this, but it is not an episode about that. I guess in a way that is a weakness, but just because the episode is not about that sort of thing does not mean it fails entirely.

Oh, fuck it, let's talk about the best part. That year the Doctor spends in the hotel with Anita. I absolutely love this. Just a cozy little year, a blink of an eye for an ancient fella like Doctor Who, spent ruminating and meditating and forming a bond with this random hotel clerk. It takes up a good chunk of the episode and you just get to sit there and watch these two get on. That final goodbye is so poignant and beautiful, and Gatwa shedding a tear breaks me. I wish there were a little more for Anita than a spot working at the Time Hotel, but by god what an impression. Oh yeah, the Time Hotel. It's a fun little concept that allows for lots of varied little peeks into history, and one could nitpick the massive paradoxes vacationing about through time could cause, but who gives a fuck? It's Christmas, you're halfway to a turkey coma, and you've had a few adult beverages. Stand down and have a goddamn holiday, Captain Cinemasins, Jesus. I did like the Silurian manager as well. I could go on about how I did wish he wasn't just a "found" Silurian and that there could be a line about how in the year 4000 humanity and homo reptilia live hand in hand or something, but whatever. I just told you time paradox nerds to calm down, so let's all play a bit of détente and I'll do the same.

Which leads us to the titular Joy, and wowza do I adore Nicola Coughlan in this. The standout scene for me has to be when the Doctor is being deliberately cruel to break her out of that briefcase's brainwashing. Watching her conditioned smile slowly turn down as the Doctor begins his insults is peak fucking acting. It's a trick the show's done before (off the top of my head, Curse Of Fenric and The God Complex) but seeing Gatwa do it shows off his range as well. Joy's whole tragic backstory, where her mother died from COVID on Christmas Day, is another tour de force. The invocation of the actual real pandemic, as well as those fucking Boris Johnson parties, gives the proceedings that dose of reality and concern with the material world that I love so much these days. The show actually wasn't in the place to do that sort of thing when the pandemic was in full swing, deciding instead to do whatever in the fuck Flux was, but a little dash of social realism goes a long way.

It's funny that I invoke the Chibnall years there, because it goes into the ending a bit. The end resolution is another where the Doctor takes a backseat and the guest character sacrifices themselves to save the day. I'm not upset about it like I was back a few years ago with 13 because... well... this Doctor has actually proactively saved the day a bunch of times already? You can get away with a passive Doctor ending some of the time, it's when you do it for like over half your season that you have problems. More to the point, Joy becoming a star is beautiful and poignant in a way that the sacrifices of any of those chumps in those Chibnall stories were not. There's a real emotion to it, especially when you pair it with the scene with her mom. Then there's the reveal of what the star becomes. Moffat, you Scottish jokester, you. You had me cackling with my belly full of turkey and booze. Well done. 

Y'know what, that does it. Joy To The World. An adequate holiday special. The naysayers, of course, are going on again about how this is the worst Doctor Who has ever been, how we didn't know how good we had it under Chibnall compared to this, and how their hearts are stone and they were unmoved by any of it and prefer to listen to Big Fucking Finish. I could say meaner things about this crowd, but it's Christmas so I'll be nice. I will give a sincere wish that, if you find no joy in new Doctor Who any more, that you can find it elsewhere in other media. I had to do it when Chibnall and other franchises let me down, and it helped me. Maybe get a month of the Criterion Channel instead of going on Twitter or Bluesky to yell about how there won't be a season 3 because you didn't like the Christmas special. My wish to you for the holidays, haters. To the rest of you, I hope your holiday was spectacular and that you were able to relax. I'll be back on this blog before year's end with a Game Of The Year list and probably another comic.

Until then, happy holiday to all of you, and we'll see you in warmer climes for Season 2 of The New Doctor Who.