Doctor Who: Joy To The World spoilers won't be found in this review.
It's been a year since Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor took centre stage in his first solo episode, 'The Church on Ruby Road', and a lot has changed in the 365 days since Doctor Who's last Christmas special aired.
After the Doctor spent a whole season unravelling the mysteries that surround Ruby Sunday, he's alone again here, feeling just a tad sorry for himself. It's just as well then that Joy To The World continues Doctor Who's festive tradition of introducing a temporary companion just in time to stave off those yuletide blues.
The episode begins with our good Doctor popping up in random locations (and years) offering people a cheese and ham toastie/pumpkin-spice latte combo. It's not quite as bad as fish fingers and custard, but it's not quite to the taste of the randoms who he encounters.
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This cold open — extra cold when we visit Mount Everest base camp — then gives us Joy, literally a woman named Joy, who's checking into a London hotel for Christmas.
Played by Bridgerton's ever-loveable Nicola Coughlan, Joy isn't feeling the love in her small, basic room where she plans to spend the holidays alone. That is, until a Silurian wanders in through a locked door, followed by the Doctor, who's popping in from the year 4202.
Not much has changed in the future and no, people aren't living underwater. Instead, people go on time-travel getaways via a futuristic hotel chain that lets you visit any point in human history. As if that wasn't impressive enough, the hotel's kitchen is located 30 minutes in the future so your food order always arrives immediately. Could this hotel get any better?
The time travel of it all is central to the plot of the special, but some of the plot points result in viewers barely getting to know much about Coughlan's Joy.
But the Doctor takes the "long way round" to meet another companion of sorts, who's far more interesting and better fits the festive theme. In this woman, named Anita, the Doctor finds a kindred spirit and it's here that the special shines brightest.
Without going into spoiler territory, just know that their section brings a great deal of nuance to what's otherwise a rather clunky story, bridging the gap between Ruby's exit and the Doctor's future with emotional heft.
It's also rather Christmassy without feeling forced, even in the scenes that aren't actually set at Christmas. That's because the camaraderie our Doctor develops with Anita, this gentle opening up of two souls, is far more poignant than what comes with Joy, who's supposed to be the star attraction.
Coughlan is entirely innocent, of course, doing her best with the material at hand. But once all the sci-fi shenanigans kick back in, including an unimaginative T-Rex (and little else), you'll find yourself longing for the smaller moments where the Doctor bonds with Anita over Chinese takeout or a game of Cluedo.
After Gatwa took a bit of a back seat in his own first season, it's refreshing to see the show dig deeper into what makes his Doctor tick beyond the plight of his companion (not to mention the depths he'll go to do "the right thing").
The end of the episode tries to have it both ways with more character development married to timey-wimey antics that also bring in the Christmas spirit you'd hope to see in a Doctor Who special like this. The result veers between heartbreaking and cringe, like a TARDIS battered by the time stream.
Without being able to go into any specifics, just know that the final moments of the special let it down – it's almost like a completely different person wrote the endearing middle segment.
If, as Steven Moffat suggested, this does turn out to be the last time he writes for Doctor Who, it's a shame he didn't end on the far superior 'Boom' that aired earlier this year. That would have been a far more explosive climax befitting of his legacy.
Doctor Who airs on BBC One in the UK and Disney+ elsewhere. Classic episodes of Doctor Who are available on BBC iPlayer in the UK.
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After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.
