Ncuti Gatwa and Nicola Coughlan lead the Doctor Who Christmas special, Joy To The World. Here’s our review… (spoilers).
Spoilers lie ahead for Doctor Who: Joy To The World…
Even in the era where most of us watch things on catch-up, the Doctor Who Christmas special tends to have a tonal target to hit. It tends to be one of the more heightened episodes of the year, and one not shy of energy.
What’s interesting with Joy To The World is it’s allied to a really good science fiction idea. A really good Steven Moffat-style science fiction idea.
Moffat, as he’s done before, finds something simple as his starting point. We’ve had cracks in the wall, we’ve had the thing in the corner of your eye. This time: those mysterious doors in hotel rooms that don’t seem to lead anywhere. The pen of a man who knows his way around a Travelodge.
It’s a lovely idea, and really nicely realised too. We get to see a Mount Everest camp (where a warm coat appears to be optional), a dinosaur, a train carriage, and a bit of room service too. The staff at the hotel are swiftly at the heart of Joy To The World’s mystery too, starting off with Joel Fry’s Trev, and working through key personnel, with a bonus Silurian for your money. It all looks at the top end of TripAdvisor, although the core plot soon gets up and running, when a stranger and a briefcase appear.
Set against this, we get Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor, now travelling alone again, although we do get a fleeting appearance from Millie Gibson’s Ruby Sunday. The closest we get to an advertised companion is Nicola Coughlan as Joy, who soon sits to the heart of the episode’s mystery element. But the standout for me is Anita.
The luxury of an hour means that Moffat can slow things down, and play with the passage of time. We meet the Doctor, after all, offering a latte in a seemingly comic aside, a moment that does become important later in. In fact, given that Moffat is seemingly having a ball playing with time, there are lots of moments like that here.
But also, there’s the year that the Doctor spends with Anita, where his life slows down, and he builds a bond with someone across the course of a third of an episode. It really worked for me, too. We know, watching, that it’s going to come to an end, but the duo are really fun to watch, and it’s surprising sad when they come to part. I think, personally, I preferred the Anita side of the story to the Joy bit.
Visually, there’s a moment where the dinosaur attacks that felt a bit like the union of new and old Doctor Who. The dinosaur bit is the kind of effect that the show couldn’t have done a few years ago. Conversely, there’s the old-fashioned other side of the shot, as people flap about in a room. I did also get a dash of the flavour of Sylvester McCoy-era Doctor Who too, as the Time Lord has to basically turn someone against him.
Underpinning the lively Christmas side of things is an undercurrent of politics, just to get on the wrong side of the Daily Mail. “Wherever there is a corporation, there is PR”, we hear at one point. Yep. The early stage of the episode too was threatening to knock up quite the body count. It reminded me there of the old 2000AD annuals, where the creators – seemingly not best pleased at the idea of coming up with lighter stories – had Judge Dredd metering out extreme prison sentences for the smallest of crimes.
I think Joy To The World was at the better end of Doctor Who Christmas specials, and I tend to watch these festive specials in the spirit I think they’re intended. Appreciating most of us don’t gather round the telly to watch it live, they’re still designed a little with the notion that we might have had a glass or two and too much to eat. What Moffat’s blended here is a nice mix of hard Doctor Who with the time of the season.
I suppose, on reflection, I preferred the journey to the denouement rather than the ending itself, and I do think that the brilliant Nicola Coughlan ended up relegated a little here to the sidelines. That notwithstanding, I thought Joy To The World was really good fun, and I’d love to see the Time Hotel make a reappearance. Mind you, I always wanted Moffat’s library to come back too, and even at Christmas, we don’t tend to get everything we want.
There’s a hint of setup for the next season of the show, that I think it still being called season two. Perhaps less overt than the threads seeded a year ago, but then I also accept there’s probably stuff in here in plain sight that my end of the year eyes missed.
What I didn’t miss out on was Ncuti Gatwa again on top form, some hugely entertaining time plotting, wit, zip, a sheer intent to entertain, and a desire to go right back to the start and watch it again. It’s really not been a bad year for the Doctor…
—Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website:
Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Buy our Film Stories and Film Junior print magazines here.
Become a Patron here.
