Doctor Who Christmas Special 2024

Recap
The Doctor spends a year on Earth working in a hotel building a friendship with Anita, in hopes of getting back to the Time Hotel in time to save Joy.
Review
The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) arrives at the Time Hotel on Earth in the year 4202 where every room links to a door within a hotel across time each room on Christmas Eve throughout the millennia. But something is amiss and a man with a briefcase locked to his wrist may hold the key. The problem is, the briefcase seems to have a mind of its own and keeps switching owner with the previous owner, disintegrating soon after being released from the case’s mind control. It is looking for a specific era far enough back for a very specific nefarious purpose. Amidst his investigation, The Doctor meets Joy (Nicola Coughlan), a bubbly but kind of sad young woman who was spending Christmas Eve in 2024 alone in a hotel room. In order to save Joy, who gets whisked away by a future Doctor, he must spend a year on Earth where he takes a job at the same hotel Joy was staying in and develops a deep and strong friendship with Anita (Steph de Whalley), the Hotel’s manager. At the end of the year, the Doctor sadly leaves Anita, to save Joy and to release her from the briefcases control without it killing her. But in the end, not everything works out the way the Doctor would have liked, and Joy, whose sad story ends up bringing her name’s sake, “JOY”, to the world!
There was a time where I felt like I had to explain what the show Doctor Who is, and what its all about, but after 60 years and the recent partnership between the BBC and Disney+ I think most people understand that it is a science fiction series that has been running for a very long time (not continuously) where the main character travels through space and time in a blue Police Box (similar to a telephone booth…wait…do I need to explain what a telephone booth is too?) and at the point of death can regenerate every cell in their body creating a brand new person with a different look and personality (well I didn’t have to explain it, but I guess I did anyways). The Christmas Special episodes have been a yearly tradition since 2005 when the Doctor was played by David Tennant after the shows relaunch earlier that year. There were two Christmas Specials in the original era, the first being in 1965 and called The Feast of Steven which technically was an episode during the 12 part storyline The Dalek’s Master Plan but was really not related to that plot at all. The second episode was not technically a Doctor Who episode, but an attempt at a spinoff called A Girl’s Best Friend and was a spinoff pilot for a series called K9 and Company and is now considered Doctor Who canon.
Joy to the World is a bittersweet episode with Nicola Coughlan making an excellent temporary companion with her vivacious personality and yet a very sad undercurrent with her back story and history. In addition, we see the doctor live a semi-normal life for a year becoming best friends with Anita, only to have to leave her. To add to that, the sadness at the fate of the bumbling Trev Simpkins (Joel Fry), who worked at the Time Hotel was also a bit of a downer. But the episode was everything Doctor Who should be, engaging, thought-provoking, funny, dramatic, sad, suspenseful and adventurous. There is a gravitas to the story as well, even though they don’t really focus on it. The very fate of the Earth and its entire history is at stake and yet, the episode shows us to enjoy the little things with family and friends and not to take them for granted. It has already been established that Ncuti’s Doctor is much more emotional, and you feel that in this episode.
Although Nicola Coughlan’s Joy is billed as the one off companion for this Christmas Special, it is really Steph de Whalley who should be given that honor. Both actresses did an amazing job and both would have made great on-going companions as well as Trev, played by Joel Fry. I would love to have seen any of these fine performers continue on, but the new companion when the series returns will be Belinda Chandra played by Varada Sethu. This year Doctor who gave us a wonderful gift!
Final Thoughts
Loved the episode even though it brought a bit of a tear to my eye. On a personal note, I finally got my own sonic screwdriver for Christmas! Yay!
Doctor Who Christmas Special 2024: Joy to the World
- Writing - 8/108/10
- Storyline - 9/109/10
- Acting - 9/109/10
- Music - 9/109/10
- Production - 8/108/10