Doctor Who 2024 Christmas Special Review: “Joy to the World”

Time travel shenanigans makes this holiday special (mostly) charming.

The Doctor Who Christmas special has become a tradition, along with watching A Charlie Brown Christmas, some variation of A Christmas Carol, and debating whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie. (I am firmly in the ‘it IS one’ camp, by the way.) Next year, it will be ten years of a special episode at Christmas with some sort of theme connected to the holiday.

I’ve been waiting for “Joy to the World” since the announcement of Nicola Coughlan’s casting, as I found her delightful in Bridgerton. Thankfully, the episode revolves around her character, Joy Almondo, checking into the Time Hotel – a nice set of accommodations where different doors go to different time periods.

Thanks to aforementioned time travel shenanigans, the episode includes two Doctors (Ncuti Gatwa), a dinosaur eating a briefcase, a star, and the usual plan to destroy the Earth. There are appearances by Jonathan Aris (who, unfortunately for him, will always be “Anderson” in Sherlock to me), Joel Fry (nice to see him getting work post-Our Flag Means Death), and a subplot with a sweet segment that has the Doctor spending a year in the hotel living like an ‘ordinary’ person and getting to know Anita Benn (Stephanie de Whalley).

Recently, I have not hidden my dislike of Steven Moffat. While at first, I was a fan of his (and even started watching Sherlock partially because of his involvement), over the years, I’ve slowly drifted to the other side. I could write a whole essay about what I don’t like about his writing, and it only got worse because of series 4 of Sherlock. (I also heartily recommend HBomberGuy’s nearly two hour takedown of Sherlock on YouTube, as it goes into many of the issues I had with it.)

But when all is said and done, I have to give him credit that he does time travel stories well. (That is, when he isn’t rehashing the plot to The Time Traveler’s Wife.) He seems to really understand the various paradoxes (and fun) that the trope of time travel provides writers, and obviously has a field day playing with them. As I’ve said before, when he writes Who, it’s not a show that happens to have time travel in it, but rather a show ABOUT time travel.  

This episode is no different. From the Doctor giving himself help on problems to having food cooked before it’s ordered, the plot hinges on the concept. (And, of course, there’s the usual ‘kiss with history’, as Quantum Leap called them.) Unlike Matt Smith’s Doctor in “The Power of Three”, this Doctor is just fine with ‘going the long way’ to a specific time, and even enjoys himself. I’ll not go into more details, as it involves spoilers for the episode.

There were two moments I didn’t find enjoyable. There’s a moment when the Doctor talks to Joy, being horrendously mean. While we find out that this was part of his plan, Moffat does tend to write his characters as incredibly callous. (After all, that was the bread and butter of Capaldi’s Doctor.) Gatwa, so far, has been incredibly kind and sweet, and it felt like a major personality switch to have him be so hurtful.

Second, the ‘twist’ at the end (which I won’t go into). Not only was it so saccharine sweet that it felt forced, I guessed what was going to happen a good ten minutes before. (Which for an hour-long episode is way too early.)

Overall, I enjoyed the episode much more than I was expecting. It was a delightful addition to Gatwa’s run, and I look forward to what the next season has in store for us.

Doctor Who is available on Disney+ for American viewers, and on the BBC iPlayer for those of you in the UK.

Author: Angie Fiedler Sutton

Angie Fiedler Sutton is a writer, podcaster, and all-round fangirl geek. She has been published in Den of Geek, Stage Directions, LA Weekly, The Mary Sue, and others.

She also produces her own podcast, Contents May Vary, where she interviews geeky people about geeky things. You can see all her work (and social media channels) at angiefsutton.com.

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