Doctor Who – Joy to the World Review

“Joy to the World” is the second Christmas special of the Disney era of Doctor Who. This Christmas-set adventure sees The Doctor team up with Derry Girls/Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan.

Joy Almondo (Coughlan) books into a hotel in London on Christmas Day 2024. Her simple stay escalates quickly when a Silurian hotel manager and a mysterious man with cheese and ham toasties and a pumpkin latte crash into her room. Joy is forced into an adventure with The Doctor when she gets handcuffed to a briefcase that killed everyone that had been attached to it.

Christmas Specials have been a stable of British TV with many popular shows getting that honour for the festive period. Doctor Who is no exception and there have been many Christmas Specials starring everyone’s Time Lord, although the quality of the special can vary. It can be hard for the writers to come up with new Christmas-related adventures every year. Russell T. Davies did start to write this Christmas Special but had to hand the reigns over to Steven Moffatt due to the Series 15 workload.

“Joy to the World” was a busy episode that saw The Doctor and Joy go to a Time Hotel and see them go to many time periods. They went from the Cretaceous Period to thousands of years into the future. It was an excuse for The Doctor to meet some famous figures. However, being a busy special also made it into an overly chaotic episode.

“Joy to the World” had a throw-everything-at-the-wall approach since it was filled with multiple story ideas. The episode starts with the Doctor going to various time periods and bemusing figures like Edmund Hillary and Sylvia Trench (James Bond’s on-off girlfriend in the first two Connery films) before he meets Joy. Early in the episode, the Doctor had to spend a year working at a hotel because he had to go the long way round to complete a time loop. During that year he bonded with the receptionist, Anita (Steph de Whalley). This storyline felt like it could have been a whole episode during the Moffatt era.

“Joy to the World” aimed to be a big spectacle adventure. It featured a T-Rex, a grand hotel, and a sequence on the Orient Express. The creators’ ambition was bigger than what the special effects budget could provide. This was clear during the Orient Express sequence when using the train to open an ancient tomb. Doctor Who is a show that can get away with lesser special effects because it adds to the show’s charm.

The episode did attempt to pull on some heartstrings. Joy had a tragic backstory that resulted in her needing to spend Christmas away from home. Coughlan showed off this pain and if she wasn’t a busy TV actress she probably would be a candidate to be the Doctor’s long-running companion. Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor in this special touched the lives he met whether it was Anita, or people in the Time Hotel, like Trev (Joel Fry). The Fifteenth Doctor is a more social version of the character who uses his charisma to win people over.

“Joy to the World” followed the Series 14 episode “Boom” since Villengard reappeared as a villain. Villengard was a galactic arms firm with a reckless disregard for human life and their special plot fitted that modus operandi. However, the idea of a corporation’s willingness to destroy for financial gain isn’t anything new for Doctor Who, not even in a Christmas Special since “Voyage of the Damned” was willing to destroy London for an insurance scam. The comparisons with “Voyage of the Damned” continued due to an advanced civilization enjoying a traditional Earth Christmas.

When the special attempted to incorporate more of the Christmas story near the end, it became saccharine and unearned. One of the characters performed a sacrifice that was meant to be an emotional, grand gesture, but it would have meant more if the audience had known more about them.

“Joy to the World” had some good moments and ideas, especially the Doctor’s time with Anita. Gatwa, Coughlan, and de Whalley were strong in the roles. However, the writing felt rushed and it was a mediocre Christmas Special.