I liked that! But I didn't love it!

The opening sequence feels incredibly Moffat quips and all, but I appreciate that these somewhat died down once we got into the meat of the story after the opening sequence.

Performances round the board were amazing, but Gatwa puts in one of his best yet! I really love his take on The Doctor, and I really love how Moffat writes for him specifically. The scene where he acts like an awful person to manipulate Joy was amazing. I love when Doctors have a mean, manipulative edge to them.

Joy herself was good but I think a little underdeveloped. I wish we had gotten more time with her, and because we didn't, I didn't feel as attached as the story wanted when she sacrificed herself.

The long way round scene was perfect.... Or would have been if it didn't leave me feeling like Anita was more developed than Joy.

Still, I absolutely adore seeing other sides to this Doctor that we haven't seen before in Season 40.

The setting of a time hotel rules, and I really love how the story utilised its internal logic and rules. Moffat has always excelled at this within episodes!

The ending itself... I have mixed feelings. As I said, the sacrifice didn't feel earned emotionally to me really. And the Bethlehem reveal genuinely made me laugh at how earnest it was. Just felt silly to me.

Still, what a fun episode overall! Definitely in the upper middle of Christmas specials for me.

Oh boy, where do I even start. The story came to a close and I went, "Wait, what? That's it? But nothing even happened!" What is it with Moffat writing episodes with basically no plot? It was just so...nothing.

Who is Joy? For all the Doctor psychoanalyses her, I don't feel like we really get to know her. For the titular character, she has close to no impact on the plot, let alone on me, the viewer.

While I really like Anita, and the chemistry she had with the Doctor was fantastic and very sweet, I felt that the story took a very unnecessary detour with the Doctor staying at the hotel for a year. In hindsight, it feels like they needed something to pad out the runtime since the plot was already stretched incredibly thin. I think it says more about how naff the rest of the story was for me to say this was by far my favourite part.

We've had so many stories about the Doctor needing to find someone to spend Christmas with, and as someone who doesn't celebrate Christmas and instead spent the day watching movies and reading fanfiction and making a phone call to my health insurance company, I just don't connect to this sort of story. The older I get, the more these kinds of stories grate on me; I have a family I see for holidays too! Why is it always Christmas? Why do they always act like you can't have that without celebrating this Christian holiday?

The episode kept introducing characters that had the potential to be interesting and then unceremoniously killed them off and moved on. Poor Trev. Hell, even Joy; does she not have any other family? Is no one going to miss her?

One of the complaints I see about the Moffat era is that, as a show runner, he tends to be somewhat self-obsessed and digs himself into holes when he thinks an idea is interesting but doesn't actually have a plan to make it all pay off. I finally understand that complaint, now with Villengard. It was fun as a throwaway line in The Doctor Dances and made for a pretty good backdrop to Boom, but unless RTD has plans for them to become a big villain (which I don't think I would like anyway, because what more is left to say?), it definitely feels like he's reaching for the one thing that no one has ever complained about. Well, here I am, complaining about it.

Then comes the thing that is more than just mild annoyance: the reveal of Bethlehem. I could feel it coming as the scenery was revealed, and I hate it. I get the feeling people don't know that most of Israel/Palestine is a lot more similar to Greece than Egypt in climate and environment. It's Mediterranean. There are no sand dunes. It made me groan out loud. Not to mention, these specials get Christian enough without directly calling back to the time and place of Jesus's birth.

Honestly, I thought nothing could be worse than last year's blood libel, but at least Church on Ruby Road had, well, a plot.

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

“JOY TO THE WORLD: CHRISTMAS CHEER, DINOSAURS, AND A DOSE OF DIVINE DRAMA”

For the first time in Doctor Who history, a festive special arrives not from the current showrunner’s pen but from a familiar old friend—Steven Moffat. Joy to the World marks Moffat’s return to the TARDIS with a story that’s exactly what you’d expect: smart, funny, full of timey-wimey madness, and brimming with heart. It’s also a joyous opportunity to give Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor his moment in the Christmas spotlight, and he doesn’t waste a second of it.

Set in the Time Hotel—a whimsically bizarre construct where every room is a doorway to a moment in human history—the episode is a kaleidoscopic festive romp through the Stone Age, Ancient Rome, JFK’s assassination, Bethlehem, and even a door straight out of The Hobbit. It’s a concept brimming with whimsy and just the right amount of Moffat chaos.

GATWA’S TIME TO SHINE

Ncuti Gatwa is magnificent here. This is the story that truly lets his Doctor come alive—energetic, wise, alien, compassionate, and just a little bit lonely. Moffat writes him with the same balance of gravitas and glee that once defined Eleven and Twelve, and Gatwa matches it with a performance that’s funny, heartfelt, and magnetic.

His interplay with Nicola Coughlan’s Joy is warm but slightly unbalanced. While Joy’s grief over losing her mother to COVID provides some emotional weight, she ultimately serves more as a thematic vessel than a fully realised character. Coughlan makes her likeable, and her chemistry with the Doctor works well enough, but compared to Kylie Minogue or Michael Gambon’s turns in previous Christmas specials, Joy feels less defined and more functional.

CHECKING INTO THE TIME HOTEL

The real scene-stealer is Stephanie de Whalley’s Anita, a sardonic hotel receptionist with more depth than expected. Her scenes with the Doctor—especially during the year he spends working in the hotel—are sweet, silly, and quietly profound. It’s a classic Moffat detour: plot-light but character-rich, allowing the Doctor to reconnect with people and find a little warmth in the dark.

Another slower moment comes when the Doctor deliberately irritates Joy just to get her to open up about her grief. It’s a classic Moffat ploy, but this one doesn’t quite land—less cathartic, more awkward.

OF STARS, BRIEFCASES, AND BOOTSTRAPS

At the heart of the episode is a mystery box—literally. A strange briefcase passed from person to person through the hotel, always followed by death and the ominous chant, “The Star Seed Will Bloom and the Flesh Will Rise.” The Doctor’s curiosity quickly shifts to concern, especially when the box turns out to be a Villengard prototype weapon—classic Moffat mythology—with the power to birth a star and destroy the world in the process.

There are loops, paradoxes, and explanations for things you’ve probably never questioned before (why hotel rooms always have one locked door, for instance), but it all comes together in that unmistakable Moffat fashion. It’s clever without being smug, and accessible without dumbing things down.

FESTIVE FAVOURITES AND DINOSAURS IN THE LOBBY

The opening montage, which features the Doctor handing out toasties and pumpkin lattes across time, is peak Christmas Doctor Who—warm, funny, and oddly appetite-inducing. Dinosaurs make an appearance, the action veers briefly into Indiana Jones territory, and all of it looks gorgeous thanks to Disney’s wallet. The Time Hotel is a production marvel, full of weird doors, strange guests, and lashings of festive magic.

Sadly, the supporting cast don’t get quite enough to do. Joel Fry’s Trev Simpkins is charming but vanishes too quickly, and Jonathan Aris (as a Silurian hotel manager!) is delightfully odd but underused. Still, they add flavour to a strong ensemble.

A STAR IS BORN (LITERALLY)

The resolution, however, is the episode’s most divisive beat. As the star seed activates, Joy transforms into the literal Star of Bethlehem, shining across all of time and space to spread hope. It’s a grand gesture—a bit too grand for some. The religious imagery is more overt than Boom, and while the intent is clearly about light in the darkness, the metaphor may feel heavy-handed depending on your taste.

That said, the theme of spreading joy feels appropriate, especially when filtered through a story of grief and loneliness. And Moffat’s always had a soft spot for celestial metaphors.

TEARS, TOASTIES, AND TIME LOOPS

The final moments hit exactly where they should. Joy’s farewell is touching, and her transformation into a literal beacon of hope feels earned if slightly overblown. We also get a lovely, brief return from Ruby Sunday—a reminder that the Doctor hasn’t forgotten her, and neither have we.

📝VERDICT: 8/10

Joy to the World is a festive delight: timey-wimey, heartfelt, and just a little bit bonkers. Moffat’s return is full of charm, cleverness, and Christmas spirit, even if the emotional beats sometimes come wrapped in a bit too much tinsel. Gatwa dazzles, Coughlan charms, and the Time Hotel earns its place among the show’s most imaginative settings. A messy but merry triumph.

2024 Christmas Special - “Joy to the World” by Stephen Moffat

When I heard that Moffat would be writing this year’s Christmas special, I thought it could’ve gone one of two ways. On one hand, Moffat has written all of my favourite Christmas specials from the underrated Last Christmas to the utterly beautiful A Christmas Carol. However, he has also written The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, The Snowmen and The Return of Dr. Mysterio, all episodes I utterly loathe. Now, I’ve found RDT 2 to be, so far, mediocre. Whilst a couple good episodes here and there regained the lost magic of the late 2000s and the cast is really trying their best with corny and unnatural dialogue, it all felt like a poor man’s imitation of what came before and I’m sad to say, I found Joy to the World to be the same.

On Christmas Day, the Doctor finds himself in the Time Hotel - a time-hopping establishment that allows you to stay anywhere, anytime. But when a mysterious briefcase psychically links to young Joy Almondo, the Doctor must play with causality to save her life.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Frankly, I found Joy to the World to be indicative of all of RTD2: a visually stunning, creatively rich soap opera with a great cast of weak characters. Joy to the World’s greatest attribute is its appearance. Not only are the effects magnificent (and strangely placed) but the sets are wonderful too. Vibrant and endlessly detailed, the Time Hotel especially makes for a great setting. It’s really obvious how much bigger the budget is here than in RTD1 because I’m pretty sure they blew the cost of a Series One episode on the cold open. The effects begin to stumble towards the end - used up on the five seconds of dinosaur we get halfway through -  but mostly it’s the strong suit. Plus, since we’re dealing with a Moffat script you just know that it's going to have a good idea or two in there. The Time Hotel is a fantastic concept that’s used excellently, though not as well as it could be due to the episode’s preoccupation with the Doctor’s character. I liked the paradox stuff and using the hotel’s time zones to speed up action but this episode isn't really about the hotel, it’s more just Moffat coming up with a good idea and running with it which is fine but insubstantial. As for characters, I’ll get onto why I think this episode struggles with them but I have to say I got by on the performances alone. Despite having a personality that can be summed up in a short sentence, Nicola Coughlan adds a lot of likability to her “companion”. I found Joel Fry, an actor I always am excited to see pop up, misused and yet still the best member of our cast and Steph de Whalley did a lot of heavy lifting in Moffat’s attempt to make Anita interesting. As for the episode itself, whilst I mostly enjoy the cosmetic aspects of Joy to the World, I did find it to be a good time. Really, that’s RTD2’s saving grace, whilst I think it is undeniably flawed, it is fun, it is lively and a great big shot of character has been injected into the show’s veins. Which is strange because I find many of this era’s main problems to align with the issues of my oh-so-beloved Chibnall era: underbaked plotlines, cardboard cutout characters and cringe-worthy, inhuman dialogue are all present here, but rather than play it straight like Chibnall does, RTD manages to have a little fun with it and his ability to cast electric talent certainly helps. I didn’t hate Joy to the World, and it was certainly more tolerable than last year’s effort, but it was incredibly flawed.

For instance, every time Moffat tried to write in an emotional beat it simply fell flat. There are about five in this special alone, three of them about characters we’ve known for five minutes. Like, do you seriously expect me to care that the Silurian with five lines of dialogue is dying? When people kept complaining about 15’s incessant crying, I didn’t really see the problem before I started noticing it here and, truth be told, he cries so often it loses all emotional weight that might come with the Doctor letting his emotions slip out. And this is where my big problem comes in, this is an episode not about the Time Hotel, or Villengard or even Christmas, it’s about 15, a character whom I do not like. RTD’s attempts at making a more human Doctor simply haven’t worked and with this episode entirely based on his inability to accept companionship I start to see why. RTD has abandoned the character arc. I agree, it could be interesting to watch a Doctor become more akin to us, to start settling down, to begin a retirement and get more in touch with his emotions, but the problem is he just is this character without any development. From his first episode, this was 15 and RTD refusing to acknowledge that for 2000 years the Doctor has been a weird little alien man ruins it. Plus, I don’t know if Moffat didn’t watch the previous season or something, but these are character beats I thought we’d covered, I was under the impression that was what the whole bigeneration storyline was for - transitioning over to a more human Doctor so RTD wouldn’t have to think about it. We even get him settling down, again, which works even less this time because he gets a job and finds out he actually loves staying in one place at one time because he has a friend (the entire UNIT era is irrelevant, apparently). Also, 15 whinging about being alone forever doesn’t really work when he told Ruby to leave. Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t she want to go with him and he told her not to because he thought she needed to spend time with her “real mum” because f**k Carla I guess. Basically, this whole episode was an attempt to characterise a character who skipped his own development and because of that, every attempt to say anything about 15 fell flat.

And as for the other characters, it's really not much better. Joy is barely even there, her personality built in one hokey speech after a scene that fully just stole from The Curse of Fenric. And really, the actual companion here seems to be Anita, the random hotel manager the Doctor spends a year with whose entire character is established in a montage sequence. Once again, I am asking why I should care? As for Joel Fry, he is immediately the most likable person in this cast (mostly because he’s Joel Fry) but is then killed in about ten minutes and I can’t actually remember his character’s name an hour after finishing the episode. Three characters established in an episode beholden to none of them leads only to a hollow side cast that fails to impress and when anything unfortunate happens to any one of them, I’m left feeling nothing. Especially in the ending, which is just weird and one of the most absurd emotional beats I’ve ever seen. You could not have convinced me before this episode came out that it would end with Nicola Coughlan turning into the North f**king Star. Plus, I really don’t know what this is trying to say. Don’t be worried because Grace from Derry Girls is up in the sky looking down at you? How many times has anybody looked at the North Star and magically felt better? It’s out of the blue, doesn’t hold any weight because of Joy’s under-characterisation and its absurdity and also means that Villengard won. Honestly, I think choosing to have a concrete villain in this episode, especially a reused one, was a misstep but it’s strange that they just… succeeded. Like, great, we’re all looking up in hope at the power source that will fuel a billion wars. In the end, I’m just confused as to what the point of this whole episode was. It was near plotless, its own namesake had little to do with it and it was strangely lacking in substance. It’s a weak attempt at a character study that doesn’t even feel like a Christmas special, with little festive cheer to it at all (and no, a title card saying “Bethlehem” does not make it any more merry). It all felt like there was no point to any of it, it had next to nothing to say and had all the impact of a Hallmark movie. Whilst not particularly painful to sit through, this is just such a nothing episode. It’s the TV equivalent of empty calories.

If I had to call Joy to the World one thing, it would be disappointing. Even some heinous mistake would’ve been more interesting than this, which I left only feeling hollow. RTD2 feels like RTD1 with all the magic and character stripped away, left with pretty lights and empty characters, a violent clash of attempts at relatability and heightened reality. This feels like the poster child for this whole era now, it’s not bad but it’s overwhelmingly mediocre, like the off brand reboot of Doctor Who. I just pray this doesn’t actually end up being Moffat’s final hour, because this is such a low note to go out on.

5/10

Pros:

+ Fantastic set design and a great overall look

+ Brimming with brilliant concepts

+ Great performances from all members of the cast

+ Effortlessly fun

Cons:

- Overbloated with poorly written emotional beats

- Nearly every companion was barely a character

- Reinforces why 15’s character just doesn’t work for me

- Absurd ending that fails to land

- Bizarrely lacking in substance

- Near plotless

Joy to the World was a satisfying watch on the whole.  I loved the hotel and found it a very creative setting.  Especially in how writer Steven Moffat makes use of the idea.  The Doctor having to "take the long way" back to the hotel was great.  I loved the extended sequence of him hanging out there for a whole year.  Anita was really well done.  I especially like how she just comes across as a minor character at first and winds up becoming one of the best parts of the episode.  It was great character work and shows he still needs some healing even after 14's extended therapy session.

People talk so much about the Star of Bethlehem thing but it is like two minutes of a very long Christmas special.  I truly don't care about this enough to comment.  It's fine.  It's a Christmas special.  I hardly thought twice about the moment because it hardly felt that important, I feel it was just sort of an ending and resolution to Joy's character.  And that emotional pay-off, in my opinion, is very, very good.  This is the first time ever that I've encountered content that deals with the COVID pandemic without it being unnecessarily saccharine or silly.  No Zoom meetings, no masks, just the naked reality that so many people had to endure the death of their relatives without being in the same room as them.  The isolation and loneliness that brings.  This was a beautiful episode, and I really can't view it any other way.  Easily one of my favourites among the Chrismas episodes, and this opinion holds true even months after watching it.