"Joy to the World" was written by Steven Moffat and directed by Alex Sanjiv Pillai. It was filmed in October and November 2023. The episode received mostly positive reviews from critics.
Plot
The Doctor arrives at the Time Hotel, an establishment in the year 4202 that allows guests to visit various points in history, several of which the Doctor visits. The Doctor enlists the aid of Trev, a security worker at the hotel, as he investigates a man holding a briefcase that he is handcuffed to. As each new person is tricked into taking the briefcase, it controls them, and the previous carrier disintegrates. Trev's Silurian manager arrives in Joy Almondo's room at the London-based Sandringham Hotel in 2024 with the briefcase, with the Doctor following.
The briefcase takes control of Joy, and the Doctor opens it, finding a strange device inside. The briefcase is about to disintegrate Joy, when a Doctor from the future arrives from the Time Hotel and gives the override code. The future Doctor returns to the Time Hotel with Joy, leaving the current Doctor in 2024. He takes a job working at the Sandringham hotel, befriending the manager Anita, until he can return to the Time Hotel the following Christmas.
A year later, the Doctor re-enters the Time Hotel and gives his past self the code (obtained by the bootstrap paradox), then departs with Joy. They open a door to 65 million years ago, where the Doctor frees Joy from the briefcase by provoking her anger at Partygate, when she was unable to be with her mother when she died on Christmas Day due to COVID-19 lockdowns. The briefcase reveals itself to be made by Villengard, a weapons manufacturing company with plans to detonate a "star seed" to use as an energy source, using the hotel's time travel to allow it to grow in the past.
The briefcase is eaten by a Tyrannosaurus rex, and the Doctor and Joy flee. Trev, who connected psychically to Villengard's system before he died, contacts the Doctor. Trev reveals the briefcase's location, and the Doctor finds it sealed in a shrine. The Doctor opens it, but Joy takes the briefcase outside, and lets the star seed enter her. She and the other people killed by the seed pilot it safely into space to detonate, becoming the Star of Bethlehem. At various points in time, the star gives hope and comfort to those who see it and saves Joy's mother.
Production
Writing
Former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat penned the episode.
Russell T Davies, the Doctor Whoshowrunner, initially began writing the 2024 Christmas special. Davies had sent a portion of the script to former showrunner Steven Moffat to get his opinion on it. At the time, Davies was in discussions with Moffat to have him write a script for the fifteenth series. When Davies realised he was too busy to complete the script, he shelved it and asked Moffat to write the Christmas episode instead.[1] Moffat considered writing a farce, but decided against it, believing that such an episode would be better suited mid-series.[2] Despite this, he said the episode still had a comedic tone with emotional elements.[3]
Here's the pitch that got me the job. You know in just about every hotel room you've been in there's a locked door? It's weird, but there always is. Okay. We're about to blow apart the truth of that. In the far future there is a place called the Time hotel, and the Time Hotel has realised something brilliant, which is following the discovery of time travel they have an opportunity to sell all the rooms they failed to sell the last time. So they have built extensions into more or less every hotel room in history, and you get access to it occasionally.
— Steven Moffat, "The Joy Bringer", SFX 3 December 2024[3]
Half the script had been completed before Davies informed Moffat that Ruby Sunday would not appear in the special.[1] The character of Anita originally only had around ten lines, but her presence was increased after the production team became fond of her.[4] Moffat had finished writing the episode by 20 July 2023.[5] Working titles for the episode included "The Time Hotel" and "Christmas, Everywhere All at Once".[6] The story further explores the "Villengard Corporation", a recurring fictional antagonistic company that has been mentioned in a number of Moffat's Doctor Who episodes. The Doctor last confronted Villengard in the fourteenth series episode "Boom" (2024).[7][8] It is the ninth Doctor Who Christmas special to be written by Moffat who once again assumed an executive producer role during production of the episode.[2][9]
In November 2023, Nicola Coughlan was announced to be appearing in an undisclosed role of an upcoming Doctor Who episode.[10] It was later revealed that Coughlan would star in the 2024 Christmas episode as the Doctor's one-off companion,[11] Joy Almondo, a guest at a hotel who "gets caught up in [the Doctor's] adventures".[12] Initial reports indicated that Millie Gibson, who portrays the Doctor's companion Ruby Sunday, would not appear in the special.[13] However, Gibson made a brief cameo at the end of the episode.[14]Joel Fry was cast to play Trev, an employee at the Time Hotel while Jonathan Aris portrayed the hotel's manager.[12] Steph de Whalley appeared as Anita, the manager of another hotel whom the Doctor spends a year with.[15]
Set design for the episode was underway at Wolf Studios Wales by 11 October 2023. The Mesozoic Era room was built on a gimbal that allowed the set to tilt to give the effect that it was being eaten by a dinosaur. The art department was working on graphic design by 17 October. The graphics team took fifteen 11-hour days to create enough artwork to fill the Doctor's hotel room. Seven different briefcases were purchased by the props department for use in the episode. A team at Millennium FX designed the Silurian prosthetics.[5]
Principal photography began on 23 October, with recording extending into November.[5] "Joy to the World" was directed by Alex Sanjiv Pillai[21] in the first filming block of the fifteenth series.[22] For the Sandringham Hotel, the production team chose to purchase two floors of an actual hotel, but had to build the lobby on a soundstage. The top of the Orient Express set was built in front of a green screen and placed on rubber tyres to allow the special effects team to replicate the look of a moving train. Mika Orasmaa was the episode's director of photography.[4]
"Joy to the World" was broadcast on BBC One and released on BBC iPlayer on 25 December 2024 at 5:10 PM GMT.[11][32] In the United States the episode was released simultaneously on Disney+ at 9:10 AM PT.[33]Disney also handled international distribution of the episode outside of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.[34]
A clip and trailer for the episode was released on 15 November as part of the 2024 Children in Need broadcast.[35] The press screening took place in the week prior to broadcast,[36] which was hosted by Angellica Bell.[37] Promotional posters released by Disney captioned the poster with "Joy to the Worlds", mirroring the title "Joy to the World" and causing confusion among viewers.[38]
Ratings
In the UK, Doctor Who was the sixth most-watched programme on Christmas Day, receiving 4.11 million viewers overnight.[39] Within four days of its release, "Joy to the World" ranked within the top 10 worldwide titles on Disney+.[40]
Writing for The Daily Telegraph, Michael Hogan referred to "Joy to the World" as "the best Christmas adventure for more than a decade". He further elaborated by saying that "there's something here for all generations to enjoy" and praising the guest cast, namely Nicola Coughlan, Steph de Walley, and Joel Fry.[31]Radio Times's Louise Griffin also praised the guest cast but felt that Coughlan had been underused.[30]
IGN's Robert Anderson wrote that the special "masterfully blends the show's signature whimsy with heartfelt storytelling, delivering a cozy, deeply human tale about the transformative power of friendship" and that "Moffat's excellent script is central to the episode's success".[29] The writing was also applauded by Bleeding Cool's Adi Tantimedh, who wrote "Moffat pins down the core of what makes Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor different from all his predecessors".[25]
Stephen Robinson of The A.V. Club criticised the Doctor's characterisation, noting "there are key moments in the story that directly contradict the Doctor's former growth" and that "he's a mix of the 'lonely god' from Russell T Davies' first run and Steven Moffat's 'madman in a box,' and the effect is discordant".[24] Emily Murray from GamesRadar+ criticised a portion of the episode, writing that the "villains quite frankly feel like an afterthought and feel threadbare".[27]
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