The Doctor Who Christmas special gets to have its cake and eat it

Return Doctor Who Showrunner Russell T Davies may have been a pioneer of the talk show Doctor Who Holiday specials– The Christmas Monsters, loud spectacle, and the occasional amount of Kylie Minogue – but it’s arguably his successor, Steven Moffat, who has really managed to balance the good Doctor Who It must be a Christmas story. Ironically, the answer isn’t actually a great sci-fi story at all — or at least, that’s not as important as the bunch of serious, almost cloying sentiments surrounding the season’s romance. This year’s show, Moffat First Christmas scenario Since the Twelfth Doctor’s 2017 send-up of “Twice Upon a Time”, he’s mostly succeeded in balancing this with an interesting time warp. Doctor Who An adventure full of ceremonial magic – and one that really relies on the latter to help make up for some of the faults in the former.

“Joy to the World,” which will air next week on Christmas Day, has some similarities to Ncuti Gatwa’s full-length debut as the Fifteenth Doctor in Last year’s holiday episode“The Church on Ruby Road,” so much so that it relies on a bunch of charming performances to try to mask when its story doesn’t quite come together quite cohesively. It replaces the fantasy flair of creepy goblins kidnapping children with a traditional sci-fi aesthetic as the Doctor stays in a futuristic “Time Hotel” for the holidays, providing temporary portals to Christmases throughout human history. It also tends heavy It has this seasonal aesthetic too, with lots of snow and flowers and trees, it feels more of the season rather than just being any old episode that airs towards the end of December.

Fascinated by the mystery of a strange suitcase that seems to be fatally exchanged between hosts at the hotel, in this… A festive scenario at the right time– and through the aforementioned gates of the Time Hotel – where the Doctor meets The only joy (Nicola Coughlan), arriving at a rundown hotel in London during Christmas 2024. The mystery of why Joy is so important to the Doctor’s latest adventure is actually set aside for much of “Joy to the World” as it takes a side step to explore the ramifications of time portals Hotels and the paradoxes that come with them. It’s all very Moffat-y, a mixture of laughs, time-bending storytelling, and the almost obligatory sadness that comes with his best outings as a writer, as the Doctor finds himself thrust into the life of another lonely woman along the way (Anita Steph de Waley, perhaps the star Secretly rising in “Joy to the World”). He’s a killer Doctor Who The idea of ​​the story, one that also brilliantly touches on the Doctor’s loneliness afterwards Parting ways with Ruby. It happened to be conveniently stuffed inside another piece Doctor Who An episode…well, he wasn’t given enough time to delve into something interesting.

“Joy to the World” makes up for these structural shortcomings in Joy’s story by allowing this element of the episode to be where it all kicks into high gear in the sentimentality of the holiday season, with a climactic narrative high in emotional drama that tugs at the heartstrings rather than the fact that it plays Quickly and a bit loose with the logistics, especially in contrast to the plot-within-a-plot to which the first half of the episode is devoted. For the most part it works, thanks to the great performances from Gatwa and Coghlan, and will strike a particularly bittersweet chord for people spending Christmas without their loved ones. But if you find yourself particularly immune to… Doctor WhoBecause of the emotional onslaught of magic at this time of year, you may find the climax of it all a bit lacking – and wonder what the episode might have been like if it had stuck with that initial plot-within-the-plot as its main idea.

But even if you don’t find yourself in tune with all of these emotions, there’s still at least a fair amount of cool stuff going on Doctor Who She can be found in “Joy to the World”, even if that’s not the ultimate focus of the episode. There’s enough here to satisfy anyone looking for something great Doctor Who An idea, or someone who just wants something big and Christmassy to fill their heart with the seasonal spirit as they sit through the holidays – and at this point… Doctor WhoWith our long history of holiday specials, we can still have stories that are able to balance the two is a welcome little gift under our collective trees.

Doctor Who It returns to Disney+ worldwide and on the BBC in the UK and Ireland on Christmas Day, December 25.

Want more io9 news? Check when to expect the latest marvel, star warsand Star Trek Releases, what’s next for DC Universe in film and televisionAnd everything you want to know about the future Doctor Who.