Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

A message of hope as the Doctor helps Joy save the world

Spoiler Warning

The return of the Doctor Who Christmas special makes Christmas feel like Christmas, and the return of Steven Moffat makes Doctor Who feel like Doctor Who. Moffat has written some of my favourite episodes and I was looking forward to seeing what he did with this Christmas special. Surprisingly there was a return to the theme that the Doctor really needs a friend buried in the unsurprising race to save humanity, which was married with a message of hope in embattled times.

The Doctor’s need for a Companion has been one of the key tropes of the Moffat and Davies eras. It’s not necessarily a bad trope, but it is overdone a tad, and I wish that it hadn’t been done again here. When we left the Doctor, he had said a tearful goodbye to Ruby who was spending time with her newfound family. He once again decided to exit rather than stay with Ruby; it’s what he does. As Anita faces him with the phone call he’s not making, that he is alone and that it is his own choice is hammered home. As Joy tells him to find a friend, it is hammered home again, unnecessarily.

That said, I loved the idea of the Doctor forced to spend a whole year on Earth, living day after day in a linear fashion. I loved the section of the episode which had him living and working in the hotel, staying in the same hotel room. I adored the friendship that he builds with Anita, played wonderfully by Steph de Whalley. Honestly, if Anita returns one day as a Companion, I won’t be mad, because she made a great Companion for the Doctor in his Earthbound existence.

The idea of the Time Hotel is interesting. I’d certainly be saving for a package trip to a historical moment if it existed in reality. It was a nice story device, allowing the Doctor to walk through time without having to keep using the TARDIS. The time travel also allowed for some Easter eggs including Sylvia Trench, the first Bond girl on the Orient Express, and the intrepid Everest climb.

There is a subtle theme of conflict in each of the settings the Doctor walks through – from the Blitz, to a personal romantic conflict, to the challenge of actually climbing a mountain. In the final scenes, the star born with Joy’s help brings each of them hope. This is echoed in the scene with Ruby, and in the scene with Joy’s Mum. This is underscored by the nativity scene in the final reveal that Joy is the star that guided the wise men to baby Jesus. Admittedly, that ending was a well-constructed surprise in an otherwise traditional race to save humanity tale.

The main storyline, until the surprise, is not that interesting. The idea of the weapon-manufacturing villains of the episode ‘Boom’ returning with another bit of tech which compromises innocent individuals without care for the collateral damage is fine in theory. In practice, by the end of the episode, it feels like it reuses too many ideas from that episode as the humans the tech has interfaced with takeover the matrix and ultimately Joy controls it enough to seed a star and save the Earth. It feels too same-y.

Nicola Coughlan does a solid job as Joy, but really her character is rushed through the story with false urgency. Weirdly I felt the Doctor made more of a connection with Trev (played well by Joel Fry), the hapless hotel employee who he embroils in the mission, than he does with Joy. That is in part because the decision for the action to remain with the Doctor left behind until he catches up with himself means that Joy and the Doctor barely spend time together. It makes the emotional confrontations, both her initial one to free her from the briefcase, and the later one where she saves the Earth, less of an emotional punch for the audience.

What is an emotional punch for the audience is the inclusion of the Covid pandemic and how loved ones died without seeing or having the comforting touch of a loved one during their passing due to the rules. Even four years on, that part of Covid is still a raw nerve. It’s a pointed shot at the former Conservative government too for putting the rules in place and then ignoring them when they personally wanted to have a social gathering. Partygate is still very much a source of anger in the UK electorate. The fixit as Joy’s Mum gets to be with Joy as the star is sweet.

Really the message of peace and hope at Christmas, joy to the world, is embedded in the whole episode and as the episode closes on that final message with the reveal of the nativity scene as the Doctor realises where the shrine is located, the story concludes well enough.

Ncuti Gatwa anchors the episode from the beginning to the end. I like his Doctor. He’s aware of his own flaws, firmly rooted in wanting to save people, and yet also a touch snarky and sassy. I think the production does need to make a definitive decision on his emotional landscape. When introduced in ‘The Giggle’, Gatwa’s Doctor was presented as an emotionally adjusted version in comparison to Tennant’s Fourteenth Doctor. His first series seemed to backtrack on this a little, and so does this special. While I can appreciate it is more difficult to give the Doctor deep emotional angst from new situations, that is what I thought we would have with Gatwa’s Doctor rather than replaying old tropes of how he isn’t good alone. In the end, I found the year alone with Anita a better use of the trope than Joy’s more direct ‘you need to change, Doctor’ speech.  

In conclusion

There is a lot to enjoy in this Christmas special. It is well-executed, well-acted, and with a good Christmas message at its heart. It definitely brings a little joy to the world in these tumultuous times.

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