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I’ll be honest: ‘Joy to the World’ is less a coherent Doctor Who episode than two separate ideas that don’t really come together at the end, wrapped up in all kinds of holiday sentiment in the hope that no-one will notice, or else they’ll be too overcome by the emotion of it all to care. Spoilers: they almost got away with it; I’ll be honest and admit that I got very teary during certain scenes towards the end, even if I still ended the entire thing surprised that the episode basically amounted to the origin story we never saw coming for a Christmas classic. Was that enough to save the day, in the end…?

Spoilers for the Doctor Who episode ‘Joy to the World’ follow. Stop reading if you have been too busy with your own festivities to check it out yet.

Don’t ask, just buy it

Let’s start with the more ridiculous of the two threads to the episode, shall we? Nicola Coughlan is a great actress who can do a lot with a little — you’ve all seen Derry Girls, right? — but her role as Joy in this episode gives her so little to work with, it leaves the suspicion that she either signed up before there was a script for the episode to work with, or because she really, really wanted to do the speech about her mother dying during COVID lockdown… in other words, the only real thing for her to dig her teeth into. Otherwise, Joy was frustratingly blank throughout the entire episode, feeling more like a plot device getting us to the final reveal than a character in and of herself. It’s a waste of Coughlan’s talents — and I have to admit, I kind of wish she’d had the opportunity to play Anita, instead. But we’ll get there soon enough.

As for the alien threat that pushed the episode forward, such as it was… well. There was a point, midway through, when the constant references to a “star seed” that would bloom had me thinking to myself as a joke, “Wouldn’t it be funny if it turns out to be the Christmas Star?” before immediately going, “even Doctor Who wouldn’t go for that, surely.” And yet, that’s where we ended up, complete with some bad special effects and a plot development that really doesn’t stand up to a moment’s thought. Did Joy… eat the star seed? Or get eaten by it? How did the two merge? Where did she go after becoming the Christmas Star, or did she just hang out in space glowing forever? For that matter, why would a weapons manufacturer try and create the  star seed in the first place? Why did they need the time hotel when, presumably, the existence of the time hotel means that time travel technology just exists in the first place and could be used to plant the seed more directly?

…But then, I admit: everything about Joy and her mother makes me want to forgive a lot of the fact that this stuff didn’t make any sense, because it’s Christmas and that was sentimental in just the right way to get me misty-eyed.

The Doctor, with a new home for the holidays (and the subsequent 12 months)

Much more effective for me was the Doctor having to live a year in the real world, and forming an emotional bond with Anita (Steph de Whalley, who was great) as a result. Writer Steven Moffat has a preoccupation with what happens to the Doctor when he’s left alone; we saw it in ‘The Snowman’ back in season six, and again with ‘The Husbands of River Song’ and ‘The Pilot’ after Clara was no more. Here, he returns to the idea in a more understated way, letting Ncuti Gatwa shoulder some nice character work as a lonely Doctor who’s more than a little angry at himself for being the way he is, and slowly trying to change… until he needs to be The Doctor again.

Again, it’s not breaking any new ground — the Doctor isn’t happy on his own is far from a new thought, although the joke about the TARDIS not having seats was a fun one — but it’ll be interesting to see if the character actually did learn anything from his experience in this episode when the series returns. Will returning showrunner Russell T. Davies offer us a more friendly, more emotionally available Doctor, and if so, what does that mean for Ruby, currently staring out the window longingly? It’s unclear — after all, as soon as the Doctor left 2025 and returned to the Time Hotel he seemed to just be back to his old self. So, what was the point of that interlude, other than filling time…?

Unsurprisingly, ‘Joy to the World’ offered few clues about what’s going to happen in the second season of the current incarnation of the show. We know that Ruby and the Doctor will be reunited, and… that’s about it…? Still, at least we know where the Christmas Star came from, and that it’s actually an experiment from a weapons manufacturer gone rogue. That’s… something I guess…? Hrm. Maybe the sentiment wasn’t really enough to distract from the weaknesses of the episode after all. If nothing else, at least there’s something very Christmassy about getting a gift that’s just a little disappointing, if you’re really being honest.

If you’re thinking about better Doctor Who Christmas Specials to view instead, just remember: we made a list, and checked it twice.