As the twinkling lights glimmer and the scent of mulled wine wafts through the air, Doctor Who fans know that it’s time for another eagerly anticipated Christmas special. This year’s festive treat, Doctor Who: Joy to the World, delivers a poignant exploration of yuletide isolation, masterfully brought to life by Ncuti Gatwa and Nicola Coughlan. While their impeccable comic timing shines throughout, it’s the episode’s touching themes that elevate it to an instant classic.
A Lonely Christmas Interrupted
We first meet Joy (Nicola Coughlan) as she checks into a spartan hotel room, preparing to spend Christmas week alone. It’s a stark reminder that, for many, the festive season can be the loneliest time of year. But Joy’s solitary plans are swiftly upended by the arrival of the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa), grinning ear-to-ear as he offers her “a cheese toastie and a pumpkin latte” while in pursuit of a mysterious green-skinned alien.
From there, the plot unspools into a time-hopping adventure to save Earth from apocalyptic destruction. The specifics would venture into spoiler territory, but suffice to say it involves plenty of twists, turns, and wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff that will keep viewers on their toes. The action takes us from present-day London to the glittering excess of a future hotel where patrons can visit key historical moments between rounds of mulled wine.
Connection and Kindness
But amid the temporal acrobatics and witty one-liners, Joy to the World never loses sight of its central message. In a year marked by pandemic isolation, it poignantly articulates the pain of a Christmas Day that falls short of the joyous marketing ideal – the ache of waiting for a call or moment of kindness that never comes.
With such wonderful specificity, this Christmas special articulates what it means to feel unloved and wretched during a period of celebration, waiting for a phone call or a moment of kindness that never comes.
– Leila Latif, The Guardian
It’s a despondency we see mirrored in the Doctor himself, as well as hotel employee Anita (Stephanie de Whalley). In stunning character moments, each reveals their deep yearning for human connection. Gatwa astonishes in portraying the Doctor’s subtle evolution over a year stuck in 2024, as new friendships and a humbling job allow him to process lingering abandonment issues.
In the end, he emerges a kinder, more empathetic figure – embodying the Christmas wish that we can inch forward each year to become better than we were before. That, like Joy, the Doctor, and Anita, we might be more open to love and brave enough to seek help when we need it most.
A New Era’s Finest Hour
Last year, I hailed Ncuti Gatwa’s first Christmas special as the start of a “delightful new era,” likening his ebullient performance to a “shot of pure dopamine.” If Joy to the World is any indication, that era is already surpassing its early promise.
While 2024 has provided plenty of reasons for impatience and cynicism, Doctor Who continues to be a beacon of light – reminding us that, like the Doctor himself, there’s always room to heal and grow. Ncuti Gatwa and the series both seem to only get better with each passing Christmas. I, for one, can’t wait to see what gifts they’ll bring us next year.
