Former Doctor Who showrunner, Steven Moffat, has revealed part of the premise for this year’s festive special, Joy to the World.

We’ve already seen a hotel in previews of Joy to the World, and Moffat further explains:

“I can tease something about the Christmas special. Imagine in the far, far future, imagine that a hotel chain got hold of the idea of time travel. What’s the first thing a hotel chain would do if they had time travel? They’d realise they had an opportunity to sell all the unsold nights in their own hotels in history.”

Yep, capitalism making the most out of a situation is certainly a theme Steven likes — and this sounds fantastic. And from the clip we’ve seen so far, which shows off Nicola Coughlan as Joy, with a hint of Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor, it’s going to be wonderful fun.

But how did Moffat come to write Joy to the World, his 50th story for the show? He goes on:

“The truth is – I absolutely love doing Doctor Who Christmas because I’m a big fan of Christmas, I absolutely adore Christmas. Then the email came through [from showrunner, Russell T Davies’s] saying, ‘Steven, I need to get onto [Series 15], I’m never going to finish this Christmas script – could you come in and write one?’ Not complete his script, just come in and do another one from scratch.”

He’s pretty great when it comes to Christmas too — A Christmas Carol is probably my favourite, but The Snowmen comes a close second, with The Time of the Doctor and Last Christmas soon behind them.

Oh, I can’t wait to get a quality festive special again.

Joy to the World is expected to air and stream on 25th December 2024.