For his 50th Doctor Who script, Steven Moffat’s Joy to the World is a curious episode. At times, it screams “Steven Moffat” loudly and proudly, and it’s glorious; at other times, however, it’s clumsier and less engaging than a lot of his other work and might be considered by a lesser writer. Despite that, it’s something of a high-point in the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) era.
It starts off all a bit fast and weird – Doctor Who can do fast and weird nicely, as can Moffat, but the first few scenes after the titles sequence just didn’t quite land. These introduce Joy Almondo (Nicola Coughlan), the Sandringham Hotel, and the slightly more grand but certainly more ambitious Time Hotel. Moffat’s pitch for the latter, it could be argued, was central to his getting the job (more accurately, Moffat’s expertise, writing experience, and sheer brilliance got him the job… alongside, of course, showrunner, Russell T Davies, not having time to write it himself): the Time Hotel allows guests in the future to visit seemingly every hotel in human history via those locked doors in hotel rooms. A neat premise. A very Moffat premise. It’s very clever, very unusual, very Doctor Who.
Enter Joy, who’s escaping something in her personal life because she’s checking into the Sandringham Hotel for Christmas. Then enter receptionist, Anita Benn (Steph de Whalley), who takes her to her room, and comes back to give Joy some fresh towels, only to instead intrude on Joy as she meets Melnak (Jonathan Aris), a Silurian Manager of the Time Hotel who’s popped in, while under a form of mind control, on a mission with a Star Seed in a briefcase. So far, so nuts.
That’s okay though: Doctor Who often is nuts and pulls it off beautifully. But this time, it doesn’t feel quite right. It’s probably because people act very strangely here, even when not having their mind controlled. Joy begins a conversation with a fly to underline how lonely and sad she is; you can only just about hear the fly, however, and as this is Who, she could equally be chatting away with someone who’s invisible or something. It could’ve been better handled with no words; think of the Doctor’s obvious depression at the end of The God Complex as he’s staring around, with a profound horror, at his empty TARDIS. Then, when Anita walks in on the Silurian, she is initially bemused, and doubly shocked when the Doctor also wanders in, but then just… leaves. Never mind encountering an apparently alien race (I know the Silurians aren’t aliens – don’t write in with complaints – but Anita and Joy must surely think him extraterrestrial); as someone who works at a hotel, she should be alerted that something’s wrong when she sees a stranger in Joy’s room, especially as Joy is visibly upset and panicked. It feels like something major has been lost in the edit.
We also meet Trev (Joel Fry), who works at the Time Hotel and who has swiftly become the Doctor’s right-hand man. The two share some lovely dialogue and you can really see the intent behind Trev’s character. Sadly, Fry is surprisingly wooden, and, when left without Gatwa to accompany him, turns in a particularly clunky death scene.
Doctor Who often makes the unbelievable believable by packaging it up with realistic enough dialogue and reactions, but little in these early scenes ring true at all.
Fortunately, things improve massively once the Doctor is stranded at the Sandringham Hotel, cut off from the TARDIS, the Time Hotel, and Joy, not to mention the Star Seed, for a full year. The whole section is wonderful. It glows. It’s an absolute gem and one of the best bits in the Fifteenth Doctor era. The most amazing thing Moffat does when writing Doctor Who is writing not for a specific incarnation of the Doctor but writing for the Doctor. In his best stories, he approaches the Doctor as he should: as if it’s one person. So Ncuti, in Joy to the World (as in Boom, Moffat’s Series 14 episode starring Gatwa), is the most Doctor-y he’s ever been. It’s a genius move having him doing odd jobs around the place, befriending Anita, and questioning whether a sink plunger is “armed”, and allows him to shine as the Time Lord. I sometimes think Ncuti’s Doctor is too normal, but here, he’s the Doctor: not quite right yet perfect.
The relationship he has with Anita is warm and engaging. It’s more joyous than anything else in the episode, which is otherwise filled with nice little moments that tread the line between heartwarming and mawkish. The ending, especially watching Joy’s mum somehow be teleported to a far-off star as she dies, teeters over the edge into mushy territory, though perhaps this is because I never buy into Joy. This is the first main role I’ve seen Nicola Coughlan in, and I know she’s highly acclaimed, but I don’t think there’s anything exciting or captivating about her performance here. It’s shockingly easy to forget all about the “Joy” in Joy to the World.
The core of her character, the guilt she feels about not being there for her mum when she passed away, is something a lot of people will connect with at least; so too the frustration with the political parties for the way their members flaunted the rules of the Covid-19 lockdowns.
Curiously, the whole thing feels a bit like The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, though that was a lot warmer. Nonetheless, both episodes leave you with a smile on your face and are held together by two fantastic Doctors.
While Gatwa’s previous Christmas special, The Church on Ruby Road, might be tainted somewhat by the revelations inflicted upon it by Empire of Death, Ncuti’s second (and, it seems, final) Christmas special will likely be looked at more fondly as time passes. Joy to the World has enough joy to make it a real festive treat. Let’s hope it’s not Steven Moffat’s last Doctor Who though…
