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This year ’s Doctor Who Christmas Special , “ Joy to the universe , ” is the most Steven Moffat of Christmas specials - in all the right ways .
This year’sDoctor WhoChristmas Special"Joy to the World"is the mostSteven Moffatof Christmas specials you’re able to peradventure get , meld timey - wimey shenanigans , snarky clowning and farce , surprising emotional insights , and a snag - yanker ending . Christmas special might be regard a bit outside of the common serial stories , but Moffat is in Maximum Showoff Mode here , reveling in the sheer folly of it all . Here ’s a rundown of the whiplash shifts in reference , plot , tone , and easter bollock .
The Doctor as Cosmic Freeloader
The story opens with The Doctor ( Ncuti Gatwa ) arriving in the lobby of The Time Hotel to help himself to the gratuitous coffee and pastries mesa as if he owns the spot because total confidence is the con man ’s best arm . He has program the TARDIS to home in on any seat with wise Milk River so he can get it for his morning coffee tree , and that ’s what convey him to the hotel . His walking around in a robe might be a acknowledgment to Arthur Dent inThe Hitchhiker ’s Guide to the Galaxy .
The Unexpected Companion
The Doctor gets a new companion apart from Joy – Anita Benn ( Steph de Whalley ) , the hotel receptionist at the hotel Joy checks into . Anita becomes a unique fellow traveller because she does n’t travel with him in the TARDIS to push outlander or save the globe . alternatively , he just spends a twelvemonth with her doing nothing but normal things , helping with the hotel as a new extremity of staff to earn his keep to stay there while he waits for the door to the Time Hotel to open again so he can go back to trying to deliver Joy and keep everything from getting shove off up . The subplot of the Doctor and Anita becomes its own short story as they explore the mundanity of life . Anita is lonely and often disappointed in the man she meets as she whiles aside her life working at the hotel . Their time ends when the Doctor rushes off at Christmas the next year but she gets a finale with the Doctor recommend her as a new hire to the Time Hotel that could take her to raw adventures . This subplot is the most unexpected and affecting part of the special without any aliens or explosions . It ’s part of the serial ' celebration of ordinary people .
Hotel Rooms as Existential Metaphors
Moffat has a finical talent for find poetical metaphor in ordinary and mundane thing . Here he makes choose hotel rooms as metaphors for a somebody ’s true ego . The Doctor provoke Joy to anger by saying she booked herself into a small hotel in the middle of nowhere in town and picked the plainest room devoid of signification as an manifestation of herself . This say everything about her : she take to be alone on Christmas . This leads to …
Political Commentary
Joy divulge she ’s grieve for her former mother , who drop dead from COVID in the hospital during Lockdown , and she was prohibited by constabulary from being with her , instead say goodbye via an iPad . Her bitter reference to " those people with their wine-coloured parties " is to then - Prime Minister Boris Johnson having wine party with his staff at No . 10 while hoi polloi across the country could n’t be with their pall make out ones under penalization of check and fines . This import is a blink of an eye of political anger that has always been in Doctor Who .
The Villain is Capitalism
" Wherever there ’s a corp , there ’s atomic number 59 . Evil ca n’t defy . They just ca n’t stop themselves . Evil must logo , " declares The Dr. when he recognize an evil megacorporation . Villengard are the defective guy rope behind the secret game that uses and kills innocent people to achieve their goal of hatching their own sun to offer them with power . The bad bozo in this story is a faceless corp , not any single person , that unfeelingly pursues profit at the expense of literally everyone . Anti - capitalism onDoctor Who ? Not the first or the last meter . Like in " manna from heaven , " a dead person ’s personality uploaded into the company ’s AI helps save the day .
In-Jokes Galore
Moffat can never resist ego - referential in - jape , but thenDoctor Whois a magnet for those . The Doctor secern Anita about the Weeping Angels and she laugh at the absurdity of it all . The Doctor makes a joke about the roofy that ’s a callback to the last Christmas Special . He paints Anita ’s motorcar TARDIS blue . The sonic screwdriver gets used extensively in this sequence to calculate coolheaded , so the show gets to deal the novel toy to kids .
The Oldest Mystery Solved! British Atheism Ruffles Feathers!
Moffat promised an answer to the oldest whodunit in the world . That turns out to be the doubtfulness , " Where did the star of Bethlehem come from that institute the Three Wise Men to the birthing of Jesus ? " Moffat is playing with history and godlessness here . Joy becomes that star . She ’s the one - time - only companion who sacrifices her life and brings joy to the earth across time , reunite with her female parent and reminding everyone at Christmas of their sleep with ones . Some religious viewers have been a bit put out by this , but Moffat and Russell T. Davies have always like to tease and troll . The Doctor is responsible for bring that superstar to 0001 AD . Even the Bible is timey - wimey . The last one - off companion who give-up the ghost was Astrid Perth ( Kylie Minogue ) on the Starship Titanic , who also became stardust , so Joy ’s decease here is sort of a callback to hers , both companion the Doctor go to save .
This Christmas Special is About Loneliness and Loss
The predominate stem of this Doctor is endless loss . He always fall back someone and often very quick , more than preceding Doctors . This radical was always there in the series , of course , but Moffat scramble a light on it here . The Doctor is the Lonely God , get solace to unfrequented people . This Doctor is different from the others in that he does n’t always save masses . He have them good , even if they break down or exceed at the death . He ’s a variant of Peter Pan , evermore vernal and always alone . That ’s his neverending tragedy , so can you blame him for crying so much these days ? Cut him some quag !
medico Who : Joy to the Worldis streaming onDisney+outside the UK .
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