Doctor Who’s 2024 Christmas Special Footage Sets Up Yet Another Mystery Character
The first clip from the next Doctor Who Christmas special features a mysterious woman played by Nicola Coughlan, one of many in Steven Moffat's stories.
Doctor Who loves its Christmas Specials almost as much as it loves its mysterious women. In fact, the current Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, started his tenure with a bit of both. “The Church on Ruby Road” introduced viewers to companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson), whose parentage drove the previous season.
In the first clip from the next Christmas Special, it appears that the Doctor is on the trail of a different woman, who is surely more than she seems. Bridgerton vet Nicola Coughlan stars as Joy, an optimistic but lonely woman who draws the Doctor’s attention in “Joy to the World.” In a video message that she sent to attendees at San Diego Comic-Con, Coughlan described Joy as “a determined woman whose life is changed forever when she meets the Doctor.”
Coughlan then introduces a clip from “Joy to the World,” most of which consists of the Doctor showing up to different times and places, and entering through various doors that should be locked. Each of the places that the Doctor visits are transient spaces: the Queens Hotel in Manchester in 1940, the Orient Express traveling across Italy in 1972, and London’s Sandringham Hotel in 2024. Each time the Doctor shows up, he offers the occupants a ham and cheese toastie, and a pumpkin latte. And in every case, the occupants look at the Doctor with confusion and irritation. But when he offers the same in Joy’s hotel room, the Doctor gives her a giant smile, a look of relief that he’s come to the right place.
Of course Joy’s confusion might have less to do with the fact that the Doctor arrived through a locked door than it does with the person who preceded him. Before the Doctor arrived, a nervous Silurian carrying a briefcase and wearing a suit that reads “manager” on the badge came barging in. When Joy points her hairdryer at him like a gun, the Silurian says rather cryptically: “The star seed will bloom, and the flesh will rise.”
What does that mean? We have no idea! And why would we? “Joy to the World” is written by Steven Moffat, who at one time was the showrunner of Doctor Who himself—in fact, right after our current head writer, Russel T. Davies, left that same post for the first time in 2010. Moffat gained a reputation for dense and twisty stories that didn’t always make sense but often added new twists and wonderment to the Doctor’s backstory. Moffat also gained a reputation for writing interesting Silurians, having introduced the Victorian era detective Madame Vastra during his run.
But more than anything else, Moffat loves his mystery ladies. Moffat created the Eleventh Doctor’s (Matt Smith) companion Amy Pond (Karen Gillan), the mother of another Moffat fan favorite character, River Song (Alex Kingston), the Doctor’s wife, who moves in opposite directions across time than her husband. Also in Eleven’s run, Moffat introduced Clara (Jenna Coleman), the Impossible Girl, who showed up in various times and places after dying in various, grisly ways.
Judging by the smile that the Doctor gives Joy, along with the juicy wink to Agatha Christie earlier in the clip, it sure seems that Moffat’s got another mystery lady for us.
“Joy to the World” comes to Disney+ in the U.S. and BBC iPlayer in the UK on Dec. 25, 2024.
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Joe George’s writing has appeared at Slate, Polygon, Tor.com, and elsewhere!