THERE’S THE ORIENT EXPRESS AND A DINOSAUR,” laughs Steven Moffat. “What more do you want at Christmas?” If both those items feature on your festive wishlist then Santa has clearly been listening – albeit a Santa cunningly disguised as a BAFTA-winning Scotsman.
“Joy To The World” marks the ninth Doctor Who Christmas special written by Moffat, the former showrunner whose fiendish, puzzle-box brain not only uncaged the Weeping Angels but minted the ever-useful phrase “timeywimey”. And this era-hopping seasonal blow-out promises to be truly, deeply timey-wimey.
“It’s quite big in scope,” Moffat tells SFX. “We go to a lot of places in a short amount of time!” Along for the ride is Derry Girls star Nicola Coughlan as Joy, a woman whose life is upended forever when she meets Ncuti Gatwa’s dazzling Doctor – along with a fourth-dimensional threat that could seriously scupper the celebrations.
“It’s got your Christmas whimsy in there, so I suppose it leans toward the slightly more humorous end, to a degree,” says Moffat of the story’s tone.
“But actually it gets quite emotional, and there’s also the fun element that within the context of the wider series the Doctor has just lost one of his mates. He’s lost Ruby. So that puts the Doctor in a particular place, and in the modern show
