Steven Moffat teased plot details for his upcoming Doctor Who Christmas Special, “Joy to the World.” How does a “time-traveling hotel” sound?
Former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat is one of the best ambassadors for the series even when he’s no longer showrunner or writing for the series. Well, he does have “Joy to the World,” this year’s upcoming Christmas Special guest-starring Bridgerton (and Big Mood) star Nicola Coughlan as the Joy of the title since Moffat just loves puns with characters’ names in his titles. In an interview with a regional BBC station, he spilled a bit about the upcoming episode, his 50th and possibly last script for Doctor Who for the foreseeable future (???).
Moffat said he wasn’t planning on writing another episode of Doctor Who after “Boom.” We know he has been busy enough with other projects, like his theatre play The Unfriend, his crime miniseries Inside Man, his underrated and under-appreciated series Douglas is Cancelled, and the series produced by his wife Sue Vertue‘s company, The Devil’s Hour, which he didn’t create or write but appears to have his fingerprints all over.
“The truth is I absolutely love doing Doctor Who Christmas,” said Moffat. “Because I adore Christmas. Then the email came through from Russell saying, ‘Steven, I need to get with Series Two. I’m never going to finish this Christmas script. Could you come in and write one?’ Not complete his script, but just come in and do another one from scratch.”
So Moffat came up with “Joy to the World,” which is about a time-traveling hotel as a satire on the hotel business because he never stops seeing the inherent farcical absurdity of most situations, especially with Business and Capitalism. “I can tease something about the Christmas Special. Imagine in the far, far future that a hotel chain got hold of the idea of Time Travel. What’s the first thing a hotel would do if they had Time Travel? They’d realise that they had an opportunity to sell all the unsold nights of their own hotels in history…” It’s Doctor Who. Of course, it’s going to be timey-wimey.
You can probably guess what’s going on from the trailer based on Moffat’s mild spoilers, but why bother? Just wait for Christmas Day and watch Doctor Who to find out.
