Doctor Who is coming back to TV screens in the 2024 Christmas special, “Joy to the World.” The Christmas special is written by returning Doctor Who writer, Steven Moffat, marking the first time a festive special has been penned by someone other than the series’ showrunner. Moffat also returned to Doctor Who in 2024’s Season 1 (aka Series 14), under showrunner Russell T Davies, who has himself come back to the series after previously serving as showrunner between 2005 and 2010. Moffat’s Season 1 episode, “Boom,” was one of the new series’ most highly acclaimed, setting the bar high for his next entry on Christmas.
Though Moffat’s era as showrunner was much loved by Doctor Who fans, pushing the show into new territory with the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors, it was also an era filled with stories that ended in tragedy. While Davies’ first era featured several companions leaving the Doctor to return to an ordinary life with their family, the companions of Moffat’s time as showrunner tended to meet more tragic and definitive ends. “Joy to the World” will introduce a new companion for the Doctor, Nicola Coughlan’s Joy, who is expected to serve as a one-off companion for the Christmas special. It now looks likely Joy could meet a similar fate to other companions created by Moffat.
Steven Moffat’s History of Killing Companions on Doctor Who
Even before he became showrunner, Steven Moffat had a reputation for creating Doctor Who stories that were not only incredibly scary, but incredibly complex. As a writer for the series, Moffat has a penchant for making the most of the infinite sci-fi possibilities of Doctor Who to craft stories that couldn’t be told in any other show. It therefore shouldn’t come as a surprise to Doctor Who fans that each and every major companion Moffat introduced has been killed off or resurrected in some way. While Moffat’s companions often met tragic and seemingly fatal endings, there was always a twist in the tale to negate the finality of each companion’s demise. Interestingly, the trend started before Moffat was showrunner, when he was still one of the writers working on Davies’ first era of Doctor Who.
For Doctor Who Season 4 in 2008, Moffat wrote the two-parter, “Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead,” in which he introduced River Song, the Doctor’s friend from the future. Moffat would bring back River during his tenure as showrunner, exploring the idea of the Doctor having a time-traveling ally — or potential enemy — he kept meeting in the wrong order. As their meetings broadly happened in reverse order from one another’s perspectives, the Doctor’s first meeting with River in Season 4 was her last meeting with him. During this first meeting, River sacrificed her life to save the Doctor. However, the Doctor was able to save her consciousness to a virtual reality on the Library’s computer system.
The first companions introduced by Moffat during his time as showrunner — married couple Amy Pond and Rory Williams — also met a semi-tragic ending. The two were killed by the touch of a Weeping Angel in Season 7’s “The Angels Take Manhattan.” However, since Weeping Angels kill their victims by simply sending them back in time to live to death, Amy and Rory still had a full life together in New York and died of old age. During the couple’s travels in the TARDIS, Rory technically died on several occasions, including being completely erased from time at one point. Rory’s many deaths were all undone, however, whether as a result of Amy undoing the effects of the crack in time and space, or through a reveal that the death had been an illusion, or just with some old-fashioned CPR delivered by Amy.
Clara Oswald also died many deaths on Doctor Who, though the majority of these deaths were “echoes” of Clara, created throughout the Doctor’s life when she jumped into his time stream in “The Name of the Doctor.” Clara’s actual death occurred in “Face the Raven,” when a Quantum Shade taking the form of a raven killed her — a death sentence she had accepted to save another from this fate. However, the Doctor later used Time Lord technology to extract Clara from this moment, allowing her to live on in her last second of life. The Twelfth Doctor’s final companion, Bill Potts, met her end after being transformed into a Cyberman. However, her life was saved by her past girlfriend, Heather, who had herself been transformed into living starship fuel — a process she was able to replicate for Bill.
Will Joy Meet a Tragic Fate in the Doctor Who Christmas Special?
“Joy to the World” Could See Moffat Bring Another Companion’s Story to a Deadly Conclusion
Speaking to Radio Times about the 2024 Doctor Who Christmas special, Moffat teased what lies in wait for Nicola Coughlan’s Joy. The writer referred to Coughlan’s performance in “Joy to the World” as “heartbreaking,” setting fan expectations for another tragic conclusion to a companion’s story. The fact that Moffat is the writer behind what is apparently Coughlan’s one and only appearance on Doctor Who is enough to suggest that Joy may not simply amicably part ways with the Doctor at the end of the adventure. Whether or not she is given a workaround akin to Moffat’s previous Doctor Who companions, Joy could be set to meet her demise in the Christmas special.
There is a precedent for Doctor Who doing major deaths at Christmas. 2007’s “Voyage of the Damned” saw the majority of the characters the Doctor was attempting to shepherd to safety meet their doom, including Kylie Minogue’s Astrid Peth. On Moffat’s watch, 2010’s “A Christmas Carol” saw Katherine Jenkins’ Abigail Pettigrew sing her last, as she embraced death at the end of the episode. In 2012’s “The Snowmen,” the second echo of Clara was introduced and she met a shocking end. Fans had assumed the Clara who featured in this episode would be the real deal, who would go on to travel with the Doctor, but her death made it clear there was more going on with Clara than first appeared.
Whether or not she is given a workaround akin to Moffat’s previous Doctor Who companions, Joy could be set to meet her demise in the Christmas special.
The fact that Joy is only set to appear in one episode could be an indicator her story will not end well. Of course, there’s the possibility she could follow in the footsteps of someone like Catherine Tate’s Donna Noble, who not only survived her one-off role in a Christmas special, but later went on to reunite and travel with the Doctor. However, Moffat’s comments about Coughlan’s emotive performance seem to hint that “Joy to the World” will not feature such a happy ending. Given Moffat’s past tendency to only allow the Doctor and a companion to be parted by extreme tragedy, the outlook for Joy is not good. Perhaps, however, there is still a chance Moffat could break this trend to bring audiences something new.
Joy Needs to Survive the Doctor Who Christmas Special
“Joy to the World” Should Feature a Departure From Moffat’s Doctor Who Formula
Before the Doctor faced Sutekh’s pantheon of gods in Russell T Davies’ second era of Doctor Who, the Time Lord fought another godly enemy in 2006.
Even though many of the deaths Steven Moffat has written into Doctor Who have, in some way, been softened or undone, he has still established a pattern of only allowing the Doctor to be separated from a companion via the ultimate sacrifice. With Joy only appearing for one episode and with fans well aware of the trappings of Moffat’s approach to Doctor Who, there is a need for “Joy to the World” to take a new approach. As Joy won’t be leaving the Doctor after a prolonged period of traveling with him, it should not take so extreme a circumstance to separate them. Instead, Moffat has an opportunity to show a companion choosing to walk away from the Doctor on their own terms.
“Joy to the World” could well be Moffat’s final Doctor Who story — it will be his 50th and, as yet, no plans have been announced for him to return to Doctor Who with Season 2 or beyond. Given that this could be Moffat’s grand farewell to a series to which he has been a great contributor, it should showcase his ability to surprise fans and to explore new kinds of stories. It would be a shame for Joy to end up feeling like she has shared a fate with a series of other characters in the Whoniverse. With “Joy to the World,” Moffat can instead deliver something unexpected and brand-new.
