Brace for Surprises! Doctor Who Newcomer Drops Hints About Christmas Special’s Unlikely Duo!
Doctor Who guest star Nicola Coughlan has teased that there’s a “really unlikely pairing” at the heart of the Christmas special “Joy to the World.” Coughlan will be reuniting with Barbie co-star Ncuti Gatwa in the Steven Moffat-penned festive special.
Coughlan recently told TV Insider that the on-screen chemistry between her Doctor Who character Joy and Gatwa’s 15th Doctor is likely to surprise viewers. “[Joy] is quite meek and doesn’t want to draw attention to herself and the Doctor can’t do but draw attention and he is so bubbly and full of life, but that you realize how much they really, really need each other, so them coming together in the episode is a really special thing,” she explained.
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Former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat, who has returned to write the episode, also explained why the Doctor-companion dynamic is so different in “Joy to the World”. “[It’s the] speed with which The Doctor has to get to know her,” Moffat revealed. “He knows there’s an emergency, she’s in effect chained to a bomb. He’s got no time. He can’t do his usual leisurely chat up. He can’t even show off the way he normally does to impress.”
“[The Doctor has] just got to get to know her really, really well so fast, which makes him almost a little bit cruel.”
“Joy to the World” revolves around a familiar Moffat trope where the evil Villengard Corporation tries to grow its own star using a Time Hotel to displace events from throughout history. Joy tries to settle in for a cozy Christmas at one of the Corporation’s London hotels, when The Doctor suddenly barges into her room to set off on an adventure. The Doctor and Joy will ultimately discover that the hotel is harnessing time travel technology to ensure all of its unsold rooms throughout history will sell out.
Nicola Coughlan’s Joy ends up with double vision during the adventure as two versions of The 15th Doctor interact in order to stop a sinister conspiracy from unfolding. The official synopsis for “Joy to the World” reads: “When Joy checks into a London hotel in 2024, she opens a secret doorway to the Time Hotel — discovering danger, dinosaurs and the Doctor. But a deadly plan is unfolding across the Earth, just in time for Christmas.”
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Former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat is no stranger to having multiple versions of The Doctor interact in his stories, as the 10th and 11th Doctors teamed up in 2013’s 50th anniversary special “The Day of The Doctor” while the 1st and 12th Doctors crossed paths during World War I in Moffat’s swansong “Twice Upon a Time”. Moffat even had multiple versions of The Master meet up in the two-parter “World Enough and Time” and “The Doctor Falls”.
Doctor Who’s latest Christmas special will feature the return of classic series monsters the Silurians, with Good Omens star Jonathan Aris playing the reptilian creature Melnak. Casualty star Julia Watson and Dark‘s Peter Benedict also appear as a World War II-era couple, Hilda and Basil, who have a surprise encounter with The Doctor during the Blitz. “Joy to the World” features Niamh Marie Smith, Phil Baxter, Samuel Sherpa-Moore and Steph de Whalley in the guest cast as well.
