Steven Moffat opens up aboutDoctor Who’s 2024 seasonal special, revealing new details about the hotel at the heart of the Christmas story. The upcoming seasonal episode, coming ahead of next year’sDoctor Whoseason 15, will see the return of Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor, now alone in the TARDIS and traveling by himself once more after the end of season 14. While the Doctor will not have familiar companions to rely on,BridgertonandDerry Girlsstar Nicola Coughlan will play guest companion Joy.
With just over a month untilDoctor Whoreturns, former showrunner and writer Moffat revealed toBBC News(via@harrythewhovianon Twitter) new details about the upcoming 2024 seasonal special, “Joy to the World.”
With main showrunner Russell T Davies focused on season 15, Moffat returned to write the script for the special. The writer explained thatthe episode will focus on a hotel chain in the far future that discovers time travel, stating:
The truth is I absoloutely love doing Doctor Who Christmas, ‘cause I’m a big fan of Christmas. I absolutely adore Christmas. Then the email came through saying, “Steven, I need to get onto series 2. I’m never going to finish this Christmas script. Could you come in and write one?” Not complete his script, just come and do another one from scratch…
I can tease something about the Christmas special. Imagine, in the far far future. Imagine that a hotel chain got hold of the idea of time travel. What’s the first thing a hotel chain would do if they had time travel?They’d realize they had an opportunity to sell all the unsold nightsin their own hotels in history.
What Moffat’s Reveal Means For Doctor Who’s Seasonal Special
Time Travel In Inexperienced Hands Is A Dangerous Thing
With Moffat’s new reveal, the episode preview released during San Diego Comic-Con 2024 can be viewed with way more context. The brief clip featured the Time Lord bursting into various rooms across history, from the Orient Express to an Everest expedition, all with a room service order in hand. It is during this scene that he meets Joy, who is staying in a hotel. She encounters a suited Silurian, who unwittingly steps into her room before the Doctor arrives. It can now be assumedeach of these rooms is under the ownership of the currently unknown hotel chain.
What remains a mystery, however, isthe Silurian’s mysterious warning about a “Star Seed” that he utters to Joy. With a network of rooms linked throughout known history, it may be thatthe Doctor and Joy must join together to prevent an unknown threat from using the hotelas a passage through the universe. However, both Joy and the Doctor are also heartbroken and alone during the holidays, the Time Lord having left his companions in their own lives inDoctor Whoseason 14’s ending, meaning that the pair may also have to work together to find a way out of their woes.
Our Take On Moffat’s Doctor Who 2024 Christmas Special Tease
The Episode Could Provide An Imaginative But Introspective Tale
Throughout his time as showrunner, Moffat providedDoctor Whowith plenty of Christmas stories featuring settings that subverted familiar tales. These have included a futuristic steampunk world inspired by Charles Dickens’ novels, a sci-fi twist onThe Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and a reimagining of a comic book superhero story. These episodes have allowed the show to feature creative locales and foes, and 2025’s time-traveling hotel is no exception.
All 18 Doctor Who Christmas & New Year Specials Ranked (Including 2024)
Doctor Who’s Christmas and New Year specials combine to create one of the show’s most exciting traditions, but they aren’t all of the same quality.
This leaves the question of just how the special will fare with its characters' journeys. When not having to worry about an impending regeneration,Doctor Who’s seasonal specials have offered a chance to hone in on elements of the Doctor’s character, whether he is grieving over lost friends or trying to rediscover a part of himself. Though it is already confirmed that Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) will return inDoctor Whoseason 15 in 2025, the seasonal special could offer the Time Lord a moment to unpack all that happened to him during his most recent adventures.
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Doctor Who: Released on August 18, 2025, this series follows the Doctor and their companion as they journey across time and space, encountering a range of extraordinary friends and adversaries, expanding the universe of the long-running British science fiction series.
