Doctor Who is back again with yet another fantastic Christmas special. “Joy to the World” takes the Fifteenth Doctor on quite the time-traveling adventure, thanks to his arrival at the Time Hotel. It’s there where he crosses paths with Nicola Coughlan’s Joy, a woman whose life changes forever after she checks into a hotel alone for the holiday season. This special brings former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat back together with current showrunner Russell T Davies to craft a story that both works on its own yet also builds a bridge to the future. We caught up with the duo to do a very spoilery deep-dive into creating this Christmas special and what’s next for Doctor Who.
Nerdist: This episode is such a fun ride! It took us to so many incredible places, most specifically the Time Hotel. Can either one of you talk more about how you came up with that concept and worked with production to bring it to life?
Steven Moffat: I genuinely have always been fascinated by the locked door in the hotel room. I’ve always worried about it. Well, actually, when I was a kid, I was excited by it. I loved Narnia and I thought maybe Narnia was through there. And I loved Doctor Who, and this show is all about magic doors, isn’t it?… So to get an opportunity to explain what that was about and create the Time Hotel. Then once you’ve done that, you have presented the production with an enormous problem. [laughs]
You’ve got so many different locations to go to, which isn’t just expensive in terms of money. It’s difficult in terms of [filming] schedule. That was one of the big problems of this episode was getting it to fit in the schedule. Originally, we had a submarine and went to ancient Egypt with half-built pyramids.
Wow that would have been amazing to see!
Moffat: Yes, we had all that because Russell [T Davies] told me at the beginning that we have lots of money. He said it, and he spent it… And [director] Alex Pillai did such a brilliant job shooting the hell out of it all. The dinosaur room and [the Fifteenth Doctor and Joy] sliding down towards the giant dinosaur, which is my favorite shot, were entirely his idea. Just brilliant stuff.
Russell T Davies: Doctor Who is an enormous test of the design department. It is insane. They work to death on it. We’ve got one set that we use every week for about a minute. Right. Everything after that they have to build or find. And this one was an extraordinary proposition by any standards.
It is incredible what they are able to do. In “Joy to the World,” we go on this journey with the Doctor. For the first time, Fifteen has this “John Smith” experience where he gets to live like a normal person. How do you think that this experience will affect Ncuti’s Doctor going forward?
Davies: When you have any lead character and actor who is this good, the whole point is to stretch them in all sorts of different directions. So yes, let’s see him live as a John Smith!… You’re thinking about the show in exactly the same terms. What haven’t we done? Where haven’t we been? What mood haven’t we done or genre haven’t we done? It just keeps jumping and hopping and changing and being brilliant. And that’s built into its very DNA. There is magnificent stuff to come. I’m sure we’ll talk about it again when that comes around time. Let’s do an interview then!
I look forward to it! I think the Doctor and Joy quickly form a great relationship and have good chemistry. But I really adore the smaller relationships that were in this episode with people like Trev and especially Anita. I’d love to hear more about developing those characters.
Moffat: Anita’s an interesting example because she was barely in the first draft. [The final episode] doesn’t change a hell of a lot except for that sequence, which used to be a sort of globetrotting sequence as the Doctor looks for a hotel with an access to the Time Hotel. We couldn’t afford it and couldn’t fit it in the schedule. So he ends up staying in the Sandringham Hotel as a handyman. And I’m glad that happened because we get this very close, very warm relationship with Anita for a year in which the Doctor isn’t doing anything. I mean, he’s been stuck in one place before, but usually because fighting a war or defusing a robot or something. He’s just unblocking toilets and he actually quite likes it. He’d never stay. But he likes it.
From the Doctor’s perspective, he knows Joy for a very short time and Anita for a year. It’s a very different shape of story from his point of view. It’s a miracle he even remembers Joy’s name by the time he gets back to the hotel. It’s beautiful. It’s heartbreaking. That relationship I love. In between two moments, he has a whole little life.
Davies: Yes! Obviously [Joy actress] Nicola Coughlan is wonderful but Steph de Whalley plays the most lovely part as Anita.
Moffat: Steph was so good that she ended up with a bigger and bigger part. She came in and I think when she auditioned and got the part, it was maybe seven or eight lines. And then at the end of it, she’s got a huge chunk of the episode in which she’s the leading lady. And I think the very last thing I wrote was fantastic…
Yes, I loved it and her ending is certainly great inspiration for fanfic. So I want to talk about Joy’s decision at the end of the episode to take on the star seed and save the world. How did you come to the decision about the way you’d wrap her story?
Moffat: Originally, the Doctor was going to grab the case at some point and fling it out the TARDIS’ doors and it would explode over Bethlehem. But it seemed more exciting for Joy, a woman who was bottling all her love and her devotion to people because it was hurting her too much, to explode like a star and bring love and joy to everyone. It launches every single Christmas thereafter. The woman who hides from Christmas ends up creating it. It was just an irresistible idea. And also it’s a good character note for the Doctor as well, who views everything in a rather “pragmatic scientist” way. He says to Joy, “Stars burn, you don’t want to burn!” She says, “No, they don’t burn. They shine and they look down and they bring light to people.” He’s saying, “No, no, it’s really, really a complex explosion of gas.” And she’s right and he’s wrong. I like it when the Doctor’s wrong…
Me too, because the Doctor certainly isn’t perfect. And there’s usually more than one truth to many things. At the end of this episode, we get a little glimpse of Ruby Sunday. Considering this is a Christmas special and they tend to be self-contained, why did you all bring her back?
Moffat: I did go through a phase—we both did—of fussing about why the Doctor doesn’t contact anyone for a year when he’s living in London. And we came to the conclusion that he’s just not that guy. He’s the one who gets us for help, not the opposite. He doesn’t go around and annoy his friends. He just gets on with it. So he lets them get on with their lives, as he says. But having thought about Ruby, if the star was going to be shining down, it made sense that Ruby would see it too.
Davies: We knew she’s coming back, so she was booked and under the contract. It’s not like we had to go, “Hello, do you want to come back for one scene?” [laughs] Her set was still there. That kitchen and flat were still sitting in the studio right next to UNIT HQ. They’re all under one roof… The resources are there and it was just irresistible to bring the beautiful Millie [Gibson] back. I love the fact that she’s not in the billings or the credits. So it should have been a complete surprise for fans, which is lovely!
It was a lovely surprise for everyone, indeed.