A Very Moffat Christmas… (Doctor Who ‘Joy to the World’ Review)

[@Justinfication]

Hope you all had a brilliant christmas if you celebrate it and a great December 25th if you don't. Let me know your thoughts on this episode in this comment section, and please do subscribe for MUCH more content in 2025! ❤

[@iaintverysmart]

I liked the episode but feel like i would have been more emotionally attached if Anita was the companion throughout it. I liked Joy but felt that she didn't really form any attachment with the doctor which could have been fixed by either a longer runtime or having the doctor spend his year in the hotel with Anita, both of them going to the time hotel and then Anita dying at the end.

[@MichaelJohnson-kq7qg]

Joy wasn't really the companion - there wasn't really a companion. It's a story about Joy at the start and end, but there isn't a companion in the episode. The nearest thing to a companion is his non-romantic friendship with Anita.

[@noprize]

All the side characters were really good, but because of that, none of them got enough time. It almost felt like Moffat wrote an episode about a time hotel and the Doctor having to spend a year going the long way round, but then had to shoehorn a Christmas related plot into it, so had to cut out development of the original idea.

[@thesquire9966]

The Anita stuff was good, but it's playing "the Doctor's stuck living on earth like a human" like it's a novelty, despite him living on earth for most of the 3rd Doctor's era, also for The Pilot, and The Giggle, and definitely others I'm forgetting (if you want to include the expanded universe, the 8th Doctor's done it twice: first in a series of books from the 90's, and again in a recent audio drama series). It doesn't feel new as a concept on it's own, and not enough is done with it to justify how much runtime it eats up

[@Comicbroe405]

Yeah that's my issue. It seems like 14's arc is literally being ignored. Also I'm pretty sure the Doctor hasn't been 15 for that long either.

[@Max24871]

Also 11 and the Cubes

[@nepkolz]

Since the Time War, The Doctor has been running, a lot happened since the third doctor era, he has grown to be less acceptable of spending too much time on one place. The Flux didn't help either. By the way, the time Eleven spend with the ponds on the cubes episode, honestly? He said how insane it was for him having to live day after day, that it was boring, he had done everything thinking days had pass but it was like, minutes. (also, very poorly done episode);

[@Comicbroe405]

While I thought the ep was pretty alright, Ncuti here is once again showing us why he's such a great pick.

[@Lexi_Zone]

I had that same gut reaction of "oh great, the anti-woke brigade are going to have a million articles whinging about this one line," but you're totally right, we shouldn't even be giving space in our heads to these people. I swear 90% of it is just made up outrage to get clicks and views anyway. And it's not like the line is even unrealistic. Practically every woman on Earth knows how Joy feels and what she means when she says that line. I think people just enjoy "getting their turn", like, "Oh yay, now it's _my_ turn to accuse the other sex of being sexist! How hypocritical of you to complain about men after saying you want equality!" Not realizing or caring that oppression only works in one direction, and that they haven't had to deal with the worst effects of sexism once in their lives. "Now it's my turn to get angry about sexism because someone said 'men suck'."

[@noprize]

The mansplaining joke was funny. What everyone will miss is that it was mocking the concept of mansplaining which would be "anti-woke" and all the right wing drifters should love it, but they won't, because they don't actually care and they aren't actually paying attention to the show, they just pull things out of context to fit the narrative they want to push.

[@fictionarch]

The joke reminded me of " I'm the Doctor. I'm worse than everyones aunt."

[@Comicbroe405]

Exactly. The Doctor saying he's "mansplaining central" is pretty much true.

[@lykolada]

I also liked it, but what really bugged me was the idea that Vallengard wanted to pick up the star before detonation, but they nevertheless said through the hologram people were going to die. So, they're gonna pick up some suitcase but don't get near enough so the planet would die but they wouldn't? Are they gonna wait at a distance. "Picking it up" doesn't involve moving it? Put that plot hole upon your bingo Moffat!

[@robalexander8065]

A rational and considered analysis. Thanks Justinfication!

[@thomashughes7336]

I thought it was rubbish, to be honest. I really really wanted it to be good, but much like the last few series it let me down. Thankfully Wallace and Gromit along with Gavin and Stacey saved the day.

[@ryanratchford2530]

Weird that Anita was an unrelated side plot.

[@Comicbroe405]

Wouldn't say unrelated.

[@Ryysight]

She said she liked the figurines of the Tardis, and the Doctor said he can tell that the Tardis likes her too... She definitely isn't unrelated, I'd go so far as to say Moffat has just planted her seed for his inevitable return

[@Comicbroe405]

@@Ryysight Don't you mean "his seed for her return"?

[@WiloPolis03]

Some thoughts I wrote down on a Notes app while watching (spoilers, obviously); - No Christmasified intro :( - Julie Gardner still a producer, Eccelston quaking - HOLY CRAP ARE THEY FINALLY ADDRESSING THAT CLIFFHANGER IN DOCTOR MYSTERIO - No I actually have no idea what's happening - Yeah no I think DW just likes to recycle alien traits - I guess Silurians have become another one of those Doctor Who aliens that used to have lore significance but have been demoted to just random identifiable aliens for a character to be, like the Ood or those fish aliens originally from The Doctor's Daughter. Was kinda hoping this would actually go into the lore of the Silurians but I guess I've never been super invested in their background anyways - WOAH so we're really just completely breaking the "don't cross your own time stream by meeting yourself" rule huh? Like I know Doctor Who is infamous for breaking continuity but wow - Man that plunger joke was corny. Also I guess that one off joke sort of retcons that Children in Need special from last year out of canon, so that's cool I guess - Are we really just abandoning the primary companion for this episode for this long? Fun stuff though, can't complain too much - So is this Doctor legitimately fully gay? Like not bi? - Wait no maybe not. This show is gaslighting me. Screw you Moffat for making relationships so weirdly defined and ambiguous - Okay, in typical Moffat fashion the rule breaking is fixed up through fast-talking technobabble. I'll take it - Was that a soft God Complex reference? - I love the recurring Doctor trait of him being completely willing to act like an absolute dipwad jerkface to either test or manipulate people into behaving in a way that helps him save the day - Nope. That's still not a sonic screwdriver. You won't be able to convince me otherwise - MAVITY MENTIONED ‼️‼️ - These sets look pretty fake lol. Love the effort tho - The Doctor once again saving the day by pulling rope across time and space, nice - Yeahhhhh Joy's dead. Can't believe I didn't see that happening sooner - Wait why didn't the Doctor invite the hotel lady to come travel with him? Seemed like an obvious setup - So I heard the ending was a little on the edgier side in terms of religious themes. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints myself - actually a service missionary at the moment - and I didn't think it was too bad. That's not to say that my opinion weighs any more, I kinda hate when people use that logic, but this is just my perspective. I mean, you could still consider it a miracle within the Whoniverse in that it happened to happen in that way at that time of Christ's birth. The only nitpick I *do* have is that this would actually be year 0, not year 1. Unless you consider that the wise men got to Christ well after He was born, but that seems unintentional to me.

[@scaleofperspective6211]

I believe 0001 refers to the year that started when Jesus was born, or to put it simply, the current year, not how many years have passed since the 'zero' mark. I'm also not sure 'year zero' is even a thing, I think it's just counted backwards from there, with 0001 AD meaning "within a year after Jesus' birth" and 0001 BC meaning "within a year before Jesus' birth"

[@WiloPolis03]

@scaleofperspective6211 I guess it depends on your argument, but I've always thought of 1 AD being one year *since* Christ was born, or in other words, the year is the same number that Christ's earthly age is (just like how we're 0 when we're born). Idk though I could be wrong

[@scaleofperspective6211]

@@WiloPolis03 I could also be wrong, but pretty sure many languages refer to the year as an index (i.e. the 2024th year) instead of just the number 2024, which would align quite weirdly with year 1 being the second year and not the first

[@WiloPolis03]

@@scaleofperspective6211 Yeah I just looked into this and you're right actually. Would edit the comment but then I'd lose the heart ehehehe

[@MichaelJohnson-kq7qg]

All you young whippersnappers missing the biggest easter egg in the show (arguably, the seed on which moffat based the entire episode) because you didnt warch kids shows in the early 70s.

[@mathieuleader8601]

Anita is hands down better than Ruby Sunday

[@XiordS]

I did love/like this episode alot. everything up the the ending was good/great. the ending, where joy became a star and the Doc gave up on saving her, I did not like. We didn't learn to Love joy enough to get emotional at her death. And the Doc giving up on trying to help her / not caring that villengard is doing this felt out of place. In Boom the Doc tried everything to stop people from dying to villengard, in this it felt like he didn't care, so it made me not care. I could just me be idk, I'll give it a rewatch and see if i change my mind.

[@damienkakoschke3099]

Yeah, the 3rd Doctor's first few series he'd been exiled by the Time Lords to Earth, he became UNITs scientific advisor, went by the name John Smith & at the time (late 60's-early 70's) UNIT was run by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who was Kate Stewarts dad. - Ncuti crying every episode was a problem in series 1, this time he cries 3 times! The second & third time I'm ok with, but the first time crying over a Silurian he just met, then almost gets Joy, who he met at the same time, killed because of his rash decision making skills & disregard for others welfare. Christmas specials aren't usually that good, this one is definately not in my top 50% of Doctor Who Christmas Specials.

[@TimYertle]

Joy

[@woozle-s7r]

This episode was so quick i couldnt handle the pacing or process it or get attatched to any of the characters, really good concept but I just couldn't keep up. Amazing characters but there was so many and they all had such little time. The lines about mansplaining were irritating, so was the doctor crying every 5 minutes, it feels emotionally manipulative and like i said I cant feel it like the doctor does because its so quick. The doctors tears are so overused they lose their power. Also the girl on the train randomly outing herself to a stranger, yes gay people have always been here but if she shared that information with someone she would be facing a lot of danger and judgement. A huge risk that realistically someone from that timeline would never take.

[@thetubetitan7626]

Honestly the mansplaining lines just fell like they came out of no where but didn't bother me

[@domsquared9878]

I liked it much more than Church on Ruby Road

[@jthegamer360]

It was a good episode I liked the doctor a bit more than when he was crying but the episode itself wasn’t anything too special

[@Richard-se1de]

It was the biggest piece of shit seen so far