“The Nature of ‘Doctor Who’ Keeps Changing”

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“The Nature of ‘Doctor Who’ Keeps Changing”


Editor’s Note: This interview contains mild spoilers for Doctor Who’s 2024 Christmas special, “Joy to the World.”

Summary

  • “Joy to the World” features Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor & Nicola Coughlan’s Joy in a delightful Christmas romp.
  • Steven Moffat & Russell T. Davies discuss which locations didn’t make it into the episode, writing one-episode characters, and casting Nicola Coughlan.
  • Moffat and Davies were thrilled to be able to offer Coughlan a role in Doctor Who, praising her star power in more ways than one.

One of our favorite holiday traditions has finally arrived! Doctor Who‘s latest Christmas special is now available to stream on Disney+ and BBC iPlayer around the world. “Joy to the World” sees Ncuti Gatwa‘s Doctor take a wild adventure with Nicola Coughlan‘s Joy as they take on danger, dinosaurs, and more in a romp through the Time Hotel’s “Christmas everywhere all at once” event. After saying goodbye to Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) at the end of the previous season, the Doctor gets a much needed reminder that he should never be alone.

In celebration of “Joy to the World,” I sat down with writer Steven Moffat and showrunner Russell T. Davies to discuss the episode and get a few teases about what we can expect from Season 2. During our conversation, Moffat and Davies revealed which locations they had to cut from the Time Hotel and what they love about writing single-episode characters. They also spoke about casting superstar Nicola Coughlan in the companion role for this episode and Davies teased a bit about what we can expect from Season 2’s companion and whether Gatwa’s Doctor will ever have chairs in his TARDIS. You can read our full conversation below.

“Joy to the World” Almost Took ‘Doctor Who’ Back to Ancient Egypt

“We had some half-finished pyramids and some quite good pyramid jokes.”

Ncuti Gatwa and Nicola Coughlan in the Doctor Who 2025 Christmas Special
Image via Disney+

COLLIDER: I’m so excited to chat with you guys. This is such a cute little holiday episode, and there’s a lot going on. You have a whole dinosaur, for goodness sake. So, how did you decide which time periods we would flip between at the Time Hotel, and were there any that you cut that didn’t make it to the final episode?

STEVEN MOFFAT: Oh, well done. Yes, we cut Ancient Egypt. We had some half-finished pyramids and some quite good pyramid jokes. I forget what they were, but I remember I’d be quite proud of them. We had a submarine scene, as well. So, we lost those ones, but that’s a pretty good score because we did all the other ones. We didn’t originally have Everest in, but we figured out that he could get the rope and the grappling hook from Everest in one go. It was originally he got the rope from the pyramids, and he got the grappling hook from the submarine. There are just really cool places to go and see. It’s just exciting to see the Orient Express! That’s automatically exciting. I’ve been on the Orient Express, and it is that exciting. It is brilliant. I nearly solved the crime, but sadly, there wasn’t one.

RUSSELL T. DAVIES: You killed someone?

MOFFAT: I did. Yeah. I could have been the murderer. No, I just thought it through. I think Sue [Vertue] would have been cross, though, when I explained I did it for additional excitement.

DAVIES: She might have been the victim! She might have been the victim. Just saying.

MOFFAT: Thanks, mate. [Laughs] You know she isn’t sitting over there.

DAVIES: Like she’d let you murder her.

MOFFAT: Like I’d stand a bloody chance. So, just exciting places to go. And obviously, I’ve had fun in the Blitz on Doctor Who once before, so I reeled that one out again. There’s a gas mask boy down there somewhere.

I’d love to hear about the process of casting Nicola [Coughlan] because I think she’s such a perfect fit for this role. She’s just so charming and pure-hearted, and I don’t know if it would have worked as well without someone who has that level of tenderness that she brings to it.

DAVIES: It was very simple. That’s our wonderful casting director, Andy Pryor. And you’re right, it’s a very perfect fit. There’s always a list of about 10 people, but she’s also one of those people we’d all been dying to work with, as well. She knows people that we know, she’s friends with Lydia West. I’ve never met her before, but we DM’d each other, like you do online, and we knew that she was friends with Ncuti [Gatwa], as well. That’s a great plus to give him fun on set and to give him a good time. But it’s Nicola Coughlan — she’s a star! She’s gorgeous, she’s brilliant, and we were just lucky to offer a part like that. Sometimes the star is shining down on you, and it works, and she says yes.

MOFFAT: She’s got an interesting thing, also, because she’s every inch a star, and yet she’s a kind of star you can cast as an ordinary person, which is weird because she is not ordinary at all. The first time she appears in that show and steps out of the taxi, it’s such a movie star moment, and it’s a nothing moment in the script, but she steps up and the choirs start. At the same time, you’re prepared to accept her as an ordinary, unhappy person. There are very few ordinary people like her, but she’s codified for that somehow.

Absolutely. That’s a very apt description of her. I really love the scene where the Doctor gets into an argument with himself. I have a sort of twofold question here — what do you think the most important lesson the Doctor learns from staying still this time is, and will 15 put chairs in his TARDIS next season?

MOFFAT: [Laughs] I cannot answer for next season, but I suppose the lesson he learns is that sometimes there are benefits in just having a sit-down. He doesn’t ever do it. There are two reasons: no one’s ever coming around his TARDIS, and he never sits anyway. He’s always leaping about it. So he thinks, “I’ve got no problem. I’ve got no option. I’m just going to sit down.” As to the question of the TARDIS and chairs, I hand you over to the showrunner.

DAVIES: No. If there were chairs on that thing, they’d all have to be on wires. Every time the TARDIS lurches even slightly, some poor little stagehand would have to yank the chair, if not CGI chairs flying across TARDIS and hitting you on the head. All your conversations would be about chairs. We couldn’t get away with it. [Laughs] But also, there’s a moment in a David Tennant episode, “Army of Ghosts,” where he completely confounds the villain, played by Tracy-Ann Oberman, by sitting down. He sits and then puts his feet up, which is a great performance from David Tennant, because she knows something’s wrong! She knows because he doesn’t sit down. He’s flying through time and space. That machine is actually probably the most dangerous thing you could ever be in.

Davies and Moffat Reveal What Keeps Bringing Them Back to ‘Doctor Who’

“I’m a terrible cook, I’m a terrible lover. I’m terrible at everything, but I’m not bad at writing.”

Ncuti Gatwa and Nicola Coughlan in Doctor Who's 2024 Christmas Special
Image via James Pardon/Bad Wolf/BBC Studios/Disney

We need to get him like an anti-gravity beanbag or something! Something I think that you both really excel at and that this episode exemplifies is writing characters that are just a one-off that we’ve become invested in really quickly. What makes those characters so interesting for you as writers?

MOFFAT: There’s a forced economy in knowing that the clock is ticking on a character, and so every line’s got to count. Everything they do has to be part of the story or of the story of them. If a character is there, you can drift in and out a little, but they’re going to be gone forever in under an hour, so you’ve got to tell the story of them. When we introduce a companion, sometimes you sort of find them as you go along a little bit, or at least to add to them. If they’re going to be gone in under an hour, then you’ve got to get them right now. Every line, every moment counts.

DAVIES: Also, we’re writers. That’s what we do. It’s why we’re here. I’m a terrible cook, I’m a terrible lover. I’m terrible at everything, but I’m not bad at writing. It’s literally what we do and why we love doing what we do and make a living doing it. Also, we’d be doing it even if we weren’t being paid for it. It’s just the way our heads are wired.

I love that. The Doctor is such a lonely character, but he simultaneously makes friends wherever he goes, and at the end of this episode, Joy sort of takes a page out of Donna’s book and reminds him to go find a friend. She also uses the hotel room as a metaphor for what she and the Doctor think they deserve. What kind of companion do you think the Doctor deserves right now, and how does that line up with the companion that the Doctor needs right now?

DAVIES: I can’t believe Steve has been creeping metaphors into this. Metaphors!

MOFFAT: It was a mistake, man. I didn’t know it was a metaphor. I thought it was a simile!

DAVIES: That’s the ongoing, every week you can tune in and find the answer to that question. There’s no specific answer to that question because that’s always changing and always staying the same. We jump, hop, and skip to different people coming into the TARDIS for different reasons. I was just saying earlier, it’s interesting bringing in Joy as a one-off companion in that she starts the story, despite her smiles and despite that jollity she brings, she’s sad. She’s alone and she’s sad. Very odd to meet a regular companion like that. Very odd to feel that the Doctor was healing and fixing her somehow. In a long-term story, that’s an odd thing to present, to say, like he’s the cure to all ills. There is no proper answer to that simply because the nature of Doctor Who keeps changing. It’s a different reason, and I hope the companions have different motives every time, and yet it’s always eternal, it’s always a best friend for the doctor. It’s also a sounding board. She’ll find fault with him, she’ll take joy in what he does. It’s a program that covers a whole range of human emotions. So what you need, it’s not so much the companion, what you need is a great actor who can cover everything.

I asked Nicola this when I spoke to her last week: if you were to go on vacation at the Time Hotel, where would you go?

MOFFAT: I always have the same answer to this question. I’m really very happy where I am. I’ll just stay right here, thank you. [Laughs] People always ask that question about the TARDIS, and I think, “Well, most of history sucks, and I have no idea what the future is going to be.” I’ve got enough to eat, I’m warm, I’ve got a fun job, and I’m happily married. Why the fuck would I go anywhere else? I mean, this is as good as it gets.

DAVIES: Well, I’ve told you this before, I’ve got a great answer to this. The 25th of December, 2012, my family at Christmas dinner — I wasn’t there — and one member of my family got so drunk she told everyone what she thought of them. I wish to God I’d been there. We still sit in fear and laughter, remembering that. The people who were there speak of it as legend. I’d just be over the kitchen window like this… Oh my god, I wish I’d been there!

MOFFAT: Did she have a go at you in your absence?

DAVIES: They never said! And also, she’s coming this Christmas.

MOFFAT: Well, [bring] her up and see what happens! [Laughs]

DAVIES: I’m going to be pouring those drinks like crazy. I can’t wait!

“Joy to the World” is now available to watch on Disney+ and BBC iPlayer. You can watch previous episodes of Doctor Who on Disney+ now.

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