The new trailer for Doctor Who Christmas Special shows a completely festive time travel adventure and I can’t wait
The BBC has released a new look at the film Joy to the worldthe 2024 Doctor Who Christmas Special and it looks every bit as brilliant as we’d expect from The Doctor’s (Ncuti Gatwa from Sex education) festive outings.
The new trailer gives us a much bigger look at the ‘Time Hotel’, a secret location where guests can stay in rooms throughout the hotel’s history, bypassing the rules of time and space to spend a night or two in the past to spend. We also meet Nicola Coughlan’s (Derry girls) Joy, a one-time companion and mysterious guest of the hotel. Like Joel Fry’s (Game of Thrones) caretaker Trev says: it’s “Christmas, everywhere, all at once”. There are also runaway trains, a hungry T-Rex, ancient graves and the small matter of a second Doctor.
The special will air on BBC One and will be available to stream in the UK on BBC iPlayer on Christmas Day, with international viewers able to stream on Disney Plus. And it promises to be quite a gift to unwrap, as “the episode introduces Joy, who checks into a London hotel in 2024, only to discover that her peaceful stay is anything but ordinary. When Joy opens a secret door to the Time Hotel, she discovers danger, dinosaurs and the Doctor. But a deadly plan unfolds across the Earth, just in time for Christmas. Where has the doctor been? What’s going on in Joy’s hotel room? An old enemy of the Doctor lurks in the wings and all of human history is at stake. Can the doctor save Christmas?
While Russell T. Davies is now back on board as showrunner for this new era, the 2024 special has been written by another former top executive: Steven Moffat. Moffat led the show during the tenure of the Eleventh (Matt Smith) and Twelfth (Peter Capaldi) Doctors, producing what many fans consider to be the best Christmas specials the show has aired. Add that to the fact that a Christmas Day visit from the doctor only returned last year after somewhat of a hiatus (although there were a few New Year’s episodes during that time), and it’s safe to say the excitement is out of this world.
The new special continues a reboot phase of sorts for the show, which was renamed season one when Ncuti Gatwa took charge for his first full season earlier this year. Davies’ return as showrunner marked an attempt to recapture the highs of the David Tennant era, even going so far as to sneak the actor back in as the Fourteenth Doctor, a brief tenure between Jodie Whittaker’s Thirteenth Doctor and the current incarnation that lasted through just the three 60th anniversary specials.
Gatwa took over after the two-generation in the finale of that mini-run, making his debut in last year’s Christmas special, ‘The Church on Ruby Road’. But with an entire season under his belt, it’s now all business as usual for Gatwa, who excelled in the role throughout the eight-episode series, delivering one powerful performance after another. The Christmas specials are normally lighter affairs than those involving space racists and vengeful old gods, so this should be a chance for Gatwa to have some fun with the role. While the Fifteenth Doctor’s adventures so far are something we can rely on, while there may not be snow this Christmas, the tears certainly will.