 The Fifteenth Doctor stars in Doctor Who’s fifteenth Christmas Special Joy to the World. But how Christmassy will it be? Blogtor Who takes a look back over its predecessors to find which ones really embraced the festive season
Doctor Who is back on Christmas Day, providing the best present of the day for fans! Joy to the World will be the show’s fifteenth Christmas Special since the tradition began in 2005, not counting the handful of times a special aired on New Year’s Day instead. In a way the 25th of December slot perfectly sums up decades of the Doctor Who viewing experience. Entire families crowded around, parents and grandparents talking over it to ask questions, younger siblings, children, nieces and nephews running around the room pretending to be monsters. And the core fans, trying very, very hard to concentrate through all that to follow the plot. Plus, for one day only, mince pies, pudding, and your own weight in Quality Street to accompany it.
Yes, watching Doctor Who at Christmas can sometimes be both the most Doctor Who-y and Christmassy way to spend the afternoon. But the episodes themselves haven’t always embraced that themselves. They’re almost always set at Christmas, but it’s as often mere window dressing as it key to the episode and its themes.
Here’s the Blogtor Who rundown of the most Christmassy Christmas special ever.
The Christmas Invasion
It’s even got Christmas in the title! Almost two decades before Joy to the World, the original Christmas Special takes its idea of what an alien invasion at Christmas would be like and runs away with it. There are robot Santas, killer Christmas trees, Christmas music, and funny paper crowns while pulling crackers over a turkey dinner. The Prime Minister making the national television address because the Queen is on the roof, and there’s even snow. Well, the ashen remains of murdered aliens, but close enough.
That said, while The Christmas Invasion delivers some of the finest, funniest, Christmas trimmings of all these specials, it’s easy to imagine a de-Christmassed version. Ultimately, Christmas is the day the Sycorax just happen to arrive on. And none of the episodes deeper musings, dealing with the new Doctor and Rose finding their footing with each other, or Harriet Jones’ dreadful decision, are traditional Christmas themes.
Four Killer Christmas Trees out of five
The Runaway Bride
Doctor Who’s second special feels even more like an adventure that just happens to take place on Christmas Day. The robot Santas are back, this time with explosive baubles. There’s also a bit of fun with the Rachnoss ship looking like a big star. But other than that, this tale of a giant alien spider turning a temp from Chiswick into a cosmic key to unlock the centre of the Earth, could have taken place in July. In fact, due to some blisteringly hot summer filming, it actually looks like it does.
Instead, if anything, it reflects Russell T Davies’ approach of recreating a certain type of classic blockbuster movie. The ones that used to populate BBC One’s post-turkey schedule back in the day. If The Christmas Invasion was Independence Day, then The Runaway Bride is the type of semi-comedic chase movie that usually starred a Cary Grant or Gregory Peck. Though sadly we never got to see Grant or Peck on a Segway.
Two Killer Christmas Stars out of five
Voyage of the Damned
That approach reaches its zenith with disaster movie in space Voyage of the Damned. It’s probably perplexing to audiences outside the UK and Ireland, or even younger viewers. But people really did settle down to the likes of The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno at Christmas. This tale of the meteor struck starliner Titanic, and the survivors who make their way through the wrecked infrastructure searching for escape, almost perfectly replicates the formula though. It’s only missing the patented mix of current A-listers and slightly faded stars of yesteryear. It’s still almost as much fun trying to guess who’ll die next though, once as familiar a Christmas game as charades.
Voyage does get one entire extra point for the wonderful little scene that introduces Bernard Cribbins as Wilf. The idea that people in the Whoniverse being aware that London tends to get attacked by aliens at Christmas, so clear out to the country for the festive season, is gloriously meta.
Two Killer Robot Christmas Angels out of five
The Next Doctor
Charles Dickens has already entered the Whoniverse for some ghostly Christmas shenanigans in The Unquiet Dead. It’s an idea that the team would probably have held back had they known at the time Christmas Specials were coming. As it it, it doesn’t stop Russell T Davies from throwing everything but the workhouse sink at a classic Dickensian Christmas in The Next Doctor. Taking elements from several Dickens works, there’s snow on the ground in Victorian London and orphan children being rounded up for backbreaking labour in service of a cruel caretaker. Our hero has a secret past waiting to be revealed to him, and a giant Cyber-mecha rains down fiery, stompy death on the city. It’s all classic Dickens. Well apart from the giant death machine, maybe.
Quite apart from the iconography of chestnuts roasting on open fires, wreaths on doors and bonnet wearing carol singers, there’s something deeply Christmassy about this story of re-connection and family.
Four Christmas bonnets out of five
The End of Time, Part One
As the climax of not just David Tennant’s time in the TARDIS but the whole RTD era, The End of Time has a lot of ground to cover, even for two bumper length specials. So while once again otherworldly doom comes to Earth for Christmas Day, it’s understandable it front loads the overtly Christmassy stuff to get it out of the way, and tick that box in its list of obligations. But it ticks that box with that style. Once again, it’s Bernard Cribbins who brings the metaphorical tinsel. His early scenes with the bus of pensioners dubbed the ‘Silver Shroud’ are full of such merry joy that he sells the festive setting better than a dozen snow machines could.
Wilf’s defiant response to being asked to act his age: “I shan’t! It’s Christmas!” sums up the spirit of the day perfectly and deserves to hang alongside “God bless us every one!” “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings,” in the annals of Christmas sayings.
Two Antler Headbands out of five
A Christmas Carol
New showrunner (and future Joy to the World scriptwriter) Steven Moffat immediately adopted a very different approach to his Christmas specials. A Christmas Carol technically isn’t even set at Christmas. It’s set during a midwinter festival on a human colony in the future. A festival which, as our Scrooge substitute Karzan explains, simply fills the same function as Christmas does on Earth. A time for people to say “Well done, everyone! We’re halfway out of the dark!”
Yet that quote also sums up why it might be the most Christmassy special of all. Moffat actually ponders the meaning of Christmas, and how that overlaps with the meaning of Doctor Who. His answer combines the Doctor’s use of wisdom and kindness to inspire people to be better versions of themselves with a Christmas classic. So the Doctor becomes Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future all rolled into one.
So while there’s snow, and families gathering around a table for dinner, and carol singing and jolly scarves, what really makes this episode special are its themes. All the money and power in the world is nothing without the ability to love the people around you. Helping other people when there’s nothing in it for you is possibly when it matters most. And it’s never, never too late to try and heal the wounds of the past.
Five shark drawn sleigh rides out five
The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe
Moffat draws on another yuletide favourite for his next special. CS Lewis’ Narnia series wears its theological inspirations on its sleeve. However, it’s really only the core imagery of WWII kids finding a magic portal in an old house, leading to a wintry forest on another world, that The Doctor. the Widow and the Wardrobe keeps.
Other than that, it follows the previous special’s lead in presenting Christmas as a refuge from our troubles. The Arwell children don’t even know about their father’s death in the way yet, their mother Madge trying to hold everything together to deliver one last happy Christmas for them. She doesn’t want the memory of the loss doesn’t hang over every Christmas ever after. The Doctor, feeling in her debt, throws himself into helping with typically chaotic results.
By the end, we get a timey wimey miracle. Tellingly it’s powered not by the TARDIS, the sonic screwdriver, or any other Time Lord trick, but by love and grief and family. Then there’s a final scene with its message fired straight at the hearts of many watching at home. No matter how estranged you are from family or friends, there’s no better time than Christmas to reach out. They just might have a place already laid for you at the table.
Five Sentient Christmas Trees out of five
The Snowmen
The Snowmen is another entry which despite being set at Christmas, and playing with some yuletide iconography, otherwise feels like a much more standard Doctor Who story. The killer snow and Dickensian London make for a fun winter’s tale, though. You could argue the Doctor realising he needs friendship and connection in his life, and can’t just isolate himself living literally in the clouds, is a common Hallmark movie thread. But for the most part, the plot mechanics of introducing Clara, more fully establishing the Paternoster Gang, and getting the Doctor back in action, don’t leave room for much Christmas stuff.
Two Killer Snowmen out of five
The Time of the Doctor
The Doctor’s final, fatal, battle at Trenzalore, and the mystery of the Silence had been teased for so long that it finally falling during a Christmas Special feels like bad luck. Add to that a stand-off between intergalactic powers and writing out Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor and the nods to the festive season are more perfunctory than ever. Essentially the town the Doctor and Clara arrive at on Trezalore is called Christmas, and it snows a lot there. Outside of some early gags about Clara trying to use the TARDIS engines to speed up Christmas dinner to help justify putting her in a paper crown on the posters, and that’s about your lot.
That’s not to say it’s not a thrilling and worthy finale for the Eleventh Doctor. But of all the specials, it most treats Christmastime as a burden rather than an opportunity.
Two Time Wind Cooked Turkeys out of five
Last Christmas
Santa. Actual Santa. It’s hard to see how any future Doctor Who Christmas Special is going to top that. Yes, this was the year St. Nicholas himself met Dr. Who. Thanks to a fun script and a winning performance by Nick Frost, he’s a wonderful take on the character too, leading to the sort of banter normally reserved for multi-Doctor stories.
Moffat throws them, Clara, and a gaggle of highly strung scientists into a plot that throws The Thing, Alien, and Miracle on 34th Street into a blender and isn’t afraid to wink at the audience that that’s exactly what it’s done. Homages of classic horror films might sound terribly unfestive, and Last Christmas is certainly one of the scariest of the winter specials. But it’s all in service of a heartfelt message. The title reveals itself as not so much a pun on the eternally inescapable Wham! hit but a reminder that every Christmas is a last Christmas for somebody. So always hold your loved ones close at Christmas because you never know if it will be the last one you can.
Five Tangerine Wielding Santas out of five
The Husbands of River Song
The Husbands of River Song runs into a similar problem to The Time of the Doctor before it. It’s a story which finally slots the final puzzle piece in River’s story into place, and so has much more important things on its mind than Christmas. Its solution to the problem is strikingly similar too. We start out on a snow covered planet at quaint streets that belong on a Christmas card. River Song’s frankly magnificent Mrs. Claus inspired cape adds a festive touch, as does the grumpy dissatisfaction of Peter Capaldi’s Doctor with carol singers and antler headbands. But having served their purpose of reminding us this is Christmas, such accessories disappear early on.
The reveal that River’s sonic screwdriver was a Christmas present is a nice touch at the end. But other than that, this story of decapitated tyrants, spaceship crashes, and the Doctor and River’s playful dynamic barely touches on the theme.
Two Carol Singers Will Be Criticised Signs out of five
The Return of Doctor Mysterio
The Return of Doctor Mysterio takes us right back to the ‘Christmas Day big movie’ philosophy. This time the touchstone are the Christopher Reeve Superman films. Their regular outings over the festive period made them honourary Christmas movies in the minds of many and this special mixes superheroes and Time Lords to try and create the same magic.
The script, once again, introduces and dispenses with the most obvious Christmas elements early on. In fact they feature so little in The Return of Doctor Mysterio, there’s a sense of impatience at having to shoe horn them in at all.
One wish granting gemstone out of five
Twice Upon a Time
Peter Capaldi’s final episode subverts the usual trend by holding off until the final scenes to introduce its Christmas elements. But when it does, they hit hard. Arguably, it’s also one of Steven Moffat’s greatest attempts to wrong foot viewers too. The opening scenes at the South Pole give us a bit of snow and ice before moving swiftly on. You’d be forgiven for thinking that was the only nod to the season we were going to get.
Instead those final scenes reveal the date Mark Gatiss’ Captain was snatched from the 25th of December 1914. And the muddy battlefield we’d previously glimpsed was the site of the famous Christmas Armistice. Some of the previous Doctor Who specials have included the power of Christmas as a symbol or an idea. But the actual, true story from history of the day the regular soldiers of two armies simply refused to fight on Christmas is real magic. It’s beautifully elegant in how it weaves back into the Twelfth Doctor’s personal crisis, too, while echoing the theme of Last Christmas. If a long life if a battlefield where you see your comrades fall one by one, then it’s rarely more keenly felt than at Christmas. But it’s also the time their memories often seem most alive. And it’s those memories that lend us the strength to carry on.
Five Christmas Day Armistices out of five
The Church on Ruby Road
While Doctor Who had abandoned the Christmas Day slot for New Year’s Day for a while, Russell T Davies brought Christmas magic back with him when he returned in 2023. Many of the specials have been the introductions or departures of characters and The Church on Ruby Road is no exception. It’s the first appearance of new companion Ruby Sunday but wisely decides to let the Fifteenth Doctor’s introduction near the end of The Giggle stand. There’s no sense of Ncuti Gatwa’s Time Lord as someone still finding themselves. Instead he’s full of self assurance and swagger from the off, leaving more room for establishing Ruby.
It also means there’s more room for Christmas. There’s still a hint of RTD’s old thought process of leafing through old Christmas bumper issues of the Radio Times. The goblins, despite the name, seem to owe a greater debt to the diminutive, chaos causing monsters of Christmas adventure movie Gremlins. But there’s a genuine sense of the time of year too, probably helped by actually being filmed in January rather than the summer months. It’s a world of Christmas nights out, last minute shopping, and big trees with very pointy stars. Carol of the Bells permeates the soundtrack too, while the repeating motif of newborn babies in need of shelter on Christmas Eve is a rare engagement by Doctor Who with the original Christmas story.
Four Santa Hat Wearing Goblins out of five
Joy to the World
Joy is, of course, the name of the Doctor’s new friend, as played by Nicola Coughlan in this month’s special. But it’s also an obvious reference to the popular Christmas carol and arguably the first time a Doctor Who title has even obliquely referenced the religious side of Christmas.
But nothing we’ve seen so far suggests that’s anything more than a convenient pun. (Unless, of course, the Time Hotel’s rooms include ones at a certain inn…) Indeed, while the trailer and preview clip reveal Joy checks into the hotel at Christmas in the present day, she and the Doctor are soon zipping all over history. So it remains to be seen how much the festive season actually features in Joy to the World beyond some decorations as Joy arrives in London.
As for any Yuletide appropriate messages about universal fellowship and the importance of family? Well, we’ll have to wait and see. But it wouldn’t surprise Blogtor Who at all to see an echo of The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe’s ending. Perhaps Joy to the World will be the trigger for the Doctor deciding he was too hasty in deciding he had no place in the blend of Ruby’s family.
At least we don’t have long to find out now.
