‘Doctor Who: Joy to the World review:’ What a star

Spoilers comply with for “Pleasure to the World.”

If there’s one factor Steven Moffatt likes to do with Physician Who, it’s to discover a monster buried within the mundane. He’s made statues, shadows, misplaced youngsters and even the concept of silence into among the present’s most terrifying villains. Sadly, the mysterious further door you typically discover in older resort rooms isn’t as common a priority, but it surely’s nonetheless a wealthy seam for him to mine. That’s the inspiration for “Pleasure to the World,” Physician Who’s 2024 Christmas Particular. Which is mild, enjoyable and slightly bit scattershot, very like Christmas is supposed to be, proper?

When Physician Who returned, the present was woven again into the UK’s cultural firmament in a manner it by no means had been earlier than. A part of that course of was including the present to the BBC One Christmas Day schedule, making it a common cultural touchstone. For many of its post-2005 run, it has aired an episode subsequent to the Strictly Come Dancing and EastEnders’ festive specials. Think about the British equal to these everyone-gathered-around-the-TV occasions just like the Tremendous Bowl or the Macy’s Day Parade, however on Christmas Day. Even for those who don’t like all of the fare on provide, you’re nonetheless anticipated to sit down with the household and eat it.

With these specials, the status timeslot, longer runtime and greater funds are burdens as a lot as they’re advantages. The present has to play to a far broader viewers than regular, with diehard followers sitting elbow-to-elbow with aged family members filling each silence with gossip about their neighbor’s backyard challenge. Consequently, the story must be slightly looser, with much less want for the viewers to be paying undivided consideration to what’s happening. And it must be an oasis of enjoyable within the melodramatic drudgery that’s the BBC One Christmas Day schedule.

Usually, the festive particular can be the only real province of the showrunner however Russell T. Davies handed the reins to Steven Moffatt. Moffatt succeeded Davies as showrunner the primary time round, co-created Sherlock and is widely-regarded as the perfect Who author of the twenty first century. With a pedigree as impeccable as that, and having already written “Boom” for the Ncuti Gatwa’s first season within the title street, expectations are excessive.

Moffatt is an arch farce author and has a robust grasp of construction, so it’s no shock we open in medias res. The Physician is providing room service to a wide range of individuals in several time intervals together with Edmund Hilary’s base camp at Everest and the Orient categorical earlier than stumbling in on Pleasure in a depressing London resort room in 2024. After the credit, we spool again to the Physician arriving within the Time Lodge, which permits friends to trip all through historical past. Don’t fear about causality or any A Sound of Thunder shenanigans, the Lodge is one way or the other constructed to guard its friends from screwing up the timeline.

The Physician is seeking to steal some milk for his espresso from the resort buffet, however his eye is caught on one thing sinister: An individual carrying a briefcase with a handcuff chain is attempting to examine right into a room. The Physician recruits Trev, one of many staff, to maintain watch whereas he scouts forward to work out what scheme may very well be afoot. Because it seems, the case is sentient and evil, leaping from host to host and possessing every one in flip. As soon as it’s leapt to the subsequent host, the final one disintegrates.

It’s right here the Physician bumps into Pleasure who, via hijinks, winds up handcuffed to the case rather than the resort supervisor. When the Physician opens the case to attempt to discover a answer, the case threatens to kill whoever it’s related to until it will get a 4 digit code. Who shall present the code? The Physician, rising from his personal future, taking Pleasure with him whereas leaving “our” Physician trapped in 2024 with out the TARDIS. Because the resort door closes, the Physician hurls abuse at his future self, about why he’s all the time alone and individuals are all the time leaving him. He’s doubly upset as he by no means usually has to journey “the great distance round,” in the future after the opposite.

And so, the episode basically stops to offer us an prolonged sequence of the Physician making pals with Anita, the resort supervisor. The Physician will get a job because the resort’s handyperson, and slowly lets his guard down, spending extra time with Anita till they’re a platonic couple. It’s a sequence you’d by no means see in an everyday episode, with snatches of the Physician and Anita’s life. He makes the microwave larger on the within, repaints Anita’s automobile TARDIS blue and so they even sit and speak to 1 one other on chairs — a key visible given the dearth of chairs on the TARDIS. However because the yr elapses and it’s time for the Physician to return to his personal present, he waves goodbye to Anita.

Returning to the time resort, the Physician bursts again in on the occasions of a yr in the past, sharing the code and yanking Pleasure off to new adventures. The Physician works out the briefcase holds the embryonic type of an artificially-created star that might provide a supply of possible energy to whoever owned it. However until you personal the Hand of Omega, stars take a very long time to develop, far longer than anybody would be capable of wait and take a look at their experiment. Until, in fact, you hijack a time resort and ship it again to dinosaur occasions, ready for when human historical past begins to see if it really works.

Pleasure, nonetheless possessed by the case, heads to the resort’s dinosaur room whereas the Physician tries to interrupt its maintain over her. To do this, he provokes an emotion sturdy sufficient to poison the hyperlink between the case and its host earlier than it obliterates them. He bullies her, goading her into disclosing why she’s staying at a downmarket London resort. Seems she’s grieving the lack of her mom who died of COVID-19 in an isolation ward and Pleasure was unable to say goodbye to her in individual. Sadly, earlier than the Physician can deactivate the star seed, it’s eaten by a (brilliant-looking) dinosaur, placing it out of his attain.

The Physician and Pleasure head again to the resort and, 65 million years later, discover the star is now able to detonate. It’s been locked inside a stone construction with a heavy stone door that neither of them can transfer, and time is operating out. So, the Physician, who boasts that he’s “good with rope,” steals a rope from the Everest base camp, hanging it off the again of the Orient Categorical to haul the stone away.. It’s a powerful and kinetic sequence let down solely by the dreadful CGI when Gatwa’s standing on the practice. Typical Physician Who: It could possibly now do convincing dinosaurs, however now can’t do a convincing practice.

It’s right here issues lose their coherence, since Pleasure’s eyes flash with possession power, however by the point the Physician returns, Pleasure has… eaten the star? Absorbed it one way or the other? Made pals with and bonded with it? He finds her standing on a cliff edge, the place Pleasure says she’ll merge with the star and take it to the heavens, the place it can do no person any hurt in any respect. At this level in my notes, I wrote “Don’t let this be Bethlehem,” when the digicam pulls out to disclose that’s precisely the place they’re, full with three camels parked exterior a secure. Oy.

Pleasure reunites together with her mom and the Physician goes again to touring, however not earlier than he will get Anita a job operating the Time Lodge. We additionally get slightly shot of Ruby Sunday, who will return to the present for its second season correct.

As I mentioned on the prime, you’ll be able to’t choose “Pleasure to the World” on the deserves of an everyday episode because it’s serving a number of masters. However I don’t assume we may name it the strongest episode of both Steven Moffatt’s oeuvre or the present’s varied Christmas Specials. Like all the Disney-era episodes, it has a barely incoherent high quality the place the pacing sags and zippers in all of the mistaken locations. I’m for the prolonged apart the place we see a “regular” yr within the lifetime of the Physician, however the story framing it ought to have been tighter to steadiness out the slowness. It’s a enjoyable sufficient strategy to move an hour with a abdomen stuffed with vacation turkey (or your most popular equal) with sufficient mawkishness to make you assume you’ve seen one thing fairly profound. However I don’t assume I’ll be coming again to observe this one many times like I’d for, say, “The Christmas Invasion.”