‘Doctor Who’ Showrunner Russell T Davies and Writer Steven Moffat Reveal More Information About the Upcoming Christmas Special

Sci-fi fans will know that Doctor Who is a brand series and a cult classic. The original series appeared in 1963 and has had several iterations since then, with the most recent, fourteenth season premiering on May 11, 2024, on BBC and Disney, and it has caused a lot of controversy.

The choice to have Ncuti Gatwa take over the role of the Doctor by becoming the Fifteenth Doctor and Jodie Whittaker’s successor as the program’s lead caused a lot of controversy and backlash among fans, but the situation has since settled, and we’re waiting for more content.

The next part of the new Doctor Who series will be the Christmas special titled “Joy to the World,” which is set to be released on December 25, 2024, on Christmas day, which makes sense. In preparation for the upcoming special, showrunner Russell T Davies and writer Steven Moffat sat down for an interview to reveal more information about the upcoming episode.

The authors sat down for an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, revealing more information about the project, and here are the most interesting parts of that discussion:

The Time Hotel is such a great Doctor Who idea, whose was it?

RUSSELL T DAVIES You don’t have to give Steven ideas for Christ’s sake! (Laughs) My brief amounted to, “Christmas special, please!”

STEVEN MOFFAT That was it, yes. “I have no ideas, you have one!” (Both laugh) That’s not true, you did have an idea.

DAVIES Well, we did talk about farces, about doing a comedy.

MOFFAT Yeah. Because I threatened so many years ago to do a time travel farce on Doctor Who; a proper door flapping one. And I never ever got around to writing it, despite more than the normal number of opportunities. And this [“Joy to the World”] isn’t it either. I just didn’t think it was quite right to go. But there’s a ghost of it.

DAVIES There’s one marvelous scene when they’re all in the hotel room and the doors keep opening. There were three doors. There’s a bathroom door, there’s a hotel door…

MOFFAT That’s right and there’s two Doctors and there’s all that.

DAVIES You can see it there. You can see a farce there.

After the “farce” mention, the discussion shifted to that topic:

So, potentially, audiences could still be treated to a Doctor Who farce?

MOFFAT I think it’s not been done. But it would have to be sort of mid-season. I think if it was Christmas, people would be disappointed, as they’d expect a proper one.

DAVIES I don’t know. That’s enough to make me do it!

Maybe as a live stage show?

MOFFAT Yeah, yeah.

DAVIES You know what we should do? The Doctor Who That Went Wrong! Now you’re supposed to say, “You’ve done that!” (Laughs) It would be an easy thing to do. Oh my God, if you got Doctor Who trapped in the Play That Went Wrong [the theatrical comedy show that debuted in London in 2012]! There’s an idea. That’s the beginning of an idea.

(…)

DAVIES Very clever, by our lovely designer who just won the RTS [Craft & Design] award, Phil Sims [Doctor Who‘s production designer]. Doctor Who winning the designer award is very rare, even though there have been very fine designers, in your time and mine. They just don’t tend to win, because people go, “Oh, that’s easy. They’ve got lots of money,” and it’s so rare. I’m so thrilled for them. Brilliant.

MOFFAT There are few shows that are as design-driven as Doctor Who. If you’re a designer, that’s the one to do it. It’s extraordinary.

DAVIES Juries don’t often get that, do they? They sit there and go, “Oh, yeah, that looks like Dickens’ London. That’s very good.” They don’t normally have the eyesight to see how brilliant the design is.

MOFFAT They’re just sitting there and saying, “That’s a posh show. It all must be good. It’s slow and dull, and someone’s having an emotion interminably while looking out of a window. [Said sarcastically] Well, that’s fucking drama.” (Laughs) Actually, that’s comedy now. Comedy with absolutely no jokes in it whatsoever, is given an award.

Finally, an interesting casting detail was also revealed:

Was it difficult to get Nicola Coughlan for this Christmas episode guest role, given how stratospheric her career has gone recently? 

DAVIES She was free and she loved it! She’s an old friend’s of Ncuti’s. I kind of knew her to say hello to and, to be honest, she bit our hands off! It was a very simple offer and a very simple acceptance.

What a delightful woman. She was lovely. Glorious set to be on with her there. She was very, very happy. Ncuti loved her; it was a really nice shoot. It was very kind of her to leave us and then become twice as famous afterwards. (Laughs) We really appreciated the effort she put into this publicity lark.

MOFFAT It was a year-long publicity tour for the Christmas special!

DAVIES In Paris and stuff like that… all in the name of Doctor Who, amazing!

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