- yes, I know i mispronounced Trev’s name as “Trav.” - a playlist of videos covering the issues with the BBC and transphobic reporting: th-cam.com/play/PLmWFOeT2jEofVIDW9X3OL7GqWuX3Dxopu.html
Would it have made the episode better, almost certainly not, but I would have laughed my socks off if when they were flashing through all of the starseed victims at the end the T. rex re-appeared. Like: human, human, silurian, gigantic dinosaur, human.
My theory is that Ncuti was originally supposed to spend a year with Joy but they could only get Nicola Coughlan for so many days on set so her part got split in two
I also think it would have been OBJECTIVELY hilarious if the first part of this episode was completely unchanged, up to the point where the Doctor has to find the code in the hotel for a year. And then, the rest of the episode is about him and Anita having a plot go down on Earth, in Christmas 2024. No mention of the whole Joy thing. The next series happens, we all kind of forget about it. And then in 2025, the Christmas special sees him returning to the hotel, and resuming the Star Seed plot lmaooo Would it have worked? Probably not. Would people be mad that the episode had no conclusion? Absolutely. Would it mean we'd have to go an entire season without the TARDIS because it's stuck in the Time Hotel? Yeah, but I mean, he's done that before. But would it be the biggest troll of the millennium? abso-fucking-lutely, and I'd have been SO here for it lol
It'd make for a hilarious end of series cliffhanger tease like what other series did. Like imagine after S2 15 finally gets some rest and lays down in bed and we linger for about a minute and then he jolts awake and is like "OH FUCK I FORGOT ABOUT JOY"
@@CouncilofGeeks by the time we Returned to the whole Plot of Joy for the Christmas 2025 special people would have forgot about it they would then have to do a entire Re-cap. but anyways i will say loved the actress who played Joy because she does an awesome Job in Bridgerton as one of the main casts and if you have not seen her in that i highly recommend it
Another issue with Joy's sacrifice is, it doesn't exactly feel... voluntary... exactly. Besides the whole "The star seed will bloom and the flesh will rise" mantra running through the episode that makes it seem that somone was always needed to bond with the star in the end. But just before the scene with the case opening at the end, there is a shot of Joy where a golden sheen glazes over her eyes, as if she is still connected to the star. Almost like the star is manipulating her with promises, like "you will be with your mother again" to make her want to make the sacrifice. On the other hand, i do like they had the bravery to go where they did when Joy opened up on her trauma, and how she "followed the rules while they partied " in reference to the tory government imposing lock down and then ignoring it themselves with a while bunch of christmas parties. That really hit home!
Thats exactly the problem I had! You're the first person I've seen that actually brought that up. And it feels weird that the Doctor reacted the way he did knowing she was possessed most the episode
Joy's anger at the politicians partying while she followed isolation rules and that meant her mum died alone? That one hit me HARD. I realize Moffat was probably referencing party-gate (downing st was caught having parties during lockdown) but I think that hits regardless of where you lived COVID from. I lived through it from CR where we had an excellent health minister and people mostly followed the rules and I didn't lose anyone. But my grandmother died a few months before lockdown and I remember thinking thank GOD she went when she did, thank god she didn't have to die in a memory unit by herself because visitors were banned. ETA: spelling
It felt a tiny little bit forced to me but it also needs repeating and never forgotten, so that makes it very much okay. I suspect he added it because he wanted to get his thoughts permanently out there and this was the opportunity. My mother passed in early January 2020 and because of delays, we didn't get to do the interment of her ashes until the Friday before the first lockdown began in the UK. One difference for us was that she was at home, albeit bedridden and barely with it but like you, I'm glad she didn't have to go through everything that came after. Many folks weren't as 'lucky' though.
@@Elwaves2925he probably didn’t need to spell it out, it was blatantly obvious to me when Joy was mentioning she couldn’t even say good bye to her mum properly, but I certainly felt her rage at the politicians partying, because I also felt that when the whole scandal broke.
@@intergalactic92 Yeah, he didn't need to spell it out so obviously and that's what I meant by feeling a little bit forced. Any UK person with a conscience knew what Joy and those scenes were getting at.
I feel Anita could be one, and obviously Joy can't now... but I do articulate why I still liked Joy more than a lot of other audience members did, in a separate comment.
I liked Joy but we got more time with Anita just existing along with the doctor and saw them enjoy each others company. Joy had a heartfelt story but it was tied to the main storyline and it wasn’t enough to bond with her.
I think Joy's sacrifice would have been much more impactful if prior to her sacrifice, she and the doctor firmly established that she not only deserves to live, but wants to live, wants to move forward, come to terms with her mom's death, overcome that guilt she feels, and make a life for herself. I think it was kind of implied, at least that was the impression that I got, but I think it being more clearly established would have made her choosing to sacrifice herself hit harder. Though....I also think her deciding to move on and deal with her feelings of guilt and grief would have been more impactful than her blowing herself up....
As a former barista, I can't get over the "pumpkin latte." Not a pumpkin spice latte, mind you. Pumpkin latte. I'm imagining chunks of pumpkin puree floating in steamed milk with espresso. Yummy!
I've been surprised on how much Anita felt like a great fleshed out character with a great relationship with the doctor in 10 minutes. Compared that to Ruby, which, in her entire season felt very flat to me. (I liked Ruby though, but very much missed those 'real life moments' between her and the doctor)
It's also kinda weird imo to have a character that has been mind controlled by the star/suitcase and still feeling the effects of it throughout the episode even after the doctor makes her mad to do the self sacrifice thing. Because the question is now did Joy actually do it out of her own intention or was it the star influncing her?
My current headcanon is this hotel was made by the doctor to give him a way to travel if he lost the tardis, but more important give the doctor a way to get hot water and milk
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had a tradition where I watch Monsters Inc on Christmas Eve, so I find it rather amusing that this episode takes so many cues from that film, both in terms of the basic premise of a set of doors which serve as interdimensional portals to doors in other locations (and, if you take The Pixar Theory to be canon, that the doors are also dotted throughout history) and many of the plot points, including, but not limited to one of the doors leading to the side of Mount Everest, a character ending up on the wrong side of a door which didn’t work and having to find their way back via a different door, the main antagonist’s goal being to create a new energy source to profit off, and an anthropomorphic lizard serving as a secondary antagonist (albeit an unwilling one in this case.)
Joys death wasn't a sacrifice. It was a Christmas suicide. It may not have been the intent, but it can be viewed as such. And presenting a suicide as something positive is problematic.
Joy’s death tainted the whole episode for me. Whether or not this was the intention, I interpreted her death as being essentially s****de. I understand that she seemed to become possessed by the star seed again and that maybe at that point it was too late for her to escape its pull, but Moffat didn’t have to write it that way. I would have rather seen her accept her grief and guilt over her mom’s death, stop putting out a fake cheer, forgive herself, have the Doctor help her to connect genuinely (kind of like how Anita helped him open up and connect), and then she comes out the other side with some authentic joy and love. Instead she gets possessed by this star that tells her that her only choice is for her to die and that’s the only way her life can have meaning??? That’s messed up. And on Christmas????
I did still like a lot of the episode. Like the stuff with Anita and the concept of the Time Hotel and Nicola Coughlan’s performance and Trev was all great. I also like the silly Christmas special stuff like with the Trex showing up. But I don’t think I could go back and watch the episode
talking about joys death you can see something flashes in her eyes when she got near the seed in the tomb so it was prob it making her take it in than her just taking it to kill her self
@@KingsNJenssons I noticed that yeah and agree that’s what was intended. It’s how I understood that moment too, that she was possessed again. I would have liked to see her fight the possession/the doctor help her fight the possession and then they release the star into the sky together with Joy, who’s been with the star, informing him that it’s safe and it wants to bring hope to the world. Maybe it was even inspired by her, and then in return inspires her. It was the notion that the star wants her to essentially forfeit her life and that’s the only way for her life to be worthwhile was just kind of messed up to me, especially in the context of her having been blaming herself for her mother dying alone. This is just how the episode struck me. I watched it with my family, and they all liked it to varying degrees and interpreted it differently.
Didn't really like it. Some things were good, but the end just felt like the Doctor gave up and let Joy kill herself - then walks off with a big cheesy going on his face - thought it was really poor, and a huge downer emotionally. And even though I liked the sequence where the Doctor took a year out, I thought the resolution of that thread was also weak (and I thought the whole point was meant to be that the Tennant Doctor had effectively retired, which is why Ncuti's Doctor is do emotionally open - so saying he's never lived a normal life directly contradicts what I thought was the whole (in universe) point of the Bi-generation). Overall, it just ended up feeling messy, with some good ideas not properly realised and generally being lost in the mix along with repeated beats from previous Moffat stories. I think this felt tired.
I think Moffat was trying to make it clear that it wasn't a sacrifice (going as far as having Joy explicitly saying she's not dying) but the reactions are showing that could have done it differently. I think he was trying to make it into a transformation, which I saw but maybe could have been shown differently
Plotwise, did the Doctor actually achieve anything in this episode? Would Joy and the Star Seed have done exactly the same thing if he had never showed up?
I think that his meddling meant that Villengard lost their connection with the star so ultimately can't use it. But yes, I had the exact same thought. The Doctor was a consequential as Indiana Jones is in Raiders of the Lost Ark
We thought Moffat couldn't get even more insane but he proved us wrong again and I wouldn't have it any other way - sure the logic behind the Time Hotel makes no sense if you think about it for more than a minute but I really don't care All the supporting cast was very well characterized and really felt for them when they died. I wasn't there for my dad when he died but it was after Covid so I had the chance but I was just too afraid, so I really sympathizes with Joy - something I thought about the 15th saying she will burn and she will die but Joy saying she is just changing can be seen as a commentary about different Doctor's views on regeneration. I'm so exited for more Doctor Who and wish you all happy holidays
My favourite part about the Time Hotel is that the logic around it doesn’t really make sense, and it’s probably never going to be brought up again by the show (but Big Finish will more than likely do five box sets where the Fifth Doctor and River Song hang out there), and that’s kind of fine.
Regarding Villengard, I like to think that the Doctor has already taken them down based on the 9th Doctor's reference to turning it into a banana grove. As a result, any encounter with Villengard is from a point in their history prior to the Doctor taking them down off screen. Under this interpretation, he has no reason to go after them in his current or a future incarnation because he already did it in his past.
@@CouncilofGeeks Fair, yeah. I definitely extrapolate more from that in headcanon, though if they ever needed a reason to write Villengard off, referencing that to recontextualize it would be an easy route to take.
My thought when she became a star and it was passed off as happy was that isn't she supposed to be in her 20s? That's very young for it to be an uplifting noble sacrifice and not deeply sad
When Trev appeared on screen, I lit up inside. I knew I’d seen him somewhere and he’d clearly done a fantastic job. I had to look it up so I could focus on the episode. He was Jasper in Cruella, one of my two favorite characters from that film, and he did such a wonderful job in that role.
I tried to place him and eventually realized he has a brother from another mother. He looks like the YTer Catillumati. I did finally remember Trev as Frenchie for "Our Flag Means Death".
You definitely articulated what was bugging me about this episode better than I could, most of the episode I did very much enjoy but pretty much everything about Joy just felt... off, particularly her ending. And it's tragic too 'cause it's SUCH a waste of Nicola Caughlan who's frankly one of the best up-and-comers in the industry right now, a truly incredible actor and I suspect that if they hadn't had such a brilliant actor present then the character would have felt like an absolute nothing
Almost everyone who I've seen review this special hopes Anita shows up again later in the show, because they loved that section, and what we got from her, more than with Joy. Most are agreeing, it is one if not the very best of part of the episode, and most think it is the best part. I get it, even if I appreciate both for different reasons. In Joy's case, I don't see it so much as her giving up because, oh, her death is better than her life... but rather that she has absolutely seen what has happened to at least one other who even carried the star seed, and heard what The Doctor said about what it is, etc. Someone had to deal with it quickly when it was getting ready to go, and her eyes glowed before she ran off with it. I think in that moment, she connected to it and the others absorbed by it, and wanted to make *their* involuntary sacrifice mean something, since she now knew that it did need one final step to evolve to the next stage, and that it could be a kind thing, rather than a weapon. The Doctor ran off to find a way to open the compartment it was within, and Joy had no way of knowing if he would get back in time or not, just that she could do something, and unlike all those people partying while she wasn't able to be there for her mother, she still had hope for humanity as a whole, if history wasn't ruined by the star going off on Earth, or too close to it. It epitomized The Doctor's 'Where I fall' speech: "“Winning? Is that what you think it’s about? I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone, or because I hate someone, or because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun. God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works because it hardly ever does.. I DO WHAT I DO BECAUSE IT’S RIGHT! Because it’s decent! And above all, it’s kind! It’s just that.. Just kind. If I run away today, good people will die. If I stand and fight, some of them might live. Maybe not many, maybe not for long. Hey, you know, maybe there’s no point to any of this at all. But it’s the best I can do. So I’m going to do it. And I will stand here doing it until it kills me. And you’re going to die too! Some day.. And how will that be? Have you thought about it? What would you die for? Who I am is where I stand.. Where I stand is where I fall. Stand with me. These people are terrified. Maybe we can help a little. Why not, just at the end, just be kind?” Joy wasn't doing any of it to beat Villengard or those politicians, or to win at some game, etc. She didn't take it back into the Time Hotel to use the knowledge of the star seed to strike back at anyone, but took it out of that chamber to the surface in order to take it into space. She knew her physical form would go away, and she wouldn't be herself anymore, even if she could affect things, because there were others already part of it as well. She could have just left everything up to The Doctor far earlier, but couldn't let it go, knowing what it was. She could have tried to hide in the past, in the Time Hotel, anything but the danger she already knew killed the Silurian before her, and others before him. She might not have been as clever as The Doctor, or have the experience through the different time doors to do anything near what he did... but she did do what she could, knowing what it meant. She became the start for the hope of what time she did have with her mother before the pandemic, by not letting Earth be destroyed. She let the process to become the star begin, having left the chamber, not even knowing if The Doctor would return and find her in time to say goodbye. Without hope of anything but buying Earth and everyone on it more time. Without guarantee of any witness who would know who she was, and what the star she became would mean. Without reward, not knowing beforehand that she could one day bring her mother to join her. All the qualities that The Doctor stood for, just not articulated aloud. She had flaws... but she also showed her true nature in her choice. Kindness, despite it all. A hopeful reassurance that time continues on.
@@polgarauk5606 and thank you for your reply! Of course, the majority comes from The Doctor's own speech and comparison to it... but it seemed befitting to me, and perhaps not as direct as it could have been, but still present.
That's the best explanation I've seen, I'll keep it in mind the next time I watch the episode (and yes, I definitely plan to watch it again). It makes sense, though a little nudge in the writing oculd have made it clearer
@@HelenWheelsUtah, I appreciate your reply and response to my analysis. (1/?) As for Capaldi, to be quite honest, he isn't my favorite Doctor. He does have some fantastic speeches that match what his character concept was about, but he also had a lot of incongruities that seemed like forced writing that went against that concept, which kind of detracts slightly for me. He has some fantastic episodes, but he also has quite a few that were mediocre or even didn't have enough for me to want to rewatch them. Most Doctors have at least something to that extent, to be fair, but those remaining still had things that detracted for me, much as I do love him when he does his best. I haven't seen much of Classic Who due to rights issues , but I have seen everything since the revival, so I can't judge earlier Doctors in that regard, and thus won't speak of them in my ranking. I only recently found out Tubi has the 26 Classic Who series that have been recovered thus far, and prior to that I was exceptionally limited by how they were legally in the USA. I'll have to watch the movie separately, but that's much, much further in the future that I'm not worried about that yet for analysis, heh.
My feeling with Joy's sacrifice is that it didn't feel like much of a sacrifice *to her*. That she viewed her own life as not really worth much, and that this one act of self-sacrifice would redeem it -- not the usual kind of self-redemption (the villain making amends for all the damage they've done), but more like making her life mean something. I didn't really like that, and your review helped me understand why: it's because we don't really get to know whether she feels that way, and if so -- why.
You nailed the issue i had with this episode. I love Nicola Coughlan and she's giving it 110%, but Joy was underwritten. The flip side of that is Anita who was almost more the heroine of the episode.
Others might have pointed this out, but in my headcanon, Joy's sacrifice at the end is more or less earned by the remark she made after being freed from the briefcase, when she's fascinated by the thought of having merged with the star seed. She sees the potential in that and wants it to happen.
I agree with most of your points about Joy’s writing, it could’ve been done a little better, but i feel like the intention in Joy merging with the star was not a sacrifice scene, but a “seizing the opportunity” scene. Joy feels great pain about her mother dying alone, she feels loneliness is the worst thing that can happen to anyone; and becoming a star allows her not only to be with her mother in her final moments; but erasing that loneliness from anyone looking to her as a star. She gets to be exactly the opposite than thouse politicians she resents. I think that when Joy says “is not dying, it’s changing” that is not a cop out to make the episode merrier, I really feel Moffat intended that line to be what Joy believes in her heart, that she is better off being a gift to humanity and bringing joy to the world. The episode doesn’t need anything from Joy to sacrifice, but something from Joy to move on, and the episode provides that.
In Re: Joy's sacrifice. While I understand where you're coming from, I think this is more so the case of her death not intending to be like Astrid's sacrifice but rather it being an ultimate reward for her -- she's elevated out of her otherwise unhappy life and given hope/happiness not just moving on to a greater existence within the star but also getting to be with her mother again so the latter didn't die alone as she otherwise would have. That's the other side of the perceptual coin in regards to her character and her place in the story. (I agree, though, that the writing for her is a bit "less than" relative to what it could/should have been, for sure.)
I wish trav just never died to begin with. Reminds me of the father from “boom” who died and came back as AI and went against programming to help the doctor
Fun episode, nice and sweet for the Christmas season. Though it does suffer from some of Moffat's signature negative Moffatisms imo, with a couple characters having too much emphasis on their plot relevance within the story than their own fleshed-out personality. Also [spoilers] it seemed really bizarre to me that the lady working at the hotel didn't become the next companion? It really seemed like that was exactly where the plot was headed, having her work at the Time Hotel instead just felt out of place
I honestly thought the hotel she was originally working at would turn out to be the original hotel that the Time Hotel came from. What with the Doctor just casually doing alien things there, it just seemed like a natural development to me. Ah, well. Happy that Anita was recruited for work at the Time Hotel :)
i completely agree: either anita and joy should have been fused into one character or the year with anita should have been a completely different episode
I agree with you about the best parts and I did really enjoy this Christmas special. I think you put your finger on what bothered me about the ending - Yes we did not get enough of Joy to really appreciate her sacrifice and it is disturbing to see the doctor push her to acknowledge the negative aspects of her life in order to break the spell of the Star Seed. I do feel though that this Special is very much the product of a post Covid era and that a lot of people will identify with Joy and the need to put on a happy face for all those video calls to our loved ones.. I kind of got the feeling that she may have become lonely and sad as a result of Covid lockdowns and that it was not her natural state of being. Covid I feel affected young adults starting their lives and having to put it all on hold as much as it did older generations who were vulnerable to the health risks of Covid. I do agree though that that didn’t come across in the writing. To me it was summed up in the video call with her Mum just before she died, but not enough time was spent on developing the idea. I did enjoy that Doctor’s year out with Anita though and was glad to see her get an exciting job out of the experience :)
Given that vilengaurd has appeared in twice upon a time, boom, and joy to the world, I feel like it’s more or less confirmed that Steven Moffat is hoping to bookend his last story with a reference to his first story but just keeps getting asked back and having to do it again. Not sure if this is confirmed behind the scenes but seems to be the case
Okay. I have seen several comments talking about Joy being possessed by the star seed and that that makes her death/sacrifice meaningless. But I had a different interpretation. My interpretation comes from nothing said, just something I thought I noticed. We see a few different characters get "possessed" when the briefcase is transferred. First point: each time the briefcase is transferred, you hear, "Access is upgraded," or "being upgraded". I believe that's the AI, installed by Villengard to control and direct the star seed. Maybe I'm wrong, but the Villengard want to use the star seed as either a power source or a weapon. They don't mind if the Time Hotel and every event door connected to the hotel is destroyed, and are unconcerned about how that will affect Earth history, etc. So in my interpretation, whenever the "possessed" person starts smiling strangely and saying that line about the star and the flesh, that's the Villengard AI controlling them. But when each person dies, their personality and ideas are absorbed in the AI, and when there's enough of them, they overwhelm the AI, and cooperate with the star seed. When Joy's eyes flash gold when she's alone with the open briefcase and the seed, I think she's talking to the seed, and that she's been already compromised by the AI to the point (she was possessed a number of times) that she probably us going to be absorbed by the AI. Instead, she bonds with the star seed so she can save the Earth and the Time Hotel, in agreement with all the other beings who have been absorbed by the AI. They can continue this way. It's not death, as such. Maybe I'm being sappy. Sorry. I do feel Joy gets a kind of miserable treatment and painted as fat, lonely, unloved, so on. And as Vera said, the existence Joy had has ended, and Moffat didn't give Nicola Coughlan enough to make her someone we would feel sympathy for and struck by the loss of her. Trev is someone who we really do feel that loss. It's a terrific performance which is written well. But Joy doesn't get enough for us to feel the pain of her sacrifice, or that it is a sacrifice. Except for the bit where Joy obeyed the rules while "they partied". In the UK, there's still a lot of anger over politicians gathering for drinking parties while scolding the nation to quarantine. (Ugh.) But that's the most given so the audience can get attached to the character of Joy. Oh. One last thing. I am really, really sorry for Vera that the BBC is being so ridiculous about her using any clips. It does them no favors, but it seems par for the course right now.
This episode was certainly a episode of Doctor Who thats for sure lol. Also just to give you insight on some of the actors. Joy is played by Nicola Coughlan who is mostly known for her work in Derry Girls and Bridgerton. She i think has a nice career ahead of her tbh and she was also diplomatic Barbie in the Barbie movie. She plays this role in this doctor who episode quite well but the writing is a little flat tbh. Joel Fry plays Trev and hes been in a fair few things and is also a musician as well as a actor. He had a role in Plebs (which is a comedy set in rome and a little raunchy) as well as being in films like Cruella, Yesterday & two of the Paddington movies. He also had a 8 episode role in Game of Thrones. He cant fit in to a role quite well and i hope he gets more in future too. Stephanie de Whalley who played Anita doesnt have too many credits to her name but i wouldnt have minded her being the companion going forward if we didnt know who was going to be in series 2. I think she could have been like a Donna or Ruby friend like character to the doctor
5:45 -- when I heard 15's rant on Joy, as he was trying to shake her loose from the Star Seed's influence, I remember thinking, "This is the first time I could see Capaldi's Doctor acting like Gatwa's Doctor", while at the same time also noting that Gatwa's delivery of those lines was widely different form how I'd imagine Capaldi doing it -- and both were quite convincing :)
It is interesting to me to hear so many people seeing 12 in this moment because I very much saw 7, particularly Curse of Fenric 7. I also only see The Doctor calling himself out as purely 15.
Honestly i love the fact that Moffat did with the timespan of one year, what he would previously have done aging the doctor up like 300+ years or something
As a 'Trav', I'd like to mention, I wasn't in this episode, it was a guy named 'Trev'. We are always getting mixed up. Fun romp, but you could see Moffett going down his checklist. Has anyone mentioned that all the stuff with Anita was sweet, but pointless, as all the Doctor really needed to do was catch an Uber to the Noble house and borrow the other Doctor's other Tardis?
talking about joys death you can see something flashes in her eyes when she got near the seed in the tomb so it was prob it making her take it in than her just taking it to kill her self
Great episode for getting to know 15. Series 1 (or whatever it's called) felt a little lacking in the Doctor themself, but this was spot on. Feels like it could have been 2 episodes with how much was put in. As great as Anita was, it was just a bit too short for me to care, Ditto with Joy. I liked the idea of the doctor having to just stay in one place for a year, but didn't 14 just spend a lifetime with Donna?
It’s like this era of the show wants us to purposely ignore his exile on earth as Jon Pertwee where he was stuck on earth until the timelord council deemed his exile over and his 24 year day he spent with river like they are not legitimate parts of the show especially with the whole doctor needs to stop and rest cause of how long he has been on the run for that was in the giggle
A subtler theme running under the main plot is the contrast of corporate cultures. The Time Hotel is well aware of some messy time bleeds like a Silurian wandering through a time door and getting stuck millions of years in the future. They were kind and made sure he way okay in the new world. It would have been far easier to drop him down an incinerator shaft. They didn't have to take the Doctor's recommendation and hire Anita. Someone who saw timey-whimey weirdness and rolled with it, a good skill for a time hotel. The hotel management saw that their business had effects and helped their employees. In contrast to the star manufacturer, who didn't care how or who died as long as the plan was completed. Destroying the bodies as they went. I wonder what rage happened in the board room when they realized the star's consciousness rejected corporate values. I felt the star story did suffer from so much time being given to Anita. I am left wondering did the star bond with Joy as a kindred spirit or did Joy give the star a less damaging option. Did the star have character development?
The second I saw (that early death) I thought "Vera is going to hate that so much" but I actually don't know (as the video hasn't premiered yet). Wondering how much the deaths bothered her or not. (Like the crying felt artificial to me in previous episodes but actually felt very justified here, Gatwa is a doctor who very much celebrates life.)
I don't think they have a problem with quick deaths of secondary characters in general, otherwise I don't think they'd be a Doctor Who fan lol, characters die in the first five minutes in like every other episode. I think it's just when the show adds some sort of otherwise superficial detail about the character, like that they're gay or have a family, THEN kills them. This kind of stuff never bugged me in particular too much, but I can see why it would to others
as an atheist, can I note it took my fundamentalist christian parents like 5 minutes after me & a spiked bat of confirmation to get the star of Bethlehem reference? I say this appreciating the pre-spiked-bat joy empowerment aspect (tho I wish she'd got more character development & action, I appreciate the hell out of her empowerment)
The only real moment of characterization I thought they gave Joy was the rant about her mum. It felt real, painful, raw. Moffatt needed to do more with her if he wanted us to care about her as anything other than a plot device. The Doctor's character, however, was in full force and I LOVED HIM!!! Ncuti Gatwa shone in this episode. I liked getting to see the range of activities and experiences, and how he does treat things with genuine glee and delight and sadness. I like that we see him FEEL. Whittaker's Doctor kept so much bottled up, having Gatwa's unable to control when tears slip out is refreshing (and yes, it happens a lot, but Gatwa cries so beautifully on camera.). And the shift from bottled up to healthy expression, thanks to Tennant's fourteenth Doctor acting a a bridge works better the longer we see Gatwa on screen. I did notice they're still doing the "mavity" thing. I'd like to have that fixed/explained/dropped sometime in the coming season/series, personally. It's a cute gag, but it's going to get old, if it hasn't for most people already.
Tbh, that's kind of just british Christmas specials for you, like even the cute animated ones like the snowman: that ends with the little lad sobbing over the puddle that used to be the snowman for literally no reason, it's genuinely a bit bizarre, but definitely not unique to doctor who.
Thank you for the video, Vera! And happy holidays, especially for our queer community! Please, try to be safe in the next year! I did really like this episode, especially because, in some aspects, it does not felt like it was trying to be a holiday special just for the sake of being one. The Doctor working and living in the "present-day" hotel for one year, and becoming Anita's friend was the best part! It was Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor just... being the Doctor while taking a break from jumping around time and space, and thinking about what to do with his life. I love the scene where the Doctor fixes Anita's car navigation system to take her where she actually needs to go, instead of where she wants, and the car is now also blue (LOL)! I do also appreciate how, at least with Trev and the Silurian Manager, the episode tries to address Vera's criticism about "unnecessary cruelty" over side characters. However, a criticism which I am hearing/watching/reading across reviews is how Joy is too underdeveloped. Unfortunately, she is just a "means to an end" character, and it makes hard to care for her sacrifice. I do wonder if the story did have Anita and Joy merged as a single character (and not necessarily killing them at the end) would fix the main shortcomings of this episode.
I really liked this one - it had so many characters that I liked (including Joy, especially Anita). It had a fun premise, lots of fun scenes, fun dialogue, and I felt heartwarmed by the end. My only complaint is that I needed more explanations for the logistics of the climax.
I thought this episode was a lot of fun and good up until the conclusion. The ending didn't make any sense to me. Not just Joy suddenly sacrificing herself, but also, they kept acting like the world gets destroyed if the star sees blooms, but then joy eats it or whatever she just flies off into space and turns into a star harmlessly. What? Nothing about the ending made sense. A very bad conclusion to an otherwise enjoyable outing.
My thoughts are that at the end of the episode Anita left the hotel without a manager or an owner to replace her. she also left behind a microwave thats biger on the inside and a car with satnav that takes you "where you need to go", who will deal with that alien tech i wonder?
I can't tell if this is just me being overly cynical because I haven't seen other people complain about this but I hated how the pandemic was used as shorthand to get the audience to empathise with Joy. That felt lazy and unearned. Personally, I think the specific type of unprocessed grief and frustration associated with having a family member die during the pandemic is too complicated to wrap up in a neat bow at the end of a 60 minute episode where it wasn't the main focus. My reaction was ,"No Steve, I'm not going to feel bad for a character you didn't give yourself enough time to develop just because I couldn't go to my nan's funeral and still have complicated strong feelings about that." I didn't like that Joy died instead of getting some other kind of closure or living without closure because that would have been too difficult to write and wouldn't fit in an upbeat saccharine episode.
Actually, the Doctor who spent the most time in a single place without apparent incident was probably the 12th Doctor, secluded in St Luke's University for several decades watching over Missy's vault. But we only saw the tail end of that, and in any case, that wasn't a 'normal' existence. (11 spent centuries on Trenzalore, but it was a war zone for much of that time) As for 15 -- I think it's important to remember that he had a choice. It might look as if he didn't, but he did. The episode actually states, explicitly, that he chose not to call Ruby. But he also chose not to call Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. 15 would still remember a time when he was stranded on Earth without the ability to travel in time and space -- back when he was the Third Doctor; and he spent *that* time working for UNIT. He could have easily done so again: call Kate, who would happily have arranged some work to keep him occupied for a year, giving him money, a place to stay and a flight to New York at the end of the year (actually, how *did* he get from London to New York?). And he must have known that this was an option, and chosen to have a calm year with Anita instead
I read Joy as a mirror to the Doctor’s current mindset, and her sacrifice at the end as a reminder to the Doctor not to slip back into that mindset with Ruby gone. But that’s maybe too heavy for a Christmas special, I’m not sure.
"Functionally the character is dead" - Sure. Absolutely. But it still felt like one of Moffat's But That's All Right Then follow-ups, which is what removed to emotionally invest in it. And if we're going to have a character die at the end of a Christmas episode - heroic sacrifice or otherwise - I want it to hurt as much as the end of the classic Christmas animated short from 1982, The Snowman, tacking on a "She became a star and lived as one" to a death (And this goes for Astrid as well) inherently means its not going to. Overall it was... Fine. I don't recall staying in a hotel room with those locked doors (adjourning rooms, I believe, so you can get between two rooms you've rented - e.g. parents and children - without going into the corridor), so the entire conceit was somewhat lost on me; the stuff with was the best part and I kind of wish that had have been extended to the entire episode; didn't really spend enough time with Trev for his death to have meant anything to me either (before he became AI stardust undoing it). It was fun. I didn't dislike it. But it wasn't particularly standout and didn't really make me feel anything beyond that surface 'this is fun' level. And, by gods I have realized over this Christmas that I am _easy_ to cause to emote from media as I found myself welling up a fair few times during my Aardman binge (so far sticking to W&G and the Shaun the Sheep films but I'm sure I'll expand beyond those as I go forward with this) since watching Vengence Most Fowl so getting the sense that something is trying to get me to emote like that but which doesn't is... Weird to see that sort of failure? I have literally welled up at a children's slapstick comedy without any intelligible dialogue this Christmas. (Finally got around to watching the first Shaun the Sheep movie which I think I've been meaning to for 9 and a half years?)
I'm going to disagree, I don't think this feels like one of his "well that's all right then" follow ups at all, for a very specific reason. Previously with other cases (Bill, Amy, Clara, River, etc.) there was still a tragedy to the death, we were allowed to feel it as a loss and then there was a salve placed on it after (mileage will vary as to how welcome that salve was). But here, we're being asked to be happy at the point she actually dies. We're basically being told "oh no, don't mourn her" pre-emptively and that is not the same thing.
Same with the never really having stayed in one of the hotel rooms with a locked door so the idea that they "always" have them didn't really land with me. On top of that one of them was the orient express and one was a base camp tent which definitely didn't have mysterious locked doors so the whole concept kind of falls apart. (I guess maybe the Silurians built whatever the one that was in the cretaceous period went to since they appear to have coexisted with dinosaurs, but it was never really explained even though the doctor was assuming it could only go to human history so IDK.) I mean, I like the concept of the Time Hotel, but the whole locked door thing didn't work with the way they ended up using it and was much more distracting than amusing for me. Wasn't necessary anyway. You can just say it connects to whatever door was already there (actually even if you do that you could probably work in a joke about the locked doors without making it the whole concept.) I also didn't really understand how/why the star went back in time to become the star of Bethlehem (or even just connect all the other people and moments met throughout the episode) even though as far as I could tell the reason it was seeded so long ago was because it couldn't just come back to the time when Villengard needed it once ready and I get that it broke from them and became its own thing, but I don't see why that gave it the ability to travel through time as well as space.
I haven't been in a lot of hotel rooms, but I have been in a few, and not one had a mysterious locked door. While you were talking about the Silurian, I thought back on the things he had said, and it suddenly hit me. He got a job in the hotel because he came through one of the doors accidentally. So The Doctor should've realised that the hotel had a door to the Mesozoic.
I'm not normally a fan of Christmas episodes either, but this one was easily my favorite and it was pretty much entirely because of way they developed the relationship between The Doctor and Anita. That was such a beautiful, bittersweet platonic love story. Throw in The Doctor finally being the one to tell himself that being alone isn't good for him and, of course, Trev and I can easily shrug off the hamfisted ending. I'd love to see an entire season that just covers The Doctor's year on Earth and I really hope that they give Anita the Donna treatment and bring her back as an official companion.
loved the episode but is it just me or is the shot of the doctor doing the tear running down his eye getting annoying for anyone else? i like seeing the doctor being this in touch with his emotional state but im tired of them recreating that shot everytime he has to cry
A frustratingly mediocre story, not bad but feels more like an obligation script than Boom. Combined with confirmation that Belinda (the s2 companion) is just another present day earth girl, I'm really struggling with Doctor Who prioritising formula over creativity, it's getting really dull.
I'm not sure how to write it, but imagine if there was no Anita, but instead, the Doctor spent that year with Joy, and THEN Joy made the sacrifice. Maybe they were afraid that if she wasn't more willing, it would just be seen as a re-tread of Astrid's death.
I just kind of need someone to explain what happened after they found the ancient site with the case inside. What time era was that when did the star actually go off and why'd joy take it in was that voluntary? On a scifi techy physics note I'd love to know the benifit of making your own star. Is it just a really chesty way of getting reeeaallu good energy returns like the best nuclear ever?
I quite liked it. I mean… it’s not the worst Doctor Who Christmas special. It’s not even the worst one Moffat’s written. I’d certainly argue it’s better than The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe or Last Christmas. And it’s better than last year’s in my opinion as well. Also, apparently the lady on the train played by Niamh Marie Smith is supposed to be Sylvia Trench. As in, the James Bond character from Dr. No and From Russia With Love who was originally played by Eunice Gayson. I’d call her a “Bond girl” but she’s only briefly in her films. Anyway, this apparently means that James Bond is canon in the Doctor Who universe… and that brings me no comfort whatsoever.
On a technical point .. this star forming from the seed was supposed to be this event that would destroy the earth … and it ended up so subdued. What was the danger? It also appears from “the flesh will rise” that it was part of the process for it to merge with flesh to form, so everything went to plan. But how would villengard get a vast source of energy from it?
Good review. I enjoyed the special. The hotel idea was cool, different time eras in one place cool. Ncuti was great, that moment in the beginning putting his coat and getting his sonic so good! I do understand your thoughts on Joy, her ending I see why. Trev was great, proud of him. It was a delightful special to watch
My main issue with Joy is that they had to cast a chubby actress to play someone who’s sad and lonely. Because only chubby characters can be sad and lonely. Done get me wrong, I have nothing against people who have a few extra pounds, I have a few myself. But why must we always be stereotyped into sad and lonely people? 😡
Overall really loved the episode. Ncuti Gatwa is just a treat to watch as the Doctor, and the supporting cast was pretty dang good. The Year with Anita was one a truly great sequence. Maybe, just maybe, it’s possible that the ending with the star was the littlest bit heavy handed. Just a teenie bit on the nose.
I think villengard should remain ubiquitous … not something that could ever be defeated. Just a fact of the whoniverse. Something bigger than the doctor and the daleks etc. Something far more sinister than any villain posing a particular threat (like a cyber man invasion) because it can’t be defeated. (( I like and agree with your comparison with the borg… it should be like the borg were before the queen )). I hope it conitinues to turn up, even in subtle easter egg references throughout future series.
Overall I enjoyed the episode, but there were quite a few things that didn't really work: 2 half-companions, too much repetition (did we really need to see the room service scenes twice?), Joy might be lonely after losing her mother, but that sacrifice was pretty rough.
I have two major things that bugged me about Joy's death. 1. What does it change? We know that Villengard is planning on using this star's power for nefarious reasons. And in the end the star was made. So, are Joy, Trev and others protecting star from harvesting by Villengard? How is it better than just not creating a star in the first place? 2. Doctor's reaction. Doctor NEVER celebrates death. Even needed, even noble self-sacrifice - death is death. And every death is a tragedy. Doctor even mourns villains and objectively evil people. So for him to celebrate Joy's death even in this Christian self-sacrifice context feels wrong, Very-very wrong. Which especially odd, given Doctor's reaction to Silurian's death earlier. THAT was Doctor-like. So, much like Vera, I really enjoyed whole special, besides very ending.
For me - the easy fix for this story would be to amalgamate the Anita and Joy character... no time to fully explain how to get around the plot/set up for that, but the weight of the episode would work so much better if those two characters were combined as one.
I would love to see the doctor going up against Villengard; and have it actually end with it making bananas. Like, the doctor knew he was responsible, but hasn't actually done it yet.
I really disagree with you about Joy. For me she have choosen to be lonely because she thought she should for guilty. But when she accept to be the star, she give up her punishment to be happy bringing light and not having the star destroying everything. It was she accepting that she could be happy.
Also, regarding the writing with Joy, I have seen complaints (for example from the channel WhoCulture) from people who claimed that it was difficult to get to like Joy when the first half of the episode she's hypnotized by the star seed and not acting like herself (which we don't know what that is anyways, because we didn't have enough time with her) and I do agree on that. If you want to do that, maybe have her be hypnotized later, as part of her sacrifice, instead of this early on.
There may be no sacrifice with Joy, but there's hope and aspiration. She chooses the one path available to reach the only thing that matters: reunion with her mother. I don't think it's a bad thing.
Overall I enjoyed the episode but like everyone else the year in joy’s room is the best part cause we get to know Anita better than joy cause we only see joy a few minutes before she is possessed by the briefcase and then sacrifices herself to the Star seed I don’t know if i would go full companion with Anita like other people do but I would go at least reoccurring character for like another episode with the time hotel or something i also feel in terms of episode length this era feel shorter I know it’s the same episode runtime but with having ad free Disney+ like i do it like watching a DVD copy of the episode which can make the episode feel shorter than it is they should have utilized the nature of streaming and could have made the episodes a bit longer like chibnall did making his episode runtime an hour and ten minutes long if it was longer we could have had more time with joy
I loved the ep, but the ending felt pretty rushed to me. Still, I had a great time watching it. 8/10 for me. Great review. You put into words perfectly the issues I had with it. Perhaps Anita should've been the one called Joy? Merging the stories into one may have been the best outcome, ultimately. I also feel that Joy should've grappled with her loneliness more. If she'd expressed that finally her life had meaning, and the Doctor replied that 'you've ALWAYS been special. Not because of this, not because of what you're doing, but because of WHO you are. Who you have always been', this would've gotten around the implication that her sacrifice was cheerier because she didn't have anything to live for anyway. I think merging her character with Anita's would've DEFINITELY helped.
Anita never gives her last name... she then works in a timetravel hotel, and will most likely see the Doctor again... as many others have also theorized, perhaps SHE is Mrs. Flood.
The stewardess was a great sacrifice, as she is an usung service personal hero, and Grace while being weird, ther ecomes plenty of her being honored. Joy really should get time to bond with the doctor and do enjoy it and enjoy the time and begin to move on. A character starting to really get something good going and sacrificing is going hard
Another nitpick … if the Bethlehem year 1 room in the time hotel was a sealed subterranean chamber from which you couldn’t exit …. How ripped off would you be if that’s what you ended up with in your booking for Xmas at Bethlehem in the year 1.
Yet another nitpick with the key premise … this was put forward as a tine hotel with portals to hotel rooms with mysterious locked doors .. yet it linked to a tent on Everest and a cavern? And what hotel was there with the dinosaur .. who built the tree house room there? They aren’t hotels with mysterious locked doors!! It would have been fine if it was just portals to random interesting places … but it was explicitly set up as portals behind locked hotel doors.
I absolutely agree with your analysis of the Anita sequence RE: how it effects Joy's development- even as I was watching I was felt like this should have been a case of "kill your darlings"- sometimes the best part of your episode/project has to be sacrificed for the good of the whole! A lesson this episode sorely needed given it doesn't seem to understand how sacrifice like. works. Also while I too hope Villenguard can remain a handy tool in the DW writer's arsenal for whenever they just need a faceless corporation, I've read enough comics to know that if you mention something too often some fan-graduated-to-writer will feel the need to expand on it. Hopefully that won't happen any time soon, but in a franchise like DW I'm pretty sure it's inevitable.
Yes, Joy was definitely a placeholder character, placed in the story to die. She didnt feel like a person, except for one scene when she looses it before the dinosaur. And like you say, if you want us to care about Joy, make us spend more time with her. Most of the time she just stood there or was dragged around by the doctor. And also, like you said, nowhere it was even hinted at that a person had to sacrifice themselves to remove it. Ps. Loved the doctor yelling at himself, best part for me
Maybe the thing about Joy, not really sacrificing herself, is just a way to se death is not just an end. Maybe it was not a sacrifice. I have almost more of a trouble with thinking that her life should be so sad and bad so she wants to end it. So my choice is to see her making a step forward to the unknown afterlife... Or something like that.
Loved this review, as always. Some of the best ever Who reviews ever & always are Vera’s, so happy we’re all back & looking forward to season 2! I agree with the Joy concerns, but thought as a star she managed to be present with her mom at her mom’s death and even, if I remember correctly, brought her mom up to be with her in the star. (Is that right? Need to watch again.) Anyway, that mitigated most of my concerns about Joy’s sacrifice, which were otherwise, for many reasons, rather worrisome.
- yes, I know i mispronounced Trev’s name as “Trav.”
- a playlist of videos covering the issues with the BBC and transphobic reporting: th-cam.com/play/PLmWFOeT2jEofVIDW9X3OL7GqWuX3Dxopu.html
Ha, I just posted a comment saying that his name’s ‘Trev’ as in ‘Trevor’, then I saw this and promptly deleted it 😂
Would it have made the episode better, almost certainly not, but I would have laughed my socks off if when they were flashing through all of the starseed victims at the end the T. rex re-appeared. Like: human, human, silurian, gigantic dinosaur, human.
It probably would have upset the Doctor seeing another T Rex get immolated after what happened to his lady friend in Deep Breath.
My theory is that Ncuti was originally supposed to spend a year with Joy but they could only get Nicola Coughlan for so many days on set so her part got split in two
That makes so much sense!
I also think it would have been OBJECTIVELY hilarious if the first part of this episode was completely unchanged, up to the point where the Doctor has to find the code in the hotel for a year. And then, the rest of the episode is about him and Anita having a plot go down on Earth, in Christmas 2024. No mention of the whole Joy thing. The next series happens, we all kind of forget about it. And then in 2025, the Christmas special sees him returning to the hotel, and resuming the Star Seed plot lmaooo
Would it have worked? Probably not. Would people be mad that the episode had no conclusion? Absolutely. Would it mean we'd have to go an entire season without the TARDIS because it's stuck in the Time Hotel? Yeah, but I mean, he's done that before. But would it be the biggest troll of the millennium? abso-fucking-lutely, and I'd have been SO here for it lol
I actually agree. Would it be good storytelling? Not really. But I would really respect that audacity.
That's an amazing idea that would have sent the fandom into utter revolt.
It'd make for a hilarious end of series cliffhanger tease like what other series did. Like imagine after S2 15 finally gets some rest and lays down in bed and we linger for about a minute and then he jolts awake and is like "OH FUCK I FORGOT ABOUT JOY"
@@CouncilofGeeks by the time we Returned to the whole Plot of Joy for the Christmas 2025 special people would have forgot about it they would then have to do a entire Re-cap. but anyways i will say loved the actress who played Joy because she does an awesome Job in Bridgerton as one of the main casts and if you have not seen her in that i highly recommend it
That might give them enough time to write a complete story, too. 😅
Another issue with Joy's sacrifice is, it doesn't exactly feel... voluntary... exactly. Besides the whole "The star seed will bloom and the flesh will rise" mantra running through the episode that makes it seem that somone was always needed to bond with the star in the end. But just before the scene with the case opening at the end, there is a shot of Joy where a golden sheen glazes over her eyes, as if she is still connected to the star. Almost like the star is manipulating her with promises, like "you will be with your mother again" to make her want to make the sacrifice.
On the other hand, i do like they had the bravery to go where they did when Joy opened up on her trauma, and how she "followed the rules while they partied " in reference to the tory government imposing lock down and then ignoring it themselves with a while bunch of christmas parties. That really hit home!
Thats exactly the problem I had! You're the first person I've seen that actually brought that up. And it feels weird that the Doctor reacted the way he did knowing she was possessed most the episode
Yeah, absolutely
Joy's anger at the politicians partying while she followed isolation rules and that meant her mum died alone? That one hit me HARD. I realize Moffat was probably referencing party-gate (downing st was caught having parties during lockdown) but I think that hits regardless of where you lived COVID from. I lived through it from CR where we had an excellent health minister and people mostly followed the rules and I didn't lose anyone. But my grandmother died a few months before lockdown and I remember thinking thank GOD she went when she did, thank god she didn't have to die in a memory unit by herself because visitors were banned. ETA: spelling
It felt a tiny little bit forced to me but it also needs repeating and never forgotten, so that makes it very much okay. I suspect he added it because he wanted to get his thoughts permanently out there and this was the opportunity.
My mother passed in early January 2020 and because of delays, we didn't get to do the interment of her ashes until the Friday before the first lockdown began in the UK. One difference for us was that she was at home, albeit bedridden and barely with it but like you, I'm glad she didn't have to go through everything that came after. Many folks weren't as 'lucky' though.
@@Elwaves2925 I'm sorry you had to go through that. It's so strange to be grateful that I was relieved she died sooner rather than later.
@@Elwaves2925 I'm sorry you had to go through that. It seems so strange to be relieved that she died sooner rather than later
@@Elwaves2925he probably didn’t need to spell it out, it was blatantly obvious to me when Joy was mentioning she couldn’t even say good bye to her mum properly, but I certainly felt her rage at the politicians partying, because I also felt that when the whole scandal broke.
@@intergalactic92 Yeah, he didn't need to spell it out so obviously and that's what I meant by feeling a little bit forced. Any UK person with a conscience knew what Joy and those scenes were getting at.
You know something's really off with Joy as the marquee guest character when the audience ends up clamoring for Anita to become the companion.
I feel Anita could be one, and obviously Joy can't now... but I do articulate why I still liked Joy more than a lot of other audience members did, in a separate comment.
You have to throw everyone off
I liked Joy but we got more time with Anita just existing along with the doctor and saw them enjoy each others company. Joy had a heartfelt story but it was tied to the main storyline and it wasn’t enough to bond with her.
I think Joy's sacrifice would have been much more impactful if prior to her sacrifice, she and the doctor firmly established that she not only deserves to live, but wants to live, wants to move forward, come to terms with her mom's death, overcome that guilt she feels, and make a life for herself. I think it was kind of implied, at least that was the impression that I got, but I think it being more clearly established would have made her choosing to sacrifice herself hit harder.
Though....I also think her deciding to move on and deal with her feelings of guilt and grief would have been more impactful than her blowing herself up....
As a former barista, I can't get over the "pumpkin latte." Not a pumpkin spice latte, mind you. Pumpkin latte. I'm imagining chunks of pumpkin puree floating in steamed milk with espresso. Yummy!
Maybe that's what he's trying to serve. No wonder nobody took him up on it 😂. Just pumpkin milk
That is usually called cream of pumpkin soup around here
If it’s really just spices, then calling it “masala latte” makes more sense
I loved your inclusion of the other Doctors reading the Pandorica speech!
Thanks! That was a lot of fun to put together.
Me too! That was fun.
They gave Trev a personality, hopes, and screen time endearing him to the audience before killing him.
Chibnal: "I don't get it"
"BENEHHHH"
@@JEEVES635he didn’t write that one
I've been surprised on how much Anita felt like a great fleshed out character with a great relationship with the doctor in 10 minutes. Compared that to Ruby, which, in her entire season felt very flat to me. (I liked Ruby though, but very much missed those 'real life moments' between her and the doctor)
It's also kinda weird imo to have a character that has been mind controlled by the star/suitcase and still feeling the effects of it throughout the episode even after the doctor makes her mad to do the self sacrifice thing. Because the question is now did Joy actually do it out of her own intention or was it the star influncing her?
"I'm not gonna go in a linear order." Which makes perfect sense for a Doctor Who episode.
My current headcanon is this hotel was made by the doctor to give him a way to travel if he lost the tardis, but more important give the doctor a way to get hot water and milk
The Doctor could also have a date with Freddie Mercury in the Time Hotel.
@@travisash8180 oh definitely
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had a tradition where I watch Monsters Inc on Christmas Eve, so I find it rather amusing that this episode takes so many cues from that film, both in terms of the basic premise of a set of doors which serve as interdimensional portals to doors in other locations (and, if you take The Pixar Theory to be canon, that the doors are also dotted throughout history) and many of the plot points, including, but not limited to one of the doors leading to the side of Mount Everest, a character ending up on the wrong side of a door which didn’t work and having to find their way back via a different door, the main antagonist’s goal being to create a new energy source to profit off, and an anthropomorphic lizard serving as a secondary antagonist (albeit an unwilling one in this case.)
Huh! That didn't occur to me. Nifty!
I mean, according to the Pixar theory, all the doors are connected to a single time (otherwise there wouldn't be a energy crisis)
Joys death wasn't a sacrifice. It was a Christmas suicide. It may not have been the intent, but it can be viewed as such. And presenting a suicide as something positive is problematic.
Joy’s death tainted the whole episode for me. Whether or not this was the intention, I interpreted her death as being essentially s****de. I understand that she seemed to become possessed by the star seed again and that maybe at that point it was too late for her to escape its pull, but Moffat didn’t have to write it that way. I would have rather seen her accept her grief and guilt over her mom’s death, stop putting out a fake cheer, forgive herself, have the Doctor help her to connect genuinely (kind of like how Anita helped him open up and connect), and then she comes out the other side with some authentic joy and love. Instead she gets possessed by this star that tells her that her only choice is for her to die and that’s the only way her life can have meaning??? That’s messed up. And on Christmas????
I did still like a lot of the episode. Like the stuff with Anita and the concept of the Time Hotel and Nicola Coughlan’s performance and Trev was all great. I also like the silly Christmas special stuff like with the Trex showing up. But I don’t think I could go back and watch the episode
talking about joys death you can see something flashes in her eyes when she got near the seed in the tomb so it was prob it making her take it in than her just taking it to kill her self
@@KingsNJenssons I noticed that yeah and agree that’s what was intended. It’s how I understood that moment too, that she was possessed again.
I would have liked to see her fight the possession/the doctor help her fight the possession and then they release the star into the sky together with Joy, who’s been with the star, informing him that it’s safe and it wants to bring hope to the world. Maybe it was even inspired by her, and then in return inspires her.
It was the notion that the star wants her to essentially forfeit her life and that’s the only way for her life to be worthwhile was just kind of messed up to me, especially in the context of her having been blaming herself for her mother dying alone. This is just how the episode struck me. I watched it with my family, and they all liked it to varying degrees and interpreted it differently.
The fantasy of suicide star birth Jesus is basic Christian’s jam
Didn't really like it.
Some things were good, but the end just felt like the Doctor gave up and let Joy kill herself - then walks off with a big cheesy going on his face - thought it was really poor, and a huge downer emotionally.
And even though I liked the sequence where the Doctor took a year out, I thought the resolution of that thread was also weak (and I thought the whole point was meant to be that the Tennant Doctor had effectively retired, which is why Ncuti's Doctor is do emotionally open - so saying he's never lived a normal life directly contradicts what I thought was the whole (in universe) point of the Bi-generation).
Overall, it just ended up feeling messy, with some good ideas not properly realised and generally being lost in the mix along with repeated beats from previous Moffat stories.
I think this felt tired.
I think Moffat was trying to make it clear that it wasn't a sacrifice (going as far as having Joy explicitly saying she's not dying) but the reactions are showing that could have done it differently. I think he was trying to make it into a transformation, which I saw but maybe could have been shown differently
Yeah, I thought of it as ascending to a higher plane or being. But I can see why some see it as a sacrifice.
Yes, it may not be her consciousness dying, but everything else about her life has been sacrificed
That's another common Moffatism. She's dead, but it's okay, because she's not dead-dead (cf. Clara, Bill)
"well, that's alright then"
My take is that Joy wasn't planning on checking out of the hotel and that starseed events put her on a different path.
Plotwise, did the Doctor actually achieve anything in this episode? Would Joy and the Star Seed have done exactly the same thing if he had never showed up?
She tells him to find a friend, pushing him back to earth.
I hope the time hotel gets revisited, it has lots of potential
I think that his meddling meant that Villengard lost their connection with the star so ultimately can't use it. But yes, I had the exact same thought. The Doctor was a consequential as Indiana Jones is in Raiders of the Lost Ark
We thought Moffat couldn't get even more insane but he proved us wrong again and I wouldn't have it any other way - sure the logic behind the Time Hotel makes no sense if you think about it for more than a minute but I really don't care All the supporting cast was very well characterized and really felt for them when they died. I wasn't there for my dad when he died but it was after Covid so I had the chance but I was just too afraid, so I really sympathizes with Joy - something I thought about the 15th saying she will burn and she will die but Joy saying she is just changing can be seen as a commentary about different Doctor's views on regeneration. I'm so exited for more Doctor Who and wish you all happy holidays
My favourite part about the Time Hotel is that the logic around it doesn’t really make sense, and it’s probably never going to be brought up again by the show (but Big Finish will more than likely do five box sets where the Fifth Doctor and River Song hang out there), and that’s kind of fine.
@@samuelbarber6177 I don't really listen to big finish but it will be very interesting to explore the time Hotel more
Regarding Villengard, I like to think that the Doctor has already taken them down based on the 9th Doctor's reference to turning it into a banana grove. As a result, any encounter with Villengard is from a point in their history prior to the Doctor taking them down off screen. Under this interpretation, he has no reason to go after them in his current or a future incarnation because he already did it in his past.
Well he turned one specific factory planet into banana groves, we don't know if that was the end of the entire organization.
@@CouncilofGeeks Fair, yeah. I definitely extrapolate more from that in headcanon, though if they ever needed a reason to write Villengard off, referencing that to recontextualize it would be an easy route to take.
My thought when she became a star and it was passed off as happy was that isn't she supposed to be in her 20s? That's very young for it to be an uplifting noble sacrifice and not deeply sad
Nicola Coughlan is 37 and there’s no indication the character is meant to be notably younger than she is.
@@CouncilofGeeks she's 37?!?! If she could drop her skincare routine that would be much appreciated 😂
When Trev appeared on screen, I lit up inside. I knew I’d seen him somewhere and he’d clearly done a fantastic job. I had to look it up so I could focus on the episode. He was Jasper in Cruella, one of my two favorite characters from that film, and he did such a wonderful job in that role.
I tried to place him and eventually realized he has a brother from another mother. He looks like the YTer Catillumati. I did finally remember Trev as Frenchie for "Our Flag Means Death".
Joel Fry is legit a fantastic actor. Before Ncuti was cast as the Doctor, he was my outlier hopeful for the Doctor.
Calling it now the tardis will have chairs in it next season. Love they are still sneaking in mravity instead of gravity
You definitely articulated what was bugging me about this episode better than I could, most of the episode I did very much enjoy but pretty much everything about Joy just felt... off, particularly her ending. And it's tragic too 'cause it's SUCH a waste of Nicola Caughlan who's frankly one of the best up-and-comers in the industry right now, a truly incredible actor and I suspect that if they hadn't had such a brilliant actor present then the character would have felt like an absolute nothing
Almost everyone who I've seen review this special hopes Anita shows up again later in the show, because they loved that section, and what we got from her, more than with Joy. Most are agreeing, it is one if not the very best of part of the episode, and most think it is the best part. I get it, even if I appreciate both for different reasons.
In Joy's case, I don't see it so much as her giving up because, oh, her death is better than her life... but rather that she has absolutely seen what has happened to at least one other who even carried the star seed, and heard what The Doctor said about what it is, etc. Someone had to deal with it quickly when it was getting ready to go, and her eyes glowed before she ran off with it.
I think in that moment, she connected to it and the others absorbed by it, and wanted to make *their* involuntary sacrifice mean something, since she now knew that it did need one final step to evolve to the next stage, and that it could be a kind thing, rather than a weapon.
The Doctor ran off to find a way to open the compartment it was within, and Joy had no way of knowing if he would get back in time or not, just that she could do something, and unlike all those people partying while she wasn't able to be there for her mother, she still had hope for humanity as a whole, if history wasn't ruined by the star going off on Earth, or too close to it. It epitomized The Doctor's 'Where I fall' speech:
"“Winning? Is that what you think it’s about? I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone, or because I hate someone, or because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun. God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works because it hardly ever does.. I DO WHAT I DO BECAUSE IT’S RIGHT! Because it’s decent! And above all, it’s kind! It’s just that.. Just kind. If I run away today, good people will die. If I stand and fight, some of them might live. Maybe not many, maybe not for long. Hey, you know, maybe there’s no point to any of this at all. But it’s the best I can do. So I’m going to do it. And I will stand here doing it until it kills me. And you’re going to die too! Some day.. And how will that be? Have you thought about it? What would you die for? Who I am is where I stand.. Where I stand is where I fall. Stand with me. These people are terrified. Maybe we can help a little. Why not, just at the end, just be kind?”
Joy wasn't doing any of it to beat Villengard or those politicians, or to win at some game, etc. She didn't take it back into the Time Hotel to use the knowledge of the star seed to strike back at anyone, but took it out of that chamber to the surface in order to take it into space.
She knew her physical form would go away, and she wouldn't be herself anymore, even if she could affect things, because there were others already part of it as well. She could have just left everything up to The Doctor far earlier, but couldn't let it go, knowing what it was.
She could have tried to hide in the past, in the Time Hotel, anything but the danger she already knew killed the Silurian before her, and others before him.
She might not have been as clever as The Doctor, or have the experience through the different time doors to do anything near what he did... but she did do what she could, knowing what it meant.
She became the start for the hope of what time she did have with her mother before the pandemic, by not letting Earth be destroyed. She let the process to become the star begin, having left the chamber, not even knowing if The Doctor would return and find her in time to say goodbye. Without hope of anything but buying Earth and everyone on it more time. Without guarantee of any witness who would know who she was, and what the star she became would mean. Without reward, not knowing beforehand that she could one day bring her mother to join her.
All the qualities that The Doctor stood for, just not articulated aloud. She had flaws... but she also showed her true nature in her choice. Kindness, despite it all. A hopeful reassurance that time continues on.
Thank you for putting into words (much better than I ever could) how I felt about what Joy did.
@@polgarauk5606 and thank you for your reply! Of course, the majority comes from The Doctor's own speech and comparison to it... but it seemed befitting to me, and perhaps not as direct as it could have been, but still present.
I'm going to guess that Capaldi is your favorite doctor. Mine too. I like your analysis - it makes her death (or transition) make sense.
That's the best explanation I've seen, I'll keep it in mind the next time I watch the episode (and yes, I definitely plan to watch it again). It makes sense, though a little nudge in the writing oculd have made it clearer
@@HelenWheelsUtah, I appreciate your reply and response to my analysis.
(1/?)
As for Capaldi, to be quite honest, he isn't my favorite Doctor. He does have some fantastic speeches that match what his character concept was about, but he also had a lot of incongruities that seemed like forced writing that went against that concept, which kind of detracts slightly for me. He has some fantastic episodes, but he also has quite a few that were mediocre or even didn't have enough for me to want to rewatch them. Most Doctors have at least something to that extent, to be fair, but those remaining still had things that detracted for me, much as I do love him when he does his best.
I haven't seen much of Classic Who due to rights issues , but I have seen everything since the revival, so I can't judge earlier Doctors in that regard, and thus won't speak of them in my ranking. I only recently found out Tubi has the 26 Classic Who series that have been recovered thus far, and prior to that I was exceptionally limited by how they were legally in the USA. I'll have to watch the movie separately, but that's much, much further in the future that I'm not worried about that yet for analysis, heh.
My feeling with Joy's sacrifice is that it didn't feel like much of a sacrifice *to her*. That she viewed her own life as not really worth much, and that this one act of self-sacrifice would redeem it -- not the usual kind of self-redemption (the villain making amends for all the damage they've done), but more like making her life mean something. I didn't really like that, and your review helped me understand why: it's because we don't really get to know whether she feels that way, and if so -- why.
What I've seen is that the Doctor and Anita should've been the whole episode
Glad to know it's not just me then. 😅
You nailed the issue i had with this episode. I love Nicola Coughlan and she's giving it 110%, but Joy was underwritten. The flip side of that is Anita who was almost more the heroine of the episode.
Others might have pointed this out, but in my headcanon, Joy's sacrifice at the end is more or less earned by the remark she made after being freed from the briefcase, when she's fascinated by the thought of having merged with the star seed. She sees the potential in that and wants it to happen.
Vera, can I tell you that today I am particularly jealous of your hair?
It looks very pretty. ❤
I agree with most of your points about Joy’s writing, it could’ve been done a little better, but i feel like the intention in Joy merging with the star was not a sacrifice scene, but a “seizing the opportunity” scene. Joy feels great pain about her mother dying alone, she feels loneliness is the worst thing that can happen to anyone; and becoming a star allows her not only to be with her mother in her final moments; but erasing that loneliness from anyone looking to her as a star. She gets to be exactly the opposite than thouse politicians she resents. I think that when Joy says “is not dying, it’s changing” that is not a cop out to make the episode merrier, I really feel Moffat intended that line to be what Joy believes in her heart, that she is better off being a gift to humanity and bringing joy to the world. The episode doesn’t need anything from Joy to sacrifice, but something from Joy to move on, and the episode provides that.
In Re: Joy's sacrifice. While I understand where you're coming from, I think this is more so the case of her death not intending to be like Astrid's sacrifice but rather it being an ultimate reward for her -- she's elevated out of her otherwise unhappy life and given hope/happiness not just moving on to a greater existence within the star but also getting to be with her mother again so the latter didn't die alone as she otherwise would have. That's the other side of the perceptual coin in regards to her character and her place in the story. (I agree, though, that the writing for her is a bit "less than" relative to what it could/should have been, for sure.)
I wish trav just never died to begin with. Reminds me of the father from “boom” who died and came back as AI and went against programming to help the doctor
Fun episode, nice and sweet for the Christmas season. Though it does suffer from some of Moffat's signature negative Moffatisms imo, with a couple characters having too much emphasis on their plot relevance within the story than their own fleshed-out personality.
Also [spoilers] it seemed really bizarre to me that the lady working at the hotel didn't become the next companion? It really seemed like that was exactly where the plot was headed, having her work at the Time Hotel instead just felt out of place
I honestly thought the hotel she was originally working at would turn out to be the original hotel that the Time Hotel came from. What with the Doctor just casually doing alien things there, it just seemed like a natural development to me. Ah, well. Happy that Anita was recruited for work at the Time Hotel :)
@@jeremyadler9620Oh yeah, I actually forgot that's what they did with her, ig they didn't entirely forget her, still felt odd though
i completely agree: either anita and joy should have been fused into one character or the year with anita should have been a completely different episode
I agree with you about the best parts and I did really enjoy this Christmas special. I think you put your finger on what bothered me about the ending - Yes we did not get enough of Joy to really appreciate her sacrifice and it is disturbing to see the doctor push her to acknowledge the negative aspects of her life in order to break the spell of the Star Seed. I do feel though that this Special is very much the product of a post Covid era and that a lot of people will identify with Joy and the need to put on a happy face for all those video calls to our loved ones.. I kind of got the feeling that she may have become lonely and sad as a result of Covid lockdowns and that it was not her natural state of being. Covid I feel affected young adults starting their lives and having to put it all on hold as much as it did older generations who were vulnerable to the health risks of Covid. I do agree though that that didn’t come across in the writing. To me it was summed up in the video call with her Mum just before she died, but not enough time was spent on developing the idea. I did enjoy that Doctor’s year out with Anita though and was glad to see her get an exciting job out of the experience :)
Given that vilengaurd has appeared in twice upon a time, boom, and joy to the world, I feel like it’s more or less confirmed that Steven Moffat is hoping to bookend his last story with a reference to his first story but just keeps getting asked back and having to do it again. Not sure if this is confirmed behind the scenes but seems to be the case
Okay. I have seen several comments talking about Joy being possessed by the star seed and that that makes her death/sacrifice meaningless. But I had a different interpretation. My interpretation comes from nothing said, just something I thought I noticed.
We see a few different characters get "possessed" when the briefcase is transferred. First point: each time the briefcase is transferred, you hear, "Access is upgraded," or "being upgraded".
I believe that's the AI, installed by Villengard to control and direct the star seed. Maybe I'm wrong, but the Villengard want to use the star seed as either a power source or a weapon. They don't mind if the Time Hotel and every event door connected to the hotel is destroyed, and are unconcerned about how that will affect Earth history, etc.
So in my interpretation, whenever the "possessed" person starts smiling strangely and saying that line about the star and the flesh, that's the Villengard AI controlling them. But when each person dies, their personality and ideas are absorbed in the AI, and when there's enough of them, they overwhelm the AI, and cooperate with the star seed.
When Joy's eyes flash gold when she's alone with the open briefcase and the seed, I think she's talking to the seed, and that she's been already compromised by the AI to the point (she was possessed a number of times) that she probably us going to be absorbed by the AI. Instead, she bonds with the star seed so she can save the Earth and the Time Hotel, in agreement with all the other beings who have been absorbed by the AI. They can continue this way. It's not death, as such.
Maybe I'm being sappy. Sorry. I do feel Joy gets a kind of miserable treatment and painted as fat, lonely, unloved, so on. And as Vera said, the existence Joy had has ended, and Moffat didn't give Nicola Coughlan enough to make her someone we would feel sympathy for and struck by the loss of her. Trev is someone who we really do feel that loss. It's a terrific performance which is written well. But Joy doesn't get enough for us to feel the pain of her sacrifice, or that it is a sacrifice.
Except for the bit where Joy obeyed the rules while "they partied". In the UK, there's still a lot of anger over politicians gathering for drinking parties while scolding the nation to quarantine. (Ugh.) But that's the most given so the audience can get attached to the character of Joy.
Oh. One last thing. I am really, really sorry for Vera that the BBC is being so ridiculous about her using any clips. It does them no favors, but it seems par for the course right now.
This episode was certainly a episode of Doctor Who thats for sure lol.
Also just to give you insight on some of the actors.
Joy is played by Nicola Coughlan who is mostly known for her work in Derry Girls and Bridgerton. She i think has a nice career ahead of her tbh and she was also diplomatic Barbie in the Barbie movie. She plays this role in this doctor who episode quite well but the writing is a little flat tbh.
Joel Fry plays Trev and hes been in a fair few things and is also a musician as well as a actor. He had a role in Plebs (which is a comedy set in rome and a little raunchy) as well as being in films like Cruella, Yesterday & two of the Paddington movies. He also had a 8 episode role in Game of Thrones. He cant fit in to a role quite well and i hope he gets more in future too.
Stephanie de Whalley who played Anita doesnt have too many credits to her name but i wouldnt have minded her being the companion going forward if we didnt know who was going to be in series 2. I think she could have been like a Donna or Ruby friend like character to the doctor
I was looking at Joel Fry for the longest time until I realized he's the guy from Our Flag Means Death
@HotDogTimeMachine385 oh yes so he is I didn't notice that on his credits at first lol
Also, I would say it’s less about sacrifice and more about purpose and her being able to bring life after her guilt of the death of her mother
5:45 -- when I heard 15's rant on Joy, as he was trying to shake her loose from the Star Seed's influence, I remember thinking, "This is the first time I could see Capaldi's Doctor acting like Gatwa's Doctor", while at the same time also noting that Gatwa's delivery of those lines was widely different form how I'd imagine Capaldi doing it -- and both were quite convincing :)
It is interesting to me to hear so many people seeing 12 in this moment because I very much saw 7, particularly Curse of Fenric 7.
I also only see The Doctor calling himself out as purely 15.
Honestly i love the fact that Moffat did with the timespan of one year, what he would previously have done aging the doctor up like 300+ years or something
As a 'Trav', I'd like to mention, I wasn't in this episode, it was a guy named 'Trev'.
We are always getting mixed up.
Fun romp, but you could see Moffett going down his checklist.
Has anyone mentioned that all the stuff with Anita was sweet, but pointless, as all the Doctor really needed to do was catch an Uber to the Noble house and borrow the other Doctor's other Tardis?
talking about joys death you can see something flashes in her eyes when she got near the seed in the tomb so it was prob it making her take it in than her just taking it to kill her self
Great episode for getting to know 15. Series 1 (or whatever it's called) felt a little lacking in the Doctor themself, but this was spot on.
Feels like it could have been 2 episodes with how much was put in. As great as Anita was, it was just a bit too short for me to care, Ditto with Joy.
I liked the idea of the doctor having to just stay in one place for a year, but didn't 14 just spend a lifetime with Donna?
Yes, you're not wrong there. Give us the Doctor!
It’s like this era of the show wants us to purposely ignore his exile on earth as Jon Pertwee where he was stuck on earth until the timelord council deemed his exile over and his 24 year day he spent with river like they are not legitimate parts of the show especially with the whole doctor needs to stop and rest cause of how long he has been on the run for that was in the giggle
A subtler theme running under the main plot is the contrast of corporate cultures. The Time Hotel is well aware of some messy time bleeds like a Silurian wandering through a time door and getting stuck millions of years in the future. They were kind and made sure he way okay in the new world. It would have been far easier to drop him down an incinerator shaft. They didn't have to take the Doctor's recommendation and hire Anita. Someone who saw timey-whimey weirdness and rolled with it, a good skill for a time hotel. The hotel management saw that their business had effects and helped their employees.
In contrast to the star manufacturer, who didn't care how or who died as long as the plan was completed. Destroying the bodies as they went. I wonder what rage happened in the board room when they realized the star's consciousness rejected corporate values. I felt the star story did suffer from so much time being given to Anita. I am left wondering did the star bond with Joy as a kindred spirit or did Joy give the star a less damaging option. Did the star have character development?
Villengard gets its power source. The board would be pleased and bonuses all round.
The second I saw (that early death) I thought "Vera is going to hate that so much" but I actually don't know (as the video hasn't premiered yet). Wondering how much the deaths bothered her or not. (Like the crying felt artificial to me in previous episodes but actually felt very justified here, Gatwa is a doctor who very much celebrates life.)
I don't think they have a problem with quick deaths of secondary characters in general, otherwise I don't think they'd be a Doctor Who fan lol, characters die in the first five minutes in like every other episode. I think it's just when the show adds some sort of otherwise superficial detail about the character, like that they're gay or have a family, THEN kills them. This kind of stuff never bugged me in particular too much, but I can see why it would to others
as an atheist, can I note it took my fundamentalist christian parents like 5 minutes after me & a spiked bat of confirmation to get the star of Bethlehem reference?
I say this appreciating the pre-spiked-bat joy empowerment aspect (tho I wish she'd got more character development & action, I appreciate the hell out of her empowerment)
tbh i enjoyed it although joy turning into the star was a bit corny but meh
The only real moment of characterization I thought they gave Joy was the rant about her mum. It felt real, painful, raw. Moffatt needed to do more with her if he wanted us to care about her as anything other than a plot device. The Doctor's character, however, was in full force and I LOVED HIM!!! Ncuti Gatwa shone in this episode. I liked getting to see the range of activities and experiences, and how he does treat things with genuine glee and delight and sadness. I like that we see him FEEL. Whittaker's Doctor kept so much bottled up, having Gatwa's unable to control when tears slip out is refreshing (and yes, it happens a lot, but Gatwa cries so beautifully on camera.). And the shift from bottled up to healthy expression, thanks to Tennant's fourteenth Doctor acting a a bridge works better the longer we see Gatwa on screen.
I did notice they're still doing the "mavity" thing. I'd like to have that fixed/explained/dropped sometime in the coming season/series, personally. It's a cute gag, but it's going to get old, if it hasn't for most people already.
I can't understand why so many people died in a Christmas episode, lots of death surrounding the Star of Bethlehem
Tbh, that's kind of just british Christmas specials for you, like even the cute animated ones like the snowman: that ends with the little lad sobbing over the puddle that used to be the snowman for literally no reason, it's genuinely a bit bizarre, but definitely not unique to doctor who.
Thank you for the video, Vera! And happy holidays, especially for our queer community! Please, try to be safe in the next year!
I did really like this episode, especially because, in some aspects, it does not felt like it was trying to be a holiday special just for the sake of being one. The Doctor working and living in the "present-day" hotel for one year, and becoming Anita's friend was the best part! It was Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor just... being the Doctor while taking a break from jumping around time and space, and thinking about what to do with his life. I love the scene where the Doctor fixes Anita's car navigation system to take her where she actually needs to go, instead of where she wants, and the car is now also blue (LOL)! I do also appreciate how, at least with Trev and the Silurian Manager, the episode tries to address Vera's criticism about "unnecessary cruelty" over side characters. However, a criticism which I am hearing/watching/reading across reviews is how Joy is too underdeveloped. Unfortunately, she is just a "means to an end" character, and it makes hard to care for her sacrifice. I do wonder if the story did have Anita and Joy merged as a single character (and not necessarily killing them at the end) would fix the main shortcomings of this episode.
I really liked this one - it had so many characters that I liked (including Joy, especially Anita). It had a fun premise, lots of fun scenes, fun dialogue, and I felt heartwarmed by the end. My only complaint is that I needed more explanations for the logistics of the climax.
I just had to come down here to add that I always love your video endings. It was a rough week and it made me tear up a little bit.
I thought this episode was a lot of fun and good up until the conclusion. The ending didn't make any sense to me. Not just Joy suddenly sacrificing herself, but also, they kept acting like the world gets destroyed if the star sees blooms, but then joy eats it or whatever she just flies off into space and turns into a star harmlessly. What? Nothing about the ending made sense. A very bad conclusion to an otherwise enjoyable outing.
My thoughts are that at the end of the episode Anita left the hotel without a manager or an owner to replace her.
she also left behind a microwave thats biger on the inside and a car with satnav that takes you "where you need to go", who will deal with that alien tech i wonder?
I can't tell if this is just me being overly cynical because I haven't seen other people complain about this but I hated how the pandemic was used as shorthand to get the audience to empathise with Joy. That felt lazy and unearned. Personally, I think the specific type of unprocessed grief and frustration associated with having a family member die during the pandemic is too complicated to wrap up in a neat bow at the end of a 60 minute episode where it wasn't the main focus. My reaction was ,"No Steve, I'm not going to feel bad for a character you didn't give yourself enough time to develop just because I couldn't go to my nan's funeral and still have complicated strong feelings about that." I didn't like that Joy died instead of getting some other kind of closure or living without closure because that would have been too difficult to write and wouldn't fit in an upbeat saccharine episode.
Actually, the Doctor who spent the most time in a single place without apparent incident was probably the 12th Doctor, secluded in St Luke's University for several decades watching over Missy's vault. But we only saw the tail end of that, and in any case, that wasn't a 'normal' existence. (11 spent centuries on Trenzalore, but it was a war zone for much of that time)
As for 15 -- I think it's important to remember that he had a choice. It might look as if he didn't, but he did. The episode actually states, explicitly, that he chose not to call Ruby. But he also chose not to call Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. 15 would still remember a time when he was stranded on Earth without the ability to travel in time and space -- back when he was the Third Doctor; and he spent *that* time working for UNIT. He could have easily done so again: call Kate, who would happily have arranged some work to keep him occupied for a year, giving him money, a place to stay and a flight to New York at the end of the year (actually, how *did* he get from London to New York?). And he must have known that this was an option, and chosen to have a calm year with Anita instead
McGann's reading of the pandorica speech causes that weird ASMR scalp tingle in me. It's too good.
I read Joy as a mirror to the Doctor’s current mindset, and her sacrifice at the end as a reminder to the Doctor not to slip back into that mindset with Ruby gone. But that’s maybe too heavy for a Christmas special, I’m not sure.
"Functionally the character is dead" - Sure. Absolutely. But it still felt like one of Moffat's But That's All Right Then follow-ups, which is what removed to emotionally invest in it. And if we're going to have a character die at the end of a Christmas episode - heroic sacrifice or otherwise - I want it to hurt as much as the end of the classic Christmas animated short from 1982, The Snowman, tacking on a "She became a star and lived as one" to a death (And this goes for Astrid as well) inherently means its not going to.
Overall it was... Fine. I don't recall staying in a hotel room with those locked doors (adjourning rooms, I believe, so you can get between two rooms you've rented - e.g. parents and children - without going into the corridor), so the entire conceit was somewhat lost on me; the stuff with was the best part and I kind of wish that had have been extended to the entire episode; didn't really spend enough time with Trev for his death to have meant anything to me either (before he became AI stardust undoing it). It was fun. I didn't dislike it. But it wasn't particularly standout and didn't really make me feel anything beyond that surface 'this is fun' level.
And, by gods I have realized over this Christmas that I am _easy_ to cause to emote from media as I found myself welling up a fair few times during my Aardman binge (so far sticking to W&G and the Shaun the Sheep films but I'm sure I'll expand beyond those as I go forward with this) since watching Vengence Most Fowl so getting the sense that something is trying to get me to emote like that but which doesn't is... Weird to see that sort of failure? I have literally welled up at a children's slapstick comedy without any intelligible dialogue this Christmas. (Finally got around to watching the first Shaun the Sheep movie which I think I've been meaning to for 9 and a half years?)
I'm going to disagree, I don't think this feels like one of his "well that's all right then" follow ups at all, for a very specific reason. Previously with other cases (Bill, Amy, Clara, River, etc.) there was still a tragedy to the death, we were allowed to feel it as a loss and then there was a salve placed on it after (mileage will vary as to how welcome that salve was). But here, we're being asked to be happy at the point she actually dies. We're basically being told "oh no, don't mourn her" pre-emptively and that is not the same thing.
Same with the never really having stayed in one of the hotel rooms with a locked door so the idea that they "always" have them didn't really land with me. On top of that one of them was the orient express and one was a base camp tent which definitely didn't have mysterious locked doors so the whole concept kind of falls apart. (I guess maybe the Silurians built whatever the one that was in the cretaceous period went to since they appear to have coexisted with dinosaurs, but it was never really explained even though the doctor was assuming it could only go to human history so IDK.)
I mean, I like the concept of the Time Hotel, but the whole locked door thing didn't work with the way they ended up using it and was much more distracting than amusing for me. Wasn't necessary anyway. You can just say it connects to whatever door was already there (actually even if you do that you could probably work in a joke about the locked doors without making it the whole concept.)
I also didn't really understand how/why the star went back in time to become the star of Bethlehem (or even just connect all the other people and moments met throughout the episode) even though as far as I could tell the reason it was seeded so long ago was because it couldn't just come back to the time when Villengard needed it once ready and I get that it broke from them and became its own thing, but I don't see why that gave it the ability to travel through time as well as space.
I think this was my favourite holiday special since Twice Upon A Time
I do wonder if with Joy, the actor could have improvised, she's talented enough to have pulled it off.
I haven't been in a lot of hotel rooms, but I have been in a few, and not one had a mysterious locked door.
While you were talking about the Silurian, I thought back on the things he had said, and it suddenly hit me. He got a job in the hotel because he came through one of the doors accidentally. So The Doctor should've realised that the hotel had a door to the Mesozoic.
I'm not normally a fan of Christmas episodes either, but this one was easily my favorite and it was pretty much entirely because of way they developed the relationship between The Doctor and Anita. That was such a beautiful, bittersweet platonic love story. Throw in The Doctor finally being the one to tell himself that being alone isn't good for him and, of course, Trev and I can easily shrug off the hamfisted ending. I'd love to see an entire season that just covers The Doctor's year on Earth and I really hope that they give Anita the Donna treatment and bring her back as an official companion.
loved the episode but is it just me or is the shot of the doctor doing the tear running down his eye getting annoying for anyone else? i like seeing the doctor being this in touch with his emotional state but im tired of them recreating that shot everytime he has to cry
Yes extremely over user. At least it was a tear of joy this time. So as someone who tears up crazy easily, I guess I'll accept it.
A frustratingly mediocre story, not bad but feels more like an obligation script than Boom. Combined with confirmation that Belinda (the s2 companion) is just another present day earth girl, I'm really struggling with Doctor Who prioritising formula over creativity, it's getting really dull.
I'm not sure how to write it, but imagine if there was no Anita, but instead, the Doctor spent that year with Joy, and THEN Joy made the sacrifice. Maybe they were afraid that if she wasn't more willing, it would just be seen as a re-tread of Astrid's death.
I just kind of need someone to explain what happened after they found the ancient site with the case inside. What time era was that when did the star actually go off and why'd joy take it in was that voluntary? On a scifi techy physics note I'd love to know the benifit of making your own star. Is it just a really chesty way of getting reeeaallu good energy returns like the best nuclear ever?
I quite liked it. I mean… it’s not the worst Doctor Who Christmas special. It’s not even the worst one Moffat’s written. I’d certainly argue it’s better than The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe or Last Christmas. And it’s better than last year’s in my opinion as well.
Also, apparently the lady on the train played by Niamh Marie Smith is supposed to be Sylvia Trench. As in, the James Bond character from Dr. No and From Russia With Love who was originally played by Eunice Gayson. I’d call her a “Bond girl” but she’s only briefly in her films. Anyway, this apparently means that James Bond is canon in the Doctor Who universe… and that brings me no comfort whatsoever.
On a technical point .. this star forming from the seed was supposed to be this event that would destroy the earth … and it ended up so subdued. What was the danger? It also appears from “the flesh will rise” that it was part of the process for it to merge with flesh to form, so everything went to plan. But how would villengard get a vast source of energy from it?
Good review. I enjoyed the special. The hotel idea was cool, different time eras in one place cool. Ncuti was great, that moment in the beginning putting his coat and getting his sonic so good! I do understand your thoughts on Joy, her ending I see why. Trev was great, proud of him. It was a delightful special to watch
My main issue with Joy is that they had to cast a chubby actress to play someone who’s sad and lonely. Because only chubby characters can be sad and lonely. Done get me wrong, I have nothing against people who have a few extra pounds, I have a few myself. But why must we always be stereotyped into sad and lonely people? 😡
Overall really loved the episode. Ncuti Gatwa is just a treat to watch as the Doctor, and the supporting cast was pretty dang good. The Year with Anita was one a truly great sequence.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s possible that the ending with the star was the littlest bit heavy handed. Just a teenie bit on the nose.
I think villengard should remain ubiquitous … not something that could ever be defeated. Just a fact of the whoniverse. Something bigger than the doctor and the daleks etc. Something far more sinister than any villain posing a particular threat (like a cyber man invasion) because it can’t be defeated. (( I like and agree with your comparison with the borg… it should be like the borg were before the queen )). I hope it conitinues to turn up, even in subtle easter egg references throughout future series.
Loved the clips of the other doctors reading the pandorica speech!
Overall I enjoyed the episode, but there were quite a few things that didn't really work: 2 half-companions, too much repetition (did we really need to see the room service scenes twice?), Joy might be lonely after losing her mother, but that sacrifice was pretty rough.
I have two major things that bugged me about Joy's death.
1. What does it change? We know that Villengard is planning on using this star's power for nefarious reasons. And in the end the star was made. So, are Joy, Trev and others protecting star from harvesting by Villengard? How is it better than just not creating a star in the first place?
2. Doctor's reaction. Doctor NEVER celebrates death. Even needed, even noble self-sacrifice - death is death. And every death is a tragedy. Doctor even mourns villains and objectively evil people. So for him to celebrate Joy's death even in this Christian self-sacrifice context feels wrong, Very-very wrong. Which especially odd, given Doctor's reaction to Silurian's death earlier. THAT was Doctor-like.
So, much like Vera, I really enjoyed whole special, besides very ending.
For me - the easy fix for this story would be to amalgamate the Anita and Joy character... no time to fully explain how to get around the plot/set up for that, but the weight of the episode would work so much better if those two characters were combined as one.
One thing I noticed is that when Joy got her room she did a partial work wall break by introducing herself and saying welcome to my room
I would love to see the doctor going up against Villengard; and have it actually end with it making bananas. Like, the doctor knew he was responsible, but hasn't actually done it yet.
I really disagree with you about Joy.
For me she have choosen to be lonely because she thought she should for guilty. But when she accept to be the star, she give up her punishment to be happy bringing light and not having the star destroying everything. It was she accepting that she could be happy.
Also, regarding the writing with Joy, I have seen complaints (for example from the channel WhoCulture) from people who claimed that it was difficult to get to like Joy when the first half of the episode she's hypnotized by the star seed and not acting like herself (which we don't know what that is anyways, because we didn't have enough time with her) and I do agree on that. If you want to do that, maybe have her be hypnotized later, as part of her sacrifice, instead of this early on.
There may be no sacrifice with Joy, but there's hope and aspiration. She chooses the one path available to reach the only thing that matters: reunion with her mother. I don't think it's a bad thing.
Overall I enjoyed the episode but like everyone else the year in joy’s room is the best part cause we get to know Anita better than joy cause we only see joy a few minutes before she is possessed by the briefcase and then sacrifices herself to the Star seed I don’t know if i would go full companion with Anita like other people do but I would go at least reoccurring character for like another episode with the time hotel or something i also feel in terms of episode length this era feel shorter I know it’s the same episode runtime but with having ad free Disney+ like i do it like watching a DVD copy of the episode which can make the episode feel shorter than it is they should have utilized the nature of streaming and could have made the episodes a bit longer like chibnall did making his episode runtime an hour and ten minutes long if it was longer we could have had more time with joy
I loved the ep, but the ending felt pretty rushed to me. Still, I had a great time watching it. 8/10 for me. Great review. You put into words perfectly the issues I had with it.
Perhaps Anita should've been the one called Joy? Merging the stories into one may have been the best outcome, ultimately.
I also feel that Joy should've grappled with her loneliness more. If she'd expressed that finally her life had meaning, and the Doctor replied that 'you've ALWAYS been special. Not because of this, not because of what you're doing, but because of WHO you are. Who you have always been', this would've gotten around the implication that her sacrifice was cheerier because she didn't have anything to live for anyway.
I think merging her character with Anita's would've DEFINITELY helped.
Anita never gives her last name... she then works in a timetravel hotel, and will most likely see the Doctor again... as many others have also theorized, perhaps SHE is Mrs. Flood.
The stewardess was a great sacrifice, as she is an usung service personal hero, and Grace while being weird, ther ecomes plenty of her being honored.
Joy really should get time to bond with the doctor and do enjoy it and enjoy the time and begin to move on. A character starting to really get something good going and sacrificing is going hard
Another nitpick … if the Bethlehem year 1 room in the time hotel was a sealed subterranean chamber from which you couldn’t exit …. How ripped off would you be if that’s what you ended up with in your booking for Xmas at Bethlehem in the year 1.
I just saw it as Joy evolving, she's starting a new life as a celestial being, not sacrificing herself.
Yet another nitpick with the key premise … this was put forward as a tine hotel with portals to hotel rooms with mysterious locked doors .. yet it linked to a tent on Everest and a cavern? And what hotel was there with the dinosaur .. who built the tree house room there? They aren’t hotels with mysterious locked doors!!
It would have been fine if it was just portals to random interesting places … but it was explicitly set up as portals behind locked hotel doors.
I absolutely agree with your analysis of the Anita sequence RE: how it effects Joy's development- even as I was watching I was felt like this should have been a case of "kill your darlings"- sometimes the best part of your episode/project has to be sacrificed for the good of the whole! A lesson this episode sorely needed given it doesn't seem to understand how sacrifice like. works.
Also while I too hope Villenguard can remain a handy tool in the DW writer's arsenal for whenever they just need a faceless corporation, I've read enough comics to know that if you mention something too often some fan-graduated-to-writer will feel the need to expand on it. Hopefully that won't happen any time soon, but in a franchise like DW I'm pretty sure it's inevitable.
Yes, Joy was definitely a placeholder character, placed in the story to die. She didnt feel like a person, except for one scene when she looses it before the dinosaur.
And like you say, if you want us to care about Joy, make us spend more time with her. Most of the time she just stood there or was dragged around by the doctor. And also, like you said, nowhere it was even hinted at that a person had to sacrifice themselves to remove it.
Ps. Loved the doctor yelling at himself, best part for me
Maybe the thing about Joy, not really sacrificing herself, is just a way to se death is not just an end.
Maybe it was not a sacrifice.
I have almost more of a trouble with thinking that her life should be so sad and bad so she wants to end it. So my choice is to see her making a step forward to the unknown afterlife... Or something like that.
Knew I should have had a bet on Moffet using the bootstrap paradox
Loved this review, as always. Some of the best ever Who reviews ever & always are Vera’s, so happy we’re all back & looking forward to season 2!
I agree with the Joy concerns, but thought as a star she managed to be present with her mom at her mom’s death and even, if I remember correctly, brought her mom up to be with her in the star. (Is that right? Need to watch again.) Anyway, that mitigated most of my concerns about Joy’s sacrifice, which were otherwise, for many reasons, rather worrisome.