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As a show about time travel, Doctor Who never hesitated to include contemporary moments in his stories. But this week’s special holiday “Joy to the World” drew part of its entire emotional arc from recent memory as particularly poignant and emotional. writer Steven Moffat it was impossible to ignore.
Part of “Joy to the World”. Nicola Coughlan’s guest “companion”, the titular Joy, sees her become the owner of a mysterious, weaponized briefcase the Doctor is tracking – a process they both discover is fatal to anyone who closes the briefcase. Trying to figure out how to free Joy from the briefcase without killing her, the Doctor suddenly turns to his new friend: he angrily mocks her for putting on a false front in front of other people, hiding her unhappiness and sadness at Christmas. The doctor keeps pushing Joy, pushing her until she suddenly answers him: The reason she checked herself into a bad hotel at Christmas was to avoid other people and to avoid the anger she felt watching her own mother die in the hospital. On Christmas Day, when the Covid-19 pandemic is in full swing.
“He died on Christmas Day. Active Christmas dayand I said goodbye to the iPad because of the rules,” she yells at him. “He died alone! Those awful people with wine coolers and dancing and parties and I listened to them and let my mother die alone.
“I think there was something else in the first draft, I don’t remember what it was. And then I was sitting there thinking, ‘Why are you angry on Christmas Day?'” Moffat said recently. The Hollywood Reporter the story is about the beat. “And I thought, ‘Well, oh my God, this is it!’ Once you think about it, you won’t leave it behind. that’s it Why are you angry on Christmas Day?
It’s the outrage felt across the UK, not just at the pandemic itself, but at the revelations of several members of the Conservative government at the time, including a series of reports. then Prime Minister Boris JohnsonDuring 2020, it showed new rules and laws against gathering of more than one person during the lockdown, hosting parties in government offices– One of several scandals that led to Johnson’s resignation in 2022. But it was only natural for Moffat to embody that rage and specifically incorporate the pandemic.
“I think there was a certain amount of anger in the minds of many, many people. But it’s not something you want to make a big deal about. It was just looking for a reason that said something about someone being sad on Christmas Day,” the writer continued. “I have heard this version of this story many times. Thus many times. I don’t think there is anyone who doesn’t know someone who has that story, or who carries that story. It is already a part of our history. Our very recent history; defined us. So if someone is going to be angry on Christmas Day, why not? It was a good reason.”
Of course it is far from the first time– and definitely won’t be the last – we see Doctor Who they have a less friendly view contemporary British politics. But perhaps not the most cheerful thing for a Christmas Day adventure.
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