Christmas special time! This Moffat-penned episode is a little messy, but I still liked it—absolutely glorious to see the Fifteenth Doctor in action again. (But when I checked out the season 2 trailer on YouTube afterwards and it just said “2025”??? Come on, Who, what are you doing to me? You can’t tell me a month? Give me a ballpark at least!)
The Doctor, traveling solo, stops in a hotel lobby and discovers a mystery. A man with a mysterious case has just checked into the Time Hotel, where every door opens into a room from a different time and place. Following the case to a room in London over Christmas 2024, the Doctor meets Joy, a sad young woman away from home over the holidays, and Anita, a lonely hotel worker.
In a lot of companionless Christmas specials, there’s a very clear stand-in companion—even if the Doctor interacts with a larger ensemble, there’s typically one who’s the main oneshot character for the episode. That’s not fully the case here. Ostensibly, it’s positioned to be Joy, delicately played by Nicola Coughlan. The episode title is literally a play on her name, and Coughlan is the one whose name is in the opening credits beside Ncuti Gatwa’s. But thanks to some timey-wimeyness, we don’t see Joy onscreen for sizable chunks of the episode. In her stead, we see the Doctor latching onto two different hotel staff: Trev from the Time Hotel (played by Joel Fry—go, Frenchie!) and Anita from the London hotel where Joy is staying (played by Stephanie de Whalley—not familiar with her, but she does a lovely job.)
I really enjoy the Doctor’s interactions with all three characters. It’s a delight to see Joel Fry in Doctor Who! Trev is completely confused and out of his element, but proves immensely loyal and eager to help out. Anita is down-to-earth, very warm behind her loneliness, and the sequence with her and the Doctor is beautifully done. And Joy is someone who’s been pulled into way more than she bargained for—her story with the Doctor goes to some interesting places. But because this is a story where the Doctor sort of moves from stand-in companion to stand-in companion, rather than interacting with a single stand-in companion within an ensemble, it does leave the special feeling a little disjointed. It has a segmented air to it, like there are ideas for two or three different episodes combined into one.
Still, I had a good time. I laughed out loud on multiple occasions and shed a tear toward the end. I’m on record as being fairly easy to please when it comes to Who, and Ncuti Gatwa always gives me plenty to love. He just exudes Doctor-ness from his pores—his smiles, his winks, his thoughtful looks! All my highlights from the episode are basically just the Doctor being himself. There’s a scene where he gives comfort to a virtual stranger who’s dying, a fun gag with a plunger, and entertaining lines like, “Pardon my French, but what the French is going on?” At this point, I can very confidently put Fifteen in my top tier of Doctors.
And it’s just interesting to watch him in this story. When we saw Fifteen on his own at the start of “The Church of Ruby Road” last week, he seemed very content and comfortable in his skin. But this episode must be relatively recent for him after saying goodbye to Ruby, and the Doctor is not handling it great. Oh sure, once the mystery kicks off, he jumps right into the thick of things, and he adapts well to unexpected curve balls. But he also catches himself making two cups of tea on autopilot, Ruby’s absence is felt lingering over his head, and there’s a timey-wimey moment where he takes himself to task for everyone always leaving them.
No comments:
Post a Comment