Joy to the World

I've been waiting with baited breath for this episode, and Moffat once again delivered on everything we expected, both the good and the very small amount of bad. The beginning immediately hooked me into a web of delightfully confusing wibbly-wobbly stuff, resulting in one of the most awesome episode concepts ever brought to screen in the time hotel, and gives us a taste of the Moffat style writing I think we've all been missing. On the writing, this episode is the funniest I've seen in a while. The line, "is this armed?" will be living rent-free in my head for years. In addition, Moffat and 15 are perfect for each other. Ncuti's acting is on full display throughout the script, striking a perfect balance between comedy and emotion. The sets are great too. In fact, right up until the finale, this is one of the best looking doctor who episodes ever. Every sequence is great and keeps you engaged either emotionally or physically. The only let-down was the ending, which felt half-baked and a surprising let-down of such a fantastic episode, and one that unsurprisingly contains a lot of characters coming back to life. Even with the ending, this episode is a prime example of how to write and structure a doctor who episode, one RTD should make sure he follows in the future.

I find that a major problem with the Doctor is that he doesn't do anything! This Christmas episode was okay but my question is, how come he doesn't save anybody? If fact everyone who comes in contact with him dies. This is a major issue for me not loving the last four seasons of Doctor Who. He should be saving lives not causing deaths. He should be moving the story forward without people dying all around him. He is not a wizard like Harry Potter so why has he all these new skills, maybe it's just to get a laugh or get the writers out of a spot of bad writing. But it's lazy and should be dropped. He is a Time Lord. He doesn't have and never has had widarding skills. So please get back to good stories where he meets and helps people. PLEASE!

Absolutely loved this, a great story combined with really nice positive messages like appreciating life, taking time to talk to other people, take the time for the people you care about, appreciating everyone around you.

Their are characters to instantly fall in love with in this episode, and within a few seconds we're invested in their lives and stories.

It was refreshing to see a side to the doctor we've not seen before, a human side, a living each day at a time, taking in and appreciating the little things.

Really enjoyed this Christmas special, Ncuti is doing a fantastic job as the Doctor and I can't wait to see more in the new year!

I used to love watching Doctor Who at Christmas. My dad and I were looking forward to this episode however we were left feeling very disappointed to say the least. Honestly, we just didn't understand what what happening and most of the time I couldn't even make out what the Doctor was saying. My dad asked for subtitles at one point! Acting and writing were terrible and in the end we switched off half way through. It's such as shame that this once great program has been reduced to this. I think it would be better for everyone if the simply retired the show for a while instead of continuing to degrade it in this way. Very sad.

The overall message of the message and themes was nice for a Christmas Special. However with a plot that moved so quickly you could never get invested in anything even when you're supposed to and characterization that pop up to prove a point but are absent for the rest of the episode has quite an effect on the overall episode.

One example of what I mean would be the year at the hotel scene. Though it's definitely nice scene to have everything goes by so quickly that when it ends it's clearly supposed to be an emotional goodbye but I ended up thinking "just get on with it" because the goodbye felt longer than the entire year itself. Joy felt more like a message than a actual character though her arc does have a sweet ending to it. Moffat once said in an interview that doctor who has to have a concept big enough to be a movie and fit it in an hour of television. And this is an episode where it's obvious that it needed a longer time to cook because so much happens that it's hard to feel invested in any one character or plot point. The ending did hit me in the feels however it was less because it was an emotional ending and more because I can relate to it. A friend of mine passed away a few months before hand so that ending did hurt a bit. But that's like drinking milk after eating a ghost chilly pepper. It's going to feel so much better because you need the coldness from the milk than just drinking it regularly. Either way, final score for me is 6/10. It's definitely sweet and a good episode for Christmas. But everything else is underdeveloped and went by too quickly to get invested.