Why Russell T Davies Asked Steven Moffat to Write Doctor Who’s New Christmas Special

Fans were shocked in the run up to this year’s Doctor Who revival that former showrunner Steven Moffat would return to the TARDIS and write his first episode for the series since he departed in 2017, only to be shocked again when it was quickly confirmed that he would also write the 2024 Christmas special for the series. But it turns out that at least part of the reason why we got that double-barreled release of news is for a simple reason: Russell T Davies is really, really busy.

Davies had planned to pen the second Christmas special of his sophomore tenure—and had previously teased progress on it while discussing Who‘s return to the traditional festive TV slot—but, according to Moffat, constraints on the showrunner’s time as Doctor Who ahead of Ncuti Gatwa’s second season as the Doctor necessitated a change in holiday plans.

“The email [from Davies] came through and said ‘Steven, I need to get on series 2, I’m never gonna this Christmas script… could you come in and write one?’” Moffat recalled in a new interview with BBC News. “Not complete his script, but do another one from scratch.”

Production on the second season of Davies’ new era began very quickly after conclusion on the first. Fans saw set pictures of the incoming companion played by Andor‘s Varada Sethu well before she was formally introduced—and even before Gatwa’s first season began airing. It’s no surprise then, that Davies—who already, for better and worse, scripted the majority of Gatwa’s first season himself—found himself in need of another writer when turnaround was so demanding.

As for why Moffat returned, the writer added both a professed love for writing Doctor Who‘s seasonal episodes, but also teased the central hook to the upcoming episode, titled “Joy to the World.”

“Imagine in the far far future… a hotel chain got hold of the idea of time travel,” Moffat teased. “What’s the first thing a hotel chain would do if they had time travel? They’d realize they had an opportunity to sell all the unsold nights in their hotels in history.”

It’s presumable one of those unsold nights, then, that brings Gatwa’s 15th Doctor crashing into the life of Nicola Coughlan’s new character, Joy, as well as the return of Doctor Who‘s ancient amphibian foes, the Silurians. A Time Lord is a bit more than any hotel could bargain for if it came to time-travel reservations, it seems.

“Joy to the World” is currently expected to broadcast on the BBC in the UK, and Disney+ internationally, on Christmas Day.

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