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As a show about time travel, Doctor Who he was never afraid to incorporate contemporary moments into his stories. Ma this week’s special party “Joy to the World” made a particularly timely and emotional appeal in recent memory part of its entire emotional arc – one that writer Steven Moffat it felt impossible to ignore.
Part of “Joy to the World” sees Nicola Coughlan’s guest “companion”, the titular Joy, become the host of a mysterious, weaponized briefcase that the Doctor has been following – a process they both discover is deadly for whoever the briefcase stops. Trying to figure out just how to free Joy from the briefcase without killing her, the Doctor suddenly turns to his new friend: in anger he mocks her for making a false front to others, hiding her poverty and sadness in Christmas of all days. The Doctor keeps pushing and hitting Joy until she suddenly snaps at him: the reason why she went to a seedy hotel on Christmas was to avoid other people, and to avoid confront the anger she felt at seeing her mother die in the hospital. on Christmas Day during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“She died on Christmas Day. Hon Christmas dayand I said goodbye on an iPad because of the rules,” he shouts. “She died alone! And those terrible people with their wine fridges, and their dances, and their parties, and I heard them, and I let my mother die alone.
“I think it was something else in the first draft, I don’t remember what. And then I was sitting there thinking, ‘Why are you angry on Christmas Day?'” Moffat said recently. the Hollywood Reporter about the beat of history. “And I thought, ‘Well, oh my God, this is it!'” Once you think about that, you’re not going to leave it behind. Here we go because you would be angry on Christmas Day.
It is a particularly timely reference not only to the pandemic itself, but the anger felt in the UK at the time after a series of reports exposed that many members of the Conservative government at the time, including the then Prime Minister Boris Johnsonhas broken new rules and laws against gatherings of many people during the lockdowns throughout 2020, hosting parties in government offices– one of many scandals that will ultimately lead to Johnson’s eventual resignation in 2022. But for Moffat, incorporating that anger, and incorporating the pandemic specifically, felt natural.
“I think that a certain amount of indignation was in the minds of many, many people. But it is not something that you want to make a huge point. It was just looking for a reason that means something why someone is sad on Christmas Day” , the writer continued. “I’ve heard this version of that story so many times. So what several times. I don’t think there is anyone who doesn’t know someone who has that story, or who has that story themselves. Now it is a piece of our history. Our very recent history; there is definitely So, if someone is going to be angry on Christmas Day, why not? It was a good reason.”
It certainly is far from the first time– and it certainly won’t be the last – we’ll see Doctor Who have a less than friendly view contemporary British politics. But maybe not the cheeriest thing for a Christmas Day adventure to dig into.
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