When we last saw the Doctor, he seemed a bit down in the dumps. Thankfully ‘Joy to the World’s’ ending leaves the titular Time Lord in a much better mood. Warning spoilers ahead!
Written by the one and only Steven Moffat, ‘Joy to the World’ pits the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) against an evil briefcase (yes, really) that wants to create a new star. That doesn’t sound too bad until you realize the star’s birth will cause the Earth to be destroyed, which is dreadful news for humanity (it’s where we keep all our stuff).
Thankfully, the Doctor doesn’t have to face this loathsome luggage alone. He’s got Joy Almondo (Nicola Coughlan) to back him up. Can the Doctor and Joy save the day?
Well… yes, it’s Doctor Who after all, and the good guys always win, but the important thing is how the pair save the day and what that means for Season 15.
How Joy to the World’s ending sets up Season 15
When we last saw the good Doctor, he was in a difficult place. He’d just said goodbye to another beloved companion, and although Ruby’s exit from the TARDIS wasn’t as dramatic as the loss of previous companions (it’s not like she got tapped in another dimension, turned into a Cyberman, or sent back in time by the Weeping Angels) it was clear the Doctor was upset to find himself alone once again.
Indeed, when the episode opens, the Doctor isn’t quite retired. Still, there’s definitely a listlessness to him that suggests he’s not quite his usual enthusiastic self.
The only reason he even lands at the Time Hotel – a resort where every room is set in a different time period – is because he’s looking for milk. This isn’t quite the behavior we expect from a man (right now, anyway) the Daleks named the Oncoming Storm.
‘Joy to the World’ then – and an encounter with his future self (it’s Doctor Who, just roll with it) – serves to remind the Doctor of the importance of his friends and connections.
It’s why, in the end, when he leaves the Time Hotel, you know that despite being alone again, he’s not going off to find milk at the corner shop at the end of the universe; he’s off to find new worlds to save and, more importantly, new friends.
Joy to the World’s ending explained
Joy to the World ends with the Doctor – after a year-long stay on 21st Century Earth (he gets trapped in a hotel room by an alternate version of himself) – reuniting with Joy at the Time Hotel.
Joy, who has been possessed by the AI in the briefcase, starts to hunt for a certain room in the hotel, and a confused Doctor follows her. As he monologues, he mocks the briefcase, telling it that it will take 65 million years for the star seed to be ready to bloom and that human history doesn’t go back that far, making its entire plot rather pointless.
That’s when it’s revealed that the room the briefcase has been hunting for wasn’t part of human history. It was a suite in the Cretaceous period (65 million years ago).
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Before Joy and the Doctor can get the briefcase out of the room, though, a dinosaur eats it (yes, really) and they’re forced to flee back into the Time Hotel before the now briefcase-possessed dinosaur makes a meal out of them next.
With the briefcase lost, it seems that all is lost, until the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver starts to beep. It turns out that the briefcase’s ability to possess people is a two-way street, and Trev (a porter the Doctor befriended earlier in the episode), who was murdered by the bag earlier, lives on in its memory banks.
Trev shares the briefcase’s location with the Doctor and Joy, and they run to stop it.Joy and the Doctor manage to find the bag, which has survived the millennia, in a room resembling an ancient temple.
Sadly, it’s sealed away behind a stone panel. Thinking quickly, the Doctor uses the Time Hotel’s connection to other time periods to gather the materials to pry open the panel (it involves the Orient Express, and it’s magnificent).
Before he can get to it,though, Joy takes the star seed from the case and absorbs its energy into herself.It seems that her previous possession of the case has given her a connection to it, and she uses that to fly the seed safely away before the star is born.
This isn’t a sad ending, by the way. Joy describes it as an evolution, not an end, and as she flies away, a new star is born in the night sky.
As the Doctor cries at the beauty of what he sees, he looks down and realizes he missed something. If the Star Seed needed 65 million years to grow, then that makes it the year 001AD, and sure enough, he realizes he’s in Bethlehem and Joy is the star that led the wise men and shepherds to Jesus’s manger… yes, really.
However, Joy’s light doesn’t stop there. Across the millennia, it shines across the galaxy for all to see. Most notably, we learn that Joy’s mother, who died alone of Covid (it’s very sad), saw the star on her deathbed and was spared dying alone by the vague power of the Star Seed, turning her into pure energy (it’s Christmas so we’ll forgive Moffat for wanting a happy ending).
What’s next for the Doctor?
The Doctor will return at some point in 2025 for Doctor Who Season 15. We don’t know many details right now, but it has been confirmed that he’s getting a new companion called Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu), and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) will be returning for at least one adventure.
At a Q&A attended by Dexerto, we also learned that there’s a “terrifying episode” starring Rose Ayling-Ellish and that we’ll learn more about the enigmatic Mrs Flood (Anita Dobbs). If you want to know more about the wonderful world of Who then check out our Doctor Who villains ranking or we’ve a list of the best Doctor Who episodes for you to peruse.