Doctor Who Christmas special unveils new teaser pictures of Ncuti Gatwa and Nicola Coughlan

The teaser pictures were shared by the official Doctor Who X account and treat fans to a sneak peek at what's set to unfold for Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor and Nicola Coughlan's Joy.

As well as the images on X, the BBC also revealed a striking and suitably festive promotional image for the episode (pictured above) that may or may not have a few clues as to what's to come in the Christmas special.

With Gatwa's Doctor and Coughlan's Joy smiling, they're surrounded by a poster for Pompeii, a cheese toastie, a cup of coffee, a TARDIS mug and a bauble. While it wouldn't quite be Christmas without the latter, how the rest of the objects slot into the storyline, we'll just have to wait and see.

As for the other images shared by the official Doctor Who X account, we see the Doctor and Joy looking shocked as they appear to be exploring some kind of underground area with nothing but a torch. What could be waiting for them down there? We don't yet know but from the expressions on their faces, it comes as quite the surprise.

Another image also teases Jonathan Aris's briefcase-wielding Melnak the Silurian coming face-to-face with the Doctor, with the pair appearing to have a civilised conversation while a confused Joy looks on.

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The return of the Silurians was teased in a recently released clip of the Christmas special when Joy was confronted by one in her hotel room. The reptile-like humanoids first appeared in a 1970 Doctor Who serial, Doctor Who and the Silurians.

While we don't exactly know how the Silurian will slot into the action of the episode, we do know that the character is named Melnak and will be played by Sherlock star Aris.

Exact plot details for the episode are being kept tightly under wraps for now but that doesn't mean that there haven't been hints dropped along the way. The episode has been written by former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat, who recently teased some details about what's to come in Joy to the World.

Speaking to BBC South East news, Moffat revealed: "Imagine in the far, far future that a hotel chain got hold of the idea of time travel. What's the first thing a hotel chain would do if they had time travel? They'd realise they had an opportunity to sell all the unsold nights in their own hotels in history."

Doctor Who will return to BBC One and BBC iPlayer this Christmas. Previous seasons are available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

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