Doctor Who’s Ncuti Gatwa praises "spiritual undercurrent" in Christmas special

Penned by former showrunner Steven Moffat, the special followed the Doctor (Gatwa) and companion Joy (Nicola Coughlan) to the Time Hotel as they attempted to stop the villainous Villengard from growing a star and destroying humanity in the process.

Speaking about the episode on Doctor Who: Unleashed, Gatwa said: "This Christmas ep[isode], I enjoyed so much. I enjoyed the script, Steven Moffat back doing what he does best.

"There's almost kind of a spiritual undercurrent to his scripts, which is really powerful and interesting to have in a sci-fi script."

While Gatwa didn't get specific about moments in the episode, there are a fair few spiritual scenes, including the death of Joy's mother and mentions of an afterlife, and Joy embracing and becoming one with the star at the end of the special, with it being revealed that it was in fact the star of Bethlehem.

Moffat previously opened up about the Doctor making comments regarding faith and spirituality in his season 14 episode Boom.

Speaking to Nerdist at the time of the episode's release, Moffat said: "I don’t have one, but the Doctor is interesting when it comes to faith. Because he’s always, as he was in The Time of Angels with Father Octavian, quite disparaging of it, except he’s got faith in so many things.

"He has faith that there’s order to the universe, that truth and beauty are the same thing, that it will all make sense in the end. He has faith in those things. So when he disparages faith, he’s a complete hypocrite."

Moffat continued: "He’s interesting in that subject. He comes to love Mundy, of course, and he actually respects her faith. I’m worried when people ask [why faith is a part of the episode] that they think I’m disparaging it. I’m not disparaging at all."

Doctor Who will now return for season 15 in 2025, with fans being treated to a trailer at the end of Joy to the World.

Doctor Who: Joy to the World is available to watch on BBC iPlayer. Doctor Who will also return in 2025 to BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

Check out more of our Sci-Fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to see what's on tonight. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.