Doctor Who's Steven Moffat confirms Christmas special plot details – including 'time-travelling hotel'

Fans have already been treated to a glimpse of the special and a first-look image of the episode, which has been written by former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat.

But now, Moffat has teased some further details about what's to come in the new episode.

Speaking to BBC South East news, Moffat revealed: "I can tease something about the Christmas special. Imagine in the far, far future, imagine 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."

Speaking about how his involvement on the Christmas special even came about, Moffat admitted he was approached by showrunner Russell T Davies, who was struggling to complete the Christmas script in light of an upcoming second season.

Moffat explained: "The truth is – I absolutely love doing Doctor Who Christmas because I'm a big fan of Christmas, I absolutely adore Christmas.

"Then the email came through saying, 'Steven, I need to get onto series two, I'm never going to finish this Christmas script – could you come in and write one?' Not complete his [Russell T Davies's] script, just come in and do another one from scratch."

Read more:

• Doctor Who fans have chance to bid for Jodie Whittaker's actual TARDIS
• Doctor Who showrunners celebrate Tom Baker's "miraculous", "genius" era

As of now, that's as much detail as we're getting on Joy to the World, but we're sure more will be teased the closer we get to the big day itself.

Coughlan herself has called her character Joy "a determined woman whose life is changed forever when she meets the Doctor", so it's safe to say that fans are excited to see how she'll slot into things.

Moffat has previously referred to Coughlan's performance in the episode as "heartbreaking", and knowing just how dark some of Moffat's previous Doctor Who episodes have been in the past, we're braced for quite the roller coaster.

This isn't the first teaser we've gotten about the Christmas episode, with Davies speaking in a behind-the-scenes video on YouTube for Empire of Death saying: "Now the Doctor voyages forward, and guess what always happens to the Doctor every so often - Christmas! Here comes Christmas.

"I can't give away much more, but work has begun on it already, and it's mad, it's one of the maddest Christmas specials you'll ever see. It's epic, it goes to so many different places. And it's a great story of who the Doctor is when he's alone."

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