By Owen Quinn author of The Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

The Doctor Who Christmas special 2024 highlights an aspect of a national tragedy that has been forgotten by most. Even at the time it was barely acknowledged but left behind a trauma that still hurts to this day because it goes against our very nature.

So, it’s Christmas time once again and the Doctor is once again battling evil at the happiest time of the year. This time, we are at a time hotel where a plan is in place involving a homicidal suitcase that kills the wearer, built by a galactic weapons dealer the Doctor has met before and a young woman who is running away from her pain.

I have to say that I had to watch this twice to fully form an opinion. Sci fi works when it deals with the human heart. I’ve done this with The Time Warriors books because every reader has been in pain; every reader has laughed and every reader buries their own pain. We go through each day with sorrow and pain buried beneath our lattes and scrolling. These are mere distractions we allow to stop us from dwelling on what upsets us.

The evil threatening Christmas this time is not a Dalek or a Racnoss but one we all face. We cannot touch it or see it but it invades every part of our being. It is an evil gestalt that lies within us causing pain when you stop for a moment to think. When you find a quiet moment and reflect then it surfaces washing us in pain and regret. Alcohol brings it to the surface. It is an evil that is at its most intense at Christmas.

Loss. The loss of loved ones hits home harder at Christmas.

There isn’t one character here that isn’t impacted by it.

The Doctor lost not only Ruby but the hope he had found his granddaughter, Susan. Ruby, in her cameo, has lost the Doctor despite getting her family back. The Silurian manager is alone separated from his people. Anita is locked in her hotel because she has lost love because of the shitty men she picked. Trev is forever letting people down and has no one. They are all victims of pain and regret but go on with their lives day after day because they cannot bear to face it.

But it is Joy (Derry Girls Nicola Coughlan) that epitomises it best because she was the victim of one of our world’s most heinous tragedies which is made even worse by recent reviews of the Covid lockdown measures.

And it is one that we must never forget.

I contracted Covid like many others and at the time many people did not believe in it. The government restrictions came into place and our lives changed drastically. I had to shield for 12 weeks which by the end of that, taught me that I am not a person that can survive being restricted and locked away from the outside world. So when I took pneumonia from the disease thanks to a doctor not doing his job, I ended up in a Covid ward in a bubble until I was recovered enough to rejoin the world.

In that time, you have no one to talk to in person but the nurses. Amazingly there were thirty something patients that did not believe they had Covid even though they were in a Covid ward. Sometimes humans can be very stupid.

But it was an opportunity for me to see for myself the effects of Covid. The nurses that cared for these patients should be recognised as national heroes. They told me how they had to let relatives watch their loved ones die over Facetime. The nurses actually had to hold phones and iPads with distraught relatives on the other end helplessly watching a loved one pass.

Think about that for a second.

Christmas is a time to be with family and friends. How torturous it is to wake up on Christmas Day with the knowledge that your mother died alone while you were stuck on the other end of a device? You weren’t there to be with them as they passed away. You couldn’t hold their hand or kiss them goodbye as they took their last breath. We forget this ever happened because once restrictions were lifted it was business as usual. But for those whom it happened to, they will never forget.

Joy is devastated by this and blames herself which is why she isolates herself at Christmas. It is through the star she absorbs that brings her mother peace in her death finally. She finds purpose again and finally gets to reconcile.

But together with loss and pain comes hope at Christmas. We hope for a better year and for happiness for our families which must surely come after the deluge of grieving tears. And the final scene with Joy being the star of Bethlehem itself is perfect because the greatest hope for the world was born that day.

The Doctor is back and does what he does best; change lives and do the right thing. His self imposed year with Anita has taught him how much he is fallen back into old habits.

The only thing I will say is that this Doctor was healed by the end of The Giggle. Yet here he is facing the same thing Donna told him in The Runaway Bride, River told him, Clara made him promise not to do and Amy criticised him for. And now Joy tells him the same thing. But how are we here again given the events of The Giggle?

The Doctor must never travel alone and needs to find a friend asap. He works best not because he brings joy to their world but because they bring it to his.

And all this because one girl could not be with her mother when she died because the government said so.

I have to quickly mention Ncuti is brilliant, the sink plunger joke was awesome and wasn’t time door number four look an awful lot like the fossilised Tardis panel from the comic strip The Stockbridge Horror? His speech to make Joy mad is as much about him as it is abut her as seen when he berated his future self for being so lonely.

This is how to highlight a sad part of our history without ramming it down the viewers’ throats. We must never forget those days and strive to make sure we are with the ones we love so they will never die alone. If there is another pandemic, ensure the powers that be learn from what they did during the pandemic and do not make the same mistakes again and deprive civil liberties to that extent again. At the end of the day, civil liberty encapsulates our right to be with our loved ones when they die so they leave this world in a blanket of unrequited love. There had to be a way better than an electronic device.

This year Doctor Who delivered perfectly and shook us out of complacency over an issue many have forgotten. Remember, after the tears always comes a smile and I’m doing both this Christmas. Well done Moffat.