Christmas came a bit early for Doctor Who fans! The show released a preview of the upcoming Christmas special, titled Joy to the World, as part of the BBC’s Children in Need fundraiser. In it, we see the current Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa, introduce the clip, which features him and Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan, who plays a character named Joy (note the reference to the title!)
Once the proper preview starts, we see the Doctor deliver some choice lines (“evil is logo” is my personal favorite) as we find out that a nefarious corporation is growing a star seed over Earth’s timeline, an act that may very well burn every living thing on the planet if the Doctor doesn’t intervene.
The kicker, of course, is that it takes millions of years to grow a star, and as such, the two are 65 million years in the past. That puts them in the time of the dinosaurs, and we see a T-Rex (at least I think it’s a T-Rex, I’m not a paleontologist!) take a chomp out of the tree house they’re sitting in.
The clip cuts off right as the two head toward the dino’s maw. What happens next? We’ll have to wait until December 25, 2024, to find out! I will note, however, that the CGI behind this dinosaur looks much better than previous iterations of the animals in the series—it’s good to see that the reportedly expanded budget is showing up on-screen.
Check out the three-minute preview below, and catch the full special on Disney+ when it drops on Christmas day.
