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Warning: This article contains Major Spoilers for Doctor Who's 2024 Christmas special!

The 2024 Doctor Who Christmas special might separate the Doctor from their new friend, Anita, but the story secretly reveals what happens to her after the end of “Joy to the World.” Over the years the sci-fi show has become known for its incredible holiday-themed episodes, and 2024 is no exception. After a fantastic debut season, Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor returns in the Christmas special opposite a new companion after Ruby Sunday departed from Doctor Who temporarily.

Though Nicola Coughlan’s Joy was meant to be the companion of the Doctor, the true companion in Doctor Who’s Christmas special was Anita – the manager of the Sandringham Hotel, where the time traveler gets stuck for a year. Though the Doctor is initially guarded, they develop a close relationship, spending one day talking and playing games. The montage of their “chair days” is emotional,...

Ncuti Gatwa has just had his first Christmas as The Doctor and has brought "Joy to the World" for the holiday. The Doctor Who special, guest starring Bridgerton’s Nicola Coughlan, has overall received a strong reception from critics.

Coughlan has drawn high praise for her role, though limited in her time on screen. While she may draw certain fans of "The Ton" to the series, the writings of Lady Whistledown aren’t the only teases to grace the small screen. The episode, written by former showrunner Steven Moffat, included more than a few Easter eggs and paid tribute to a recent time in our history where people had never been further apart at Christmas.

Related Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor Who Season 2 Trailer Introduces New Companion

A new teaser trailer for the second season of Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor Who introduces his next companion.

Davies and Moffat Dish on the 2024 Christmas Special...

Warning: spoilers ahead for Doctor Who's "Joy to the World."

Doctor Who's 2024 Christmas special cannot help but nod towards the 1970s children's TV show it's very clearly based on. Written by former Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat, it comes as no surprise that "Joy to the World" revolves around an intriguing core concept. Moffat was previously responsible for the Weeping Angels' "don't blink" motif, the Doctor Who/Time Traveler's Wife crossover of "The Girl in the Fireplace," and the "Doctor steps on a landmine" premise of season 14's "Boom." In the same vein, "Joy to the World" introduces the ingenious Time Hotel.

Some 2000 years into Doctor Who's future, London is home to a hotel where each room contains a portal to another era. Guests then dress up in period costumes and vacation in the past, whether that be assassination tours, historic events, or a dinosaur safari. As...

Annual showcase teases upcoming content with Will Smith, Chris Hemsworth, Ewan McGregor, Simon Pegg.

Two days after reporting soft fourth quarter earnings, Disney announced an avalanche of upcoming content available to Disney+ subscribers that includes launches today (November 12) for Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, Jungle Cruise, and upcoming releases of WandaVision ‘Agatha’ spin-off, Pinocchio, and the Obi-Wan Kenobi series starring Ewan McGregor.

Making the announcements on Disney+ Day, the second anniversary of the streamer’s launch in the US and the second iteration of the studio’s splashy promotional event, executives pointed to a raft of new...

Louisa Mellor May 17, 2017

Oxygen and Thin Ice show that the monsters aren’t what’s truly scary in Doctor Who series 10…

Warning: contains spoilers for Doctor Who series 10 episodes 1-5.

See related Was season 4 Arrested Development's best yet?

Sci-fi is often a testing ground for our fears. We take something that scares us, dress it up in a tentacled bug suit, and write a comforting story about how we defeated it. (Sometimes we write stories about how it defeated us, but those don’t tend to sell as well.)

From the very start of the genre, writers have shaped monsters from the stuff of their anxiety—hubristic scientific advance or disease or enemies from this war or that—and designed scenarios in which, through pluck, luck and brains, we send them packing or squash them flat. Nuclear war, AIDS, terrorism? Bug suit. Story. Defeat.

Like any good sci-fi show,...

Alex Westthorp Oct 3, 2016

It's 40 years since Multi-Coloured Swap Shop made its television debut and kick-started the Saturday morning kids' TV slot...

Imagine the excitement - it's just before 9.30am on Saturday 2nd October 1976. It's almost like Christmas has come early, such is the anticipation. The nation's kids, who hitherto got their kicks at the Saturday morning pictures, settle in front of their television screens and press the button marked 'BBC1'. Those who read their parents' Radio Times know a new show is about to start with Radio 1 Breakfast Show DJ Noel Edmonds at the helm. 28 year old Noel is cool and down with the kids. Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen - the Doctor and Sarah Jane from Doctor Who - are to be the first star guests, and you can actually speak to them live by telephone! The TV set warms up and the familiar blue and yellow BBC...

Jenny Morrill Jul 12, 2016

Does Willy Fog float your boat? Squidward ring your bell? Den Of Geek's hard-hitting journalistic investigation into cartoon chaps...

If you ask a guy 'Which cartoon character would you have sex with?' the answer is pretty much always 'Jessica Rabbit'. Occasionally they'll throw in 'Betty Rubble' as well, just to keep things interesting, but there are few straight men on the planet that wouldn't sell their soul just to have a sniff of Jessica's bra.

Straight women, however, don't really have that option. We don't have a staple go-to cartoon character for conversations like these. This must be why we just talk about shoes and commitment all the time.

To rectify this oversight, I've put together a list of potential cartoon gentsfor your perusal. Please note that I don't personally fancy any of these guys; that would be strange and wrong. Although if I'm pushed, we...

Guy fondly revisits Scott Bakula-starring time travel series Quantum Leap, the closest we’ll ever come to a live-action Mr Benn…

Throughout the 90s, Starfleet’s Captain Archer bounced around time meddling in other people’s lives, aided and abetted by the third-tier villain from Beverly Hills Cop 2 in holographic form. No, this wasn’t a fever dream – this was Quantum Leap: possibly the lowest-key sci-fi show ever televised (and all the better for it).

I’d argue that Quantum Leap was one of the best sci-fi shows that really didn’t need that much in the way of fictionalised science. Indeed, when the plots began to lean on this aspect more heavily, the show seemed to lose sight of what made it great in the first place. The internal logic started to unravel, the plots became increasingly far-fetched, and it even started to become a little (whisper it) naff…...

In anticipation of the home entertainment release of The Tunnel, HeyUGuys had the privilege to speak with one of the show’s more shadowy characters, Stephen Beaumont, played by Joseph Mawle.

With an open and honest reflection on his career to date, Mawle looked back to how dressing up in his youth set him on a collision course with the big and small screen, and the unenviable task of playing a Stark under George R.R. Martin’s ruthless pen. During our conversation he offered an in-depth commentary on the show in which he spoke enthusiastically about the dark undertones of The Tunnel and its exploration of moral ambiguity, before looking ahead to two of his upcoming film projects.

Why a career in acting? Was there that one inspirational moment?

[Laughs] Probably watching too many movies as a youngster, and wanting to be a bit like Mr Benn; to be able to...

Bagpuss and Mr Benn are among the classic children's TV characters that appear on a new stamp set.

Characters from 12 shows feature in the new series, including Postman Pat, Paddington Bear and Bob the Builder.

The stamps are part of the Royal Mail's celebration of 60 years of children's television, and have been released today (January 7).

Old favourites such as Dougal from the The Magic Roundabout and Andy Pandy also appear, along with current stars Peppa Pig and Shaun the Sheep.

The lineup is completed by Ivor the Engine, Great Uncle Bulgaria from The Wombles, and Windy Miller from Camberwick Green.

"For over 60 years, Britain's children's TV characters have brought cheer to generations of viewers," said Royal Mail Stamps' Andrew Hammond.

"It feels appropriate to celebrate all of these unforgettable characters on a set of very special stamps."

The Magic Roundabout celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2014, while Bagpuss turns 40.

Postman Pat...

A key piece of casting to the 1966 Doctor Who movie Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D was young British character actor Ray Brooks who played David Campbell in the movie - and the actor is releasing his autobiography. Having also appeared in EastEnders from 2005-2007 as well as countless other roles including the voice of 1970s cartoon character Mr Benn and various advisers, Ray Brooks has had a long and fascinating career, and his diaries dip into a wealth of stories. Ray to take dips into...