In a new interview with BBC South East, Steven Moffat revealed the reason why, in the clip of the pre-titles sequence of the Doctor Who Christmas special Joy to the World shared at San Diego Comic Con, the Doctor jumps all over history, landing in two hotel rooms, offering offering a ham and cheese toastie and pumpkin spice latte.

“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.”

This is also the likely explanation why Joy (Nicola Coughlin) unexpectedly encounters a Silurian, who stumbles into her room and the Sandringham Hotel in 2024 London.

Moffat also explained how he came to write the Doctor Who 2024 Christmas special.

“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 [from Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies’s] 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 script, just come in and do another one from scratch.”

Moffat gave a previous description of what is in store for the special.

“You like serious bits? Here’s serious bits. You like funny bits? Here’s funny bits. You like explosions? We’ve got explosions. You like monsters? Monsters! Pretty people? Pretty people! Everything. Just fling it at the screen. It’s Doctor bloody Who! Beat that, Casualty.”

In Joy to the World, after parting with his best pal Ruby Sunday, the Doctor is lonely, bored and looking for adventure. His encounter with with ever-optimistic Joy turns out to be enlightening and exactly what he needs, according to Russell T Davies in a behind-the-scenes video for the Season One finale episode Empire of Death.

“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.”

Written by Steven Moffat and directed by Alex Pillai, Joy to the World, starring Ncuti Gatwa, Nicola Coughlan, Jonathan Aris and Joel Fry, will transmit in the 2024 holiday season, likely Christmas Day, on BBC One in the UK and Ireland and Disney+ everywhere else.