The Doctor Who Christmas special almost didn’t happen this year

The annual Doctor Who Christmas episode almost didn’t happen this year. Until Steven Moffat stepped in to save the day.

When Doctor Who returned to the airwaves in 2005, it brought the concept of an annual Christmas episode to the franchise. “Classic” Who never really did holiday specials, outside of a weird moment where First Doctor William Hartnell broke the fourth wall to say Merry Christmas to all the viewers at home. But they are something of a regular fixture in the modern Doctor Who era. And Christmas episodes have even aired in years when the show itself didn’t broadcast a proper full season. So it’s rather upsetting to contemplate the fact that we apparently almost didn’t get one this year at all.

No, it’s true. According to outgoing showrunner Steven Moffat, not only was there almost not a Doctor Who Christmas episode this year, the entire concept of holiday installments almost fell apart. In an interview with Digital Spy, Moffat admits he didn’t originally intend to write this year’s Christmas adventure. In fact, he’d planned to depart the show at the end of Season 10. (Along with, presumably, outgoing Doctor Peter Capaldi.)

The problem was that new showrunner Chris Chibnall didn’t want to start his run on Who with a holiday episode. (His tenure will now begin with the Season 11 premiere, expected to air in late 2018.) As a result, the BBC apparently considered just skipping the Christmas episode entirely this year. And according to Moffat, the competition for Christmas Day airing times is so robust that had the show given up their plum positioning, they might never have got it back. (And to be fair, it does seem wrong to think of the Doctor Who holiday installment airing on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day.)

So Moffat, giant Who fan that he is, obviously had to step in and write the episode. Here’s how he explained his decision to Digital Spy .

"“There was one big glitch, which was Christmas. I was going to leave at the end of series 10 – I had my finale planned and what I wanted to do with it. I had a good notion of that. Then I learned at a drinks event somewhere that Chris didn’t want to start with a Christmas, so at that point they were going to skip Christmas. There’d be no Christmas special and we would’ve lost that slot. Doctor Who would’ve lost that slot if we hadn’t [done a special] because Christmas Day is now so rammed. So I said, probably four glasses of red wine in, ‘I’ll do Christmas!’ and then had to persuade Peter [Capaldi] that’s how we were leaving.”"

Yes, Steven Moffat apparently literally saved Christmas this year. Our hats are off to you, sir.

Details about this year’s Doctor Who Christmas installment remain sparse. Entitled “Twice Upon a Time”, it marks Peter Capaldi’s final adventure as the Twelfth Doctor, alongside David Bradley as the First Doctor. How this will all work, is anyone’s guess. But if the trailer is anything to go by, it’ll be great.

And somewhere in there, Twelve will regenerate into Thirteen. So we’ll also get our first (very quick) look at new Doctor Jodie Whittaker.

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Doctor Who returns on December 25 on BBC One and BBC America. (As it should. Thanks, Moffat!)