‘Doctor Who’ future in doubt as BBC confirms hiatus, cancels Christmas special, and loses Russell T. Davies
The long-running series prepares for reinvention after a turbulent year.
The future of ‘Doctor Who’ is in a bit of a wibbly wobbly state, so to speak. This morning, the BBC announced that this year—despite the cliffhanger ending of the last season—there won’t be any new episodes of the series.
In a post on the series’ official website, it was revealed that although the series is an important part of the BBC, the network “will put Doctor Who out to competitive tender this year.” It was also announced that the Christmas special planned for this year would no longer be produced. “This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series, it was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one-off special, we are choosing to move forward and invest in the long-term future of the show, ensuring that when the TARDIS lands once more, it does so in all its glory.”
Doctor Who Loses Its Showrunner
Meanwhile, showrunner Russell T. Davies, who was responsible for reviving the series in 2005 with Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor, announced on his Instagram account that he was leaving the show, as well as his production company Bad Wolf. The announcement also revealed that the Christmas episode had been announced only “to ensure a future when no one knew what would happen, but now that we do know, there’s no need for it,” Davies wrote. “You’ll have to wait a bit longer for new Doctor Who… but you’ll be waiting for MORE Doctor Who than just a one-off. So it’s worth it!”
“For the record: there was no script, I never wrote it, and no actor was ever approached to play the next Doctor,” Davies continued. “You may disagree; fine, sit in that chair and wait to be proved right. You’ll wait a lonnng time.”
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The last we heard from ‘Doctor Who’ was a year ago, when Ncuti Gatwa left the show in the episode The Reality War. Following his departure, the regeneration brought us Rose Tyler, though the credits did not introduce her as the new Doctor. The future of the series feels uncertain, but at least we’ll be able to watch everything that happened between 2005 and 2022 starting tomorrow, June 11, on AMC+, the new streaming home of Doctor Who.
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