Doctor Who Reaches The End Of An Era — And The Future Is Unclear
Wither Doctor Who?
In the words of David Tennant’s version of the Doctor: What? What!!? WHAT. As confirmed by Russell T Davies on Instagram, and reported by Deadline and other outlets, Doctor Who will not return in 2026 for the previously promised 2026 Christmas special. No new Doctor is being announced this year, and Davies is stepping down as showrunner (again). In short, Doctor Who is headed back into the wilderness for a hiatus, which, for now, is indefinite. The flipside of this development is that the BBC is putting the series out to “competitive tender,” which means, like the now-defunct Disney+ partnership, the BBC is looking for a new producing partner to reboot the TARDIS for the future.
“As part of securing the next phase of the show for future generations, and in line with the BBC’s Charter and Agreement requirements, the BBC will put Doctor Who out to competitive tender this year,” a statement from the BBC read, according to Deadline. “Doctor Who remains an important part of the BBC, and this tender underpins the BBC’s continued commitment to Doctor Who, ensuring audiences will enjoy the show for years to come.”
Is Doctor Who canceled?
Technically, Doctor Who is neither canceled nor are any current new episodes (or specials or movies) in development. Doctor Who is in a strange limbo phase, in which, depending on the next creative team, could mean a very big shakeup for the future of the venerable time and space franchise. As exiting showrunner Davies put it on Instagram: “It’s all up for grabs, which is so Doctor Who, exciting and unpredictable and new!”
Davies also made it clear that the much-hyped Christmas special never moved forward in any real way: “We only cooked that up [the Christmas Special] to guarantee a future when no one knew what would happen, but now we do know, there’s no need for it...For the record: there was no script, I never wrote it, and no actor was ever approached to play the next Doctor.”
Doctor Who’s hiatus is the end of a modern sci-fi era
Catherine Tate and David Tennant in “The Runaway Bride.”
Since 2005, the new Doctor Who has been in perpetual production. For the record, that’s 15 seasons, eight canonical Doctors (David Tennant, Matt Smith, John Hurt, Peter Capaldi, Jodie Whittaker, Jo Martin, and Ncuti Gatwa), and countless fan-favorite moments. For 21 years, Who has carried the torch of a very specific kind of TV sci-fi; both episodic and serialized, quirky, yet profound, high-stakes, and hilarious, and most of all, appealing to a wide range of different kinds of viewers. Obviously, the classic incarnation of the series, from 1963 to 1989, was groundbreaking, but the 21st-century reboot of Who has essentially shaped the modern geeky landscape.
In 2005, the Star Wars film saga seemed to have concluded. The most recent Star Trek series, Enterprise, ended with a whimper. There was no Marvel Cinematic Universe, and DC was finally crawling back to mainstream relevance with Batman Begins. And yet, it was a fantastic time to be a geek. And that’s largely thanks to Doctor Who. When no one was sure if Captain America or Thor would be big hits, the Doctor was adorning the side of New York City buses, showing up as cosplay at conventions the world over, and promising in every corner of the world to save the day.
Peter Capaldi in 2015.
Even scrappier than Star Trek’s comeback story in the 1970s and 1980s, Doctor Who’s utterly massive comeback in the 2000s is, without a doubt, the biggest geeky franchise success story of our time.
Yes, classic Who fans have been here before, as have various generations of Star Trek fans, but the fact that the show is truly taking a pause, before massive reinvention, is shocking. Who has been the bedrock and the bellwether for pop sci-fi for the past two decades. Hopefully, the TARDIS doesn’t stay away too long, and the next regeneration of this wibbly-wobbly adventure is bigger and better than ever.
