The BBC has announced that the planned “Doctor Who” 2026 Christmas special has been cancelled and that the show’s showrunner, Russell T. Davis, is departing alongside his production company Bad Wolf.
The cancellation of the special, a mostly annual release since “Doctor Who” returned to the airwaves in 2005, is definitely bad news, but, according to Davies, it was actually planned all along.
In his post on Instagram saying farewell to the franchise again (he ran the show from 2005 to 2010 and then again from 2023 to now), he reveals that the holiday special was actually never going to happen and that it was all a facade as the BBC decided what they were going to do with the franchise.
“There won’t be a Christmas Special – we only cooked that up to guarantee a future when no one knew what would happen, but now we do know, there’s no need for it. You’ll have to wait a bit longer for new “Doctor Who”… but you’ll be waiting for MORE “Doctor Who” than 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. You may disagree; fine, sit in that chair and wait to be proved right. You’ll wait a lonnng time,” he said.
Why they had to cook up a lie about a Christmas special to guarantee the future of a show that the BBC still holds as a cornerstone of its content isn’t too clear, but the entertainment industry is weird. The real question is, what will come next?
What is next for “Doctor Who”?
This is not a sign that the BBC is giving up on “Doctor Who”. While the series struggled to gain an audience on Disney+ and eventually the partnership between the BBC and Disney collapsed, the network is still standing behind the franchise.
“’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,” the BBC said in a release.
What does putting up for tender mean? It means “Doctor Who” is up for grabs. The BBC is inviting any production company to pitch and bid for the rights to produce the show. With a legacy franchise like “Doctor Who” that’s a mighty tempting offer, and there’s sure to be plenty of companies out there looking to grab it. Just who that company will be probably won’t be known for a while, but it will definitely mean a dramatic new direction for the series.
As for who the next actor to play the time-travelling alien will be, that is also unknown. While Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor did regenerate into Billie Piper at the end of the previous season, there’s very little reason to believe Piper will actually take over the role. The actress is closely connected to Davies and his production company, having played Rose Tyler, and a new production company will probably want a clean slate. The Doctor also already revisited a familiar face when David Tennant returned briefly to the role.
Basically, this all means that “Doctor Who” once again finds itself with a clean slate and a new direction. That’s something the show is no stranger to, of course, so it will be exciting to see what the future (and the past and the present and the wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff) holds.