The fate of Doctor Who has been revealed, with Disney+ officially pulling the plug on the series after a two-season partnership with the BBC.
After months of speculation about the direction the long-running sci-fi show will take, with star Ncuti Gatwa leaving the show in May and it not being renewed for a third season, the BBC has announced that a new Christmas special, written by series stalwart Russell T Davies, will go ahead in 2026.
“We would like to thank Disney+ for being a fantastic global partner and collaborator over the past two seasons and for the upcoming War of Land and Sea,” Lindsay Salt, director of drama at the BBC, said in a statement. “The BBC remains fully committed to Doctor Who, which remains one of our most loved dramas, and we are delighted that Russell T. Davies has agreed to write another fantastic Christmas special in 2026. We can assure our fans that the Doctor is not going anywhere and we will announce plans for the next series in due course to ensure the TARDIS remains at the heart of the BBC.”
Doctor Who spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea, starring Russell Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, will be available on Disney+, BBC One and BBC iPlayer later this year. A brand new Doctor Who animated series is also in development on CBeebies, the BBC’s children’s channel.
It remains to be seen who will step into the iconic Doctor’s position after Gatwa’s two-season tenure. In the Season 2 finale, Gatois’ Doctor is regenerated by Billie Piper, who played sidekick Rose Tyler in series 1 (2005) and series 2 (2006), but it is not confirmed whether she will be the next Doctor.
After the Season 2 finale, Tyler said in a statement to the BBC: “It’s no secret how much I love this show. I’ve always said I’d love to go back to the Whoniverse because I have some of the best memories there. So the opportunity to return to that TARDIS again was too good to turn down, but we’ll have to wait and see who, how, why and when.”
