Doctor Who's finale infuriated fans – but the next series will fix everything
Last we saw, the tenacious Time Lord Ncuti Gatwa was burning away to reveal the Doctor's new face, and it looked very familiar. For whatever reason, the Last of the Time Lords appeared to have taken on the form of his old companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper).
Needless to say, this sudden and unexpected transformation has left a lot of fans very curious – and in some cases downright furious – about what's next for the good doctor.
Annoyingly, however, the BBC and Russell T Davies have remained tight-lipped on the situation and at the time of writing, there's been no word on the beloved sci-fi series' future or whether Disney is interested in helping finance another run.
So what's a Gallifreyan superfan to do then? Well, here at Metro we've gathered our team of dedicated Doctor Who experts – Deputy TB Editor Tom Percival, TV Reporter Asyia Iftikhar, and Senior TV Reporter Rebecca Cooke – and cracked out the crystal ball to predict what's next for the show, both in terms of the story and the thorny world of TV production.
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Don't worry, though, most of us are predicting a happy ending for the Doctor.
It might just be me, but it seems painfully obvious where Doctor Who is going next.
Regardless of Disney's involvement, I think we're getting at least one more special, and I don't believe that Billie is playing a true incarnation of the Doctor. Instead, it seems far more plausible that she's the Bad Wolf entity borrowing the Doctor's body.
Basically, in this imagined special, we'd learn that Rose's consciousness exists in the Time Vortex as Bad Wolf. When 15 poured his regeneration energy into the time vortex to bring back Poppy, part of that consciousness merged with the Doctor.
Sadly, it's not a true regeneration, and this new 'Meta-Crisis Rose Doctor' has a limited time until the body finishes 'cooking' and the true 16th Doc emerges. In that time, though, she has all Rose's memories and all the Doctor's abilities, so she decides to track down her Doctor… aka David Tennant.
Over the course of a special, we then get 'Rose Doctor' travelling through the Doctor's timeline, running into some familiar faces (old companions and some returning Doctors perhaps?) before one final tear-jerking run-in with the 10th Doctor giving closure on Davies' tenure and the revived Doctor Who series. Basically it's one big happy ending.
What happens next depends on whether the BBC wants more Doctor Who or not. But either way, I think it'll end with the Rose Doctor regenerating into the true 16th Doctor.
This will either lead to a third season or, if the BBC decides it's done with Who, the regeneration will be left open-ended for some future writer to pick up a decade or so from now.
Whatever happens, though, I think it's time for some fresh blood, and that means two things. Drop Russell T Davies and leave the nostalgia for New Who behind. Change is part of the show's DNA, and the refusal to 'regenerate' has been holding the series back.
Disney will pull out of the deal, and the show will fall back into the BBC's hands, returning with a 2026 festive special by which time they will have chosen the 16th Doctor proper.
In the Christmas special, much like Susan's cameo was teased and never addressed again in season two, Billie Piper will make a fleeting appearance before the show quickly moves on.
I believe she won't even last the full episode, and her cameo will be resolved perhaps even in the first 5 to 10 minutes, as the Doctor's regeneration goes wacky due to Rose's energy being in the Time Vortex after the Bad Wolf incident.
Billie will then regenerate into thetrue16th Doctor, who will have their introductory adventure.
The show will then return in 2027 for a full season three (ideally returning to, at least, the 10-episode structure provided for Jodie Whittaker's era) with a brand new companion.
Belinda Chandra, Ruby Sunday, the 15th Doctor, and whoever Billie is portraying will be firmly left in the past – and, like you, I hope and assume there will be a new showrunner.
It's fair to say the Billie Piper reveal has not gone down well.
Most see it as the Whoniverse putting the brand on life support, where the memories of the good ol' heyday of the Russell reboot are intravenously administered to keep the dwindling fanbase hopeful that our ailing Tardis might pull through.
So, if an idea like, say, bringing back a beloved companion and defying show logic by making her a Time Lord were to backfire, how best to style it out?
This season gave fans a lot of things on their wishlist: big budget, stellar Doctor, lovable companion, some cracking episodes (Lux, The Well, etc). But still, it seemed the only fans tuning in were the meta superfans we met when the Doctor battled Mr Ring-a-Ding.
Let's go out on a limb here and say that Disney won't back out. That Rose is the Sixteenth Doctor. (All the logical predictions have been taken.)
In order to get fans back in and keep Disney sweet, we might have a big shake-up on our hands. Huge. Piper is so bonkers and out-there a person to appear in the regeneration, it could upset the time-space continuum enough to usher in the new normal: a Doctor-of-the-week format. More Trending
Hear me out. Perhaps Piper is explained away with some timey-wimey nonsense, and perhaps it turns out the mechanics of Time Lord-dom are broken. He/she/they is regenerating every hour of television, to be precise. Which Doctor Who prediction do you think is right?
So, for a one-off special season, playing the Doctor will be the new equivalent to hosting Saturday Night Live. Or going on Snack Wars. Or eating some chicken in whichever poultry promotional content you prefer.
A rotating cast of 'Doctor Who's who'. The whiff of desperation is already in the air, so why not lean in?
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Doctor Who is available to stream now on BBC iPlayer
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