Like a bad penny, Doctor Who is coming back despite Disney+ ending its creative partnership with the science-fiction franchise after two seasons and some, for lack of a better term, change. On October 28, 2025, the BBC announced that The Doctor will return to his original network with a Christmas special in 2026 written by Russell T. Davies and a new season. Ultimately, for the show and the fans, this is a good thing. “We can assure fans, the Doctor is not going anywhere,” Lindsay Salt, director of drama for the BBC said per the official website, “and we will be announcing plans for the next series in due course, which will ensure the TARDIS remains at the heart of the BBC.”
The Disney+ era of Doctor Who began when the streamer distributed three specials in 2023 starring David Tennant as the Fourteenth Doctor internationally. At the end of those specials, the Doctor “bi-generated,” keeping Tennant’s new character on hand for future adventures and also introducing the incomparable Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor. That kicked off the House of Mouse’s official, albeit brief, takeover. Gatwa played the Doctor for two seasons and two Christmas specials on Disney+ totaling 18 episodes. While their partnership is over on paper, there is still more to come content-wise. Lest we forget, a Doctor Who spin-off is coming to Disney+ in late 2025 called The War Between the Land and the Sea, starring Russell Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Other than that, for all intents and purposes, Disney+ and Doctor Who have finally broken up.
Disney’s Glossy Budget Was Too High for a Show Like ‘Doctor Who’
With love, the Disney+ version Doctor Who looked too expensive. It’s best when it’s scrappy. The way that nerd culture has gone mainstream in the last few decades has been a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it’s wonderful that producers are willing to write big checks for science fiction and fantasy projects. It’s validating that they value stories that help outsiders feel seen and actually want to bring them to the screen. On the other hand, there’s something so special about watching serious actors run around cheap sets and interact with corny visual effects. Doctor Who, and other BBC genre shows like Merlin and Red Dwarf did this particularly well.
‘Doctor Who’ Was Too Weird for Disney+ & It’s Mold of Storytelling
Fans of Marvel Comics and the Star Wars franchise have long complained about the Disney-ification of their favorite stories and characters. For all of its virtues, Disney is fairly sanitized and safe when it comes to storytelling. They don’t take big risks, and The Doctor is about big risks. Granted, Doctor Who has always been what the MPAA in Hollywood would consider PG-rated, more or less. But just because a show is family-friendly doesn’t mean it can’t get weird – or scary! Originally, Doctor Who never shied away from horror elements, and when it was at the BBC the show seemed to understand that better than the folks at Disney. International fans of shows like Doctor Who tend to like it because of its Britishness, not in spite of it.
There were some stand-out moments and episodes on Disney+ that pushed the envelope, including a queer romance at the heart of a Bridgerton-inspired episode, a guest star appearance from Jinkx Monsoon, and a conservative podcaster/supervillain played by literal Disney prince Jonah Hauer-King. But on the whole, the Disney+ seasons vacillated between too childish to take seriously and so high-stakes it was overwhelming. It’s not uncommon for The Doctor to save the Earth, the Universe, or something even bigger. But not everything is an intergalactic crisis. This is a science fiction adventure with giant wasps, a sentient universe that appears as a tiny frog, and an alien that’s just… skin, after all. It’s not exactly a four-quadrant blockbuster movie.
Hopefully, This Means That Gatwa Can Return as the Doctor in Some Capacity
All of that said, the one thing that worked consistently with Who on Disney+ was Gatwa. The Sex Education actor gave an incredible performance oozing with charisma and gravitas, even if his story lines erred on the immature side at times. Fifteen had chemistry with every character, human or alien, in his series. His whirlwind flirtation with a bounty hunter called Rogue (Jonathan Groff) that started in the aforementioned Bridgerton-y episode is a major loose end. Gatwa found an emotional center to the character and little idiosyncrasies that previous versions of the Doctor never tapped into. While certain other things about the Disney+ era felt wrong, Gatwa’s Doctor always felt right.
So it was devastating when, at the end of the second official DIsney+ season, the Fifteenth Doctor regenerated and a character–who we cannot say for certain is the Sixteenth Doctor yet–played by Doctor Who alum Billie Piper. Sure, Doctor Who‘s whole thing is “timey-wimey” stuff, but did they really have to go back to the old well of familiar faces again, after they just did it with Tennant? Again, Marvel and Star Wars fans can also attest to what it feels like when Disney gets a hold of a fictional universe and leans towards nostalgia bait rather than original storytelling. To move forward, Doctor Who should break freefrom those who want to hold it back. Gatwa deserved better!
Now that Doctor Who is getting a fresh start back at the BBC, does that make it more likely that Gatwa will get another chance and is not truly gone as The Doctor? To put things in perspective, Jodie Whittaker got three seasons and just over 30 episodes as the Thirteenth Doctor, and before her Peter Capaldi had three seasons and 40 episodes. Matt Smith had even more. Some of the best episodes of the previous Doctors’ tenures came once the actors got more comfortable in the role. Gatwa can and should helm another season, if not two, to continue to make his mark on this weird, scrappy, and unapologetically British franchise.
