By Robert Shearman, a former writer on the early days of the “Doctor Who” 2005 reboot era, shared some comments recently that have caught attention.
Speaking with Doctor Who Magazine (via Cultbox), Shearman indicated the long-running sci-fi TV series is “as dead as we’ve ever known” when referring to the ending of the recent second season on the Disney+ service.
That finale saw Ncuti Gatwa’s version of the Time Lord regenerate with actress Billie Piper, who played companion Rose in the early days of the reboot series, appearing.
The nature of her role is unknown, but Shearman indicated that the ambiguity makes it very difficult for further “Doctor Who” stories to be told: “No one’s going to start writing Doctor Who books with a Billie Piper Doctor, because no one knows what that means. In a funny way, the closing moments of The Reality War seem to put a full stop on things. We didn’t have that before.”
The comments by their nature were a not unfair criticism of the ambiguity left by the finale, but have been subsequently interpreted as a pessimistic take. It’s not helped by the fact the franchise has hit problems of poor reviews, failure to capture a larger viewership on the streamer, and reports of Disney wanting to move on from its deal for the show with the BBC.
Now, series executive producer Jane Tranter has responded while speaking with BBC Radio Wales. She says (via SFFGazette.com).
“That’s really rude, actually, and really untrue. The plans for Doctor Who are really simply this: the BBC and BBC Studios had a partnership with Disney+ for 26 episodes.
We are currently 21 episodes down into that 26-episode run. We have got another five episodes of [spin-off series] The War Between The Land And The Sea to come. At some point after that, decisions will be made together with all of us about what the future of Doctor Who entails.
It’s a 60-year-old franchise. It’s been going for 20 years nonstop since we brought it back in 2005 [when I worked at the BBC]. You would expect it to change, wouldn’t you?
Nothing continues the same always, or it shouldn’t continue the same always. So it will change in some form or another. But the one thing we can all be really clear about is that the Doctor will be back and everyone, including me, including all of us, just has to wait patiently to see when — and who.”
How heavily involved Tranter’s Bad Wolf production label and recent showrunner Russell T Davies will be in future episodes is unclear.
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