Fans are questioning whether Scottish actor Ncuti Gatwa will continue to play Doctor Who, after it was revealed that he will take a two-year break from the role.
Talk of the lengthy wait has thrown the future of Doctor Who into doubt, leaving a big question mark over the identity of the Time Lord and the direction of the show.
The Scots star is due to return to our screens next year for his second season, but the plan after that is increasingly unclear.
Speculation grew over the weekend as Graham Norton pressed Gatwa for fresh details about plans for the hit sci-fi show. The star said that he would be “filming the third series next year” – but the comment was mysteriously edited out when the programme aired.
The doubt over Ncuti’s involvement in a third series follows rumours that he wants to make the most of his growing fame from his recent roles in Doctor Who and Barbie. The 31-year-old is already rehearsing in London for his first West End play, and is expected to receive movie and TV role offers during Doctor Who’s hiatus.
“If he did go off to do other things, no one would blame him,” one source says. “He’s hardly likely to sit on his hands for the next couple of years while everyone waits to find out what is happening with Doctor Who. The truth is there’s a chance he simply won’t be available to film again in 2026.”
So what on earth is going on with the BBC ’s huge global sci-fi brand?
In the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine, script writer Russell T Davies officially confirmed that Disney will only decide whether to renew its funding deal with BBC Studios after the second series starring Ncuti airs (probably from May).
He explained: “The decision to commission season three won’t be made until season two has transmitted, and that’s always been the deal since the start.”
Russell added that although his team have begun working on scripts for future episodes, they will “park them” while they wait for Disney’s decision next summer. He explained that it would be “impossible” to fully plan eight episodes of action without knowing the scale of the budget.
A lot is riding on the potential Disney deal, which brought in £100million of funding for the last two series. This cash injection is believed to have doubled or even trebled the budgets for each episode, meaning that the show could look significantly less ambitious if the funding agreement is not renewed.
“It massively affects the stories and the scripts,” one insider said. “It’s much harder to film a battle scene with 800 aliens, for instance, if there isn’t the budget for CGI or for some spectacular staging.”
Ratings could prove crucial in shaping Disney’s decision to renew or axe funding for another series. Doom-mongers point out that the show pulls in less than 4million viewers now, compared to an audience of 8million during David Tennant and Matt Smith’s tenures as the Doctor. Certainly, US reports claim that Disney executives were left underwhelmed by Ncuti’s debut season – but no viewing figures were made public, so it’s hard to tell how it did in terms of audience size.
Whatever happens, filming for any future series is unlikely to kick off until the start of 2026, to allow time to finalise scripts and book guest stars. This means that fans cannot expect to see new episodes until 2027 – with or without the Disney cash.
But fans should be reassured that TV bosses struck an optimistic tone when discussing Doctor Who at the Edinburgh TV Festival recently.
BBC content officer Charlotte Moore declared that the new big-budget version of Doctor Who had “done so well for young audiences”.
Disney original productions boss Liam Keelan added that Doctor Who was a “really good fit”.
Labelling the show a “fabulous series”, he said: “Really, really happy to have it. I think just, the quirkiness of it, the fact that it’s in that sci-fi world and when you think about what Disney offers in other regards, I think it feels like a really good fit to me. I mean it’s great to have it.”
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