Back in 2022, Sex Education alum Ncuti Gatwa made history when he was announced as the newest and 14th Doctor in Doctor Who. Becoming the first black actor to play the title role full-time, Gatwa’s casting was trailblazing, but his tenure in the coveted role didn’t last long. After two seasons under a short-lived co-production between BBC and Disney+, Gatwa said goodbye to the role, leading the entire franchise into limbo.
Now, over a year since Gatwa’s last episode, which aired on May 31, 2025, longtime fans of the show are finally getting some answers. In a new interview with BBC Radio 2, showrunner Russell T. Davies finally teased the future of the beloved series.
An Exciting ‘Doctor Who’ Announcement Is Coming Soon
In the interview, Davies cleared the air with fans and hinted that an upcoming announcement will finally provide long-awaited answers about the future of the show, including the status of the Christmas Special, a tradition the show hasn’t done since 2024. “You will get an announcement,” Davies said, per ComicBook. “There is a press release lumbering through the BBC which, as you know, is like the Jurassic period and 57 people have to sign off on every single word. I promise you in about a week, two weeks, there will be some sort of press release, and yet I can hear the gears slowing down even as I say that.”
Prior to the announcement, Doctor Who wrapped its most recent series in May 2025 with Gatwa’s character seemingly regenerating into Billie Piper, who previously played companion Rose Tyler in 2005 and 2006. The regeneration, however, has been seen as a more temporary placeholder position while the new Doctor has yet to be cast or announced. As a reminder, Gatwa was open during his departure about why he was stepping down from the TARDIS. “Because I’m getting old and my body was tired,” the Barbie star told BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, per Variety. “[The show] takes a lot out of you — physically, emotionally, mentally,” he added. “So it was time.”
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz Which Action Hero Would Be Your Perfect Partner? Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
01
You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
03
You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
07
Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
10
It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
The Future of the 2026 Christmas Special Is Still up in the Air
Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson in ‘Doctor Who’Image via BBC
But as fans of the show continue to wait for the teased announcement, speculation over this year’s Christmas Special is at an all-time high. Back in October 2025, the BBC made it clear that a Christmas Special was still a priority. “The BBC remains fully committed to Doctor Who, which continues to be one of our most loved dramas, and we are delighted that Russell T Davies has agreed to write us another spectacular Christmas special for 2026,” said Lindsay Salt, director of drama at the BBC. Since then, however, the lack of news or production updates have longtime fans questioning its status.
‘Doctor Who’ Never Belonged With Disney+
Ultimately, for the show and the fans, this is a good thing.
And, a few months after the Special’s confirmation, rumors that the Christmas Special was going to be delayed, or even transformed into an Easter Special, took shape. “With less than seven months to go, [the Special] looks like it’s hanging in the balance too,” an insider told The Sun on May 2026. “The problem is that they have found it difficult to find anyone who’ll take on the part of the 16th Time Lord, partly because it now feels like a role that comes with all the baggage of the most recent series. There are fears that even if they do manage to pull something together, it is going to be a poor cousin to previous Christmas specials which have always been adored by fans.”
With that said, it seems the imminent Doctor Who announcement has a lot to address. Not only should it give an updated timeline and status for the 2026 Christmas Special, but potentially announce the 15th Doctor, and reveal the BBC’s next collaborator following the brief two-season stint with Disney. There’s a lot the show needs to figure out and announce, but at least this time around there’s a short timeline for fans to be waiting for.
Release Date
May 11, 2024
Network
BBC One
Directors
Alex Pillai, Peter Hoar, Ben Chessell, Julie Anne Robinson, Jamie Donoughue, Amanda Brotchie, Dylan Holmes Williams
Writers
Steven Moffat, Pete McTighe, Kate Herron, Inua Ellams, Juno Dawson
