A recent post in UK tabloid The Sun has people going crazy…along the usual lines in 2026. I’m linking to a different site because quite frankly the Sun‘s layout is crap. The Sun claims via an “anonymous source” that the 2026 Doctor Who Christmas special might be scrapped because they’re having trouble finding someone to play the Doctor. Given the current state of the series, one often cited with Star Wars and Star Trek among others like Marvel’s “Cinematic Universe” as franchises that were thought too big to fail until they failed. Notice two of those were run by Disney, who also showed their Mephisto like ability to screw something over by being part of it when they partnered with the BBC for the recent Doctor Who season, though the BBC themselves started ruining things before Disney came along.
Is the special over? In the video below, WhoCulture YouTube contributor Ellie Littlechild says no, and thinks people are panicking over nothing. Personally, I think she dost protest too much…but I also wouldn’t care. To be honest if there was no Christmas special under the current Bad Wolf producers I’m not sure that would bother me. Instead of panicking, I’d almost be relieved. Not for the reasons of some other critics…okay, not JUST those reasons, but I have one extra issue with ALL of the Christmas specials under Russel T. Davies. That’s odd because that’s one of the things he brought to New Who (unless it was some higher up at the BBC), and then proceeded to do the same thing wrong each time based on his own beliefs. This was never in the classic series. The only Christmas acknowledgement was one fourth wall break by the TRUE First Doctor, William Hartnell, in one episode that happened to be airing on the holiday. (Or close enough to it. I’m not going to do the math.)
As far as the stated reason Ellie gives for what might be the reason? I kind of agree with her, but at the same time it might be tougher finding a new Doctor than she thinks. Not only is she part of a YouTube channel whose focus is Doctor Who and its various spinoffs, but she doesn’t seem willing to see the issues the show has had and how it has affected the franchise as a whole and how its perceived, especially by the classic fanbase but even those who came in on New Who are seeing the mistakes and doing exactly what Ncuti Gatwa told them to do…touch grass and not touch their telly. (Did I spell that right, UK readers?) The Christmas special is the least of their troubles. So once Elle goes over another bit of news, which kind of ties in tangentially, we’ll get into the core of this discussion, where I think she’s right, and where I think she’s wrong.
The Sun is a tabloid and thus it’s trust ratio is in doubt, as is their track record. So all of this could be a bunch of bullocks. However, let’s pretend their right or…or I don’t have an article.
Ellie’s assertion that the problem with finding a new Doctor is that they actually want to find a big name to play the Doctor doesn’t really mesh with tradition. None of the previous Doctors were big names in the States and only a few had a decent showing in the UK as far as I’m aware. William Hartnell had done some war movies, Tom Baker was in one of the Sinbad movies, and Peter Davidson’s All Creatures Great And Small did air with some other British shows on PBS in the States. They might not be total unknowns, but the only really big actors prior to Doctor Who was maybe Russel E. Grant from the animated webseries (by the same company who work on the lost episode recreations, Cosgrove Hall, if I’m not mistaken) relaunch that was cancelled in favor of the TV series, Peter Cushing in the unconnected theatrical movies, and maybe some guest actors. Possibly Peter Capaldi. I’m admittedly not familiar with all their work. I know Christopher Eccleston and Matt Smith got some big pushes from their time on the show. Ncuti Gatwa, the last Doctor, wasn’t even that famous outside of some gay show he did, and wasn’t that popular as a Doctor.
Of course a lot of that comes from backstage issues. Another reason even an unknown might be wary about taking on the role is what Eccleston has said in the past about his time on the show, the treatment of staff by Davies and some others either still at the BBC working on the show or part of Davies’ Bad Wolf Productions, taken from a key part of his first season’s story arc. Eccleston has gone on to do work for Big Finish as the Doctor, but he won’t return to the BBC show until those people are gone. We don’t know if Gatwa noticed similar problems but we do know he’s tied into what really hurt the series: the direction of the show.
Even channels like Harbo Wholmes, who don’t qualify as close to the supposed “right wing” of Nerdrotic, saw that the show under Chris Chibnall and the returning Davies focused more on identity politics. The Doctor being a woman maybe could have worked (I doubt it) but not the way Chibnall went about it. The character was terribly written even before she told a Donald Trump stand-in not to shoot the giant mutant spiders trying to kill them because locking them in a vault to suffocate was somehow the better option. She not only hated guns that much but was also more socially awkward than I am, not even being able to empathize when one of her “fam” was confronted with his cancer possibly coming back. Then there was the “Timeless Child”, which would have been find on it’s own but making the Child actually the Doctor breaks all kinds of lore and was just done so Chibnall could have origin control and make the Doctor the most importantest person from Gallifrey. Replacing the old white guy as the first Doctor probably helped, too. Davies was all in on that. Plus he added trans discussions into his adaptation of the UK comic story “Doctor Who And The Star Beast” along with the return and ruining of the 14th Doctor, a returning David Tennant who has these days joined the “right side of history” crowd.
Then Disney came along, messed up the air time in the UK so it could launch in a decent time in the States and the UK wouldn’t have to dodge spoilers in social media discussion (which they did anyway because the US post time and thus UK air and post time was when many British subjects were asleep), and pushed a more cinematic look. UNIT now lives in something Tony Stark would have made and acts more like SHIELD than the Men In Black’s military division. (Torchwood would be the actual MIB for the UK.) Davies continued to wreak havoc to the lore by remaking the Silurians and the Sea Devils in the latest spinoff, The War Between The Land And The Sea, whose Who connection was UNIT is there.
And of course the show went supergay thanks to Ncuti Gatwa not just being flamboyant (you could make the case that could work for a version of the Doctor’s personality) but very gay, even more feminine than the female incarnation, and hardly all that threatening compared to most Doctors, especially the New Who Doctors that tended to be quite angry and a bit manic. Gatwa attacking fans didn’t help the show’s reputation, and between all of that the ratings showed. Disney didn’t stay around very long. Bluey should be worried, since it’s the only thing keeping Disney+ running, and much of that show is on the show’s official YouTube channels. (They made one just for Bingo, Bluey’s sister.) I don’t see AMC, the former American Movie Classics, will be offering the same budget when they become the new US distributor and partner, but odds are they won’t be as controlling, either. Maybe it will be back on BBC America…which last time I saw the schedule was more America than BBC. Meanwhile Britbox still has distribution of the classic series, with a 24/7 streaming channel and the on demand return to Tubi while YouTube and even Sling are getting movie-length edits of the old serials.
Finally, there’s Ellie’s comment about whether we need to know who the Doctor’s new actor is before making the Christmas special. Maybe, maybe not, but the show needs to. They need to have someone come in at the end if they want any chance of anyone watching, even if the secret is kept out of the media until airtime. “We aren’t introducing the new Doctor until the final regeneration.” Unless they’re going with my idea for how to use the “Rosegeneration”, they have to know where they’re going with the character, and that starts with who is chosen to play the Doctor. So if nobody wants the part, it’s going to be hard to convince anyone the Christmas episode matters because if they didn’t write the show off already this might not convince them to stay.
Let me also add that any Christmas special from Russell T. Davies is already a bad idea. Look at the past Christmas specials. How many symbols of the holiday did Davies turn evil? Father Christmas is now a robot “pilotfish” that draws danger, which was never explained. One enemy tried to kill him with a Christmas tree despite how little narrative sense it meant. All the attacks during the holiday at some point drove everyone out of London every Christmas before the ship shaped like a Christmas star (also doubling as a spider’s web given the threat, but who believes it’s not intentionally the star?) shot the place up. Davies, the left-wing gay man who hates Christians and tried say Jesus was a smart guy but not the Son of God (despite Jesus saying he was, so he either was God’s Son or a loon), surprisingly hates Christmas and wants to let you know it. So I don’t want Davies doing a Christmas special because, like his Rose fixation, he can’t help himself.
Admittedly I was never a big fan of much of what Davies did with the Doctor the first time. His second time was even worse. Chris Chibnall’s legacy was one of failure, of rewriting canon to fill his ego and telling his people not to watch the previous shows, including Jodie Whitaker, so that only HIS version would stand. Davies did nothing to address that except the parts he doubled down on like confirming the Timeless Children, or wrecking more lore like he did with The Rani and that whole “bigeneration” nonsense. By now the show doesn’t feel like a kids show like the original or a family show like the early New years. There are fans who are tired of seeing the dead horse beaten and just want the show to return to the Wilderness years, in hopes of going back to good stories at some point. (Even Big Finish is all-in on the “Fugitive Doctor” and Timeless Child concept, so good luck with that.)
If we don’t get a Christmas special this year from Bad Wolf, it might be a good thing. No more screwing over the Doctor as a hero, no more sociopolitical nonsense, no more lore damage (the show already couldn’t keep continuity straight at times, with the Loch Ness Monster having at least two origins, but it kept the Doctor’s and Gallifrey as together as it could for as long as it ran), no more Christmas desecration, and no more watching a beloved franchise slip even further into obscurity as people stop watching the show. Eccleston was right about one thing: sacking Russel T. Davies might be the best thing for the show right now. Find someone who cared as much as Davies kind of did, or prior showrunners like John Nathan Turner (who unlike Davies was more than “the gay man running Doctor Who) and Steven Moffat. They can’t or won’t return but they can’t be the only people who could make a good show and cares about Doctor Who specifically, knowing what fans want and what casual viewers will also enjoy and making both happy.
No Davies’ made Doctor Who Christmas episode? Sounds like a great Christmas present for fans to me.
BW Media Spotlight 