Back in June it was confirmed that the most recent era of Doctor Who, headed by Russell T. Davies and produced by Bad Wolf Studios for the BBC, had come to a somewhat abrupt end. A Christmas special planned for December 2026 had been cancelled and the BBC had begun planning to put the show out to tender for a new production partner. This followed the BBC and international distributor Disney+ also cutting ties after two commercially-underwhelming seasons.
The expectation was that the show would be gone for an extended time, but in its formal invitation to tender published publicly for the first time today, the BBC has instead shown a more bullish timescale. That want interested parties to declare their interest by 2 October at the latest, with a view to announcing the successful tender in March 2027. The want the airdate for the next season of Doctor Who to be in the 2028-29 period, and are so far planning only a single new season with a new partner, with a view to extending to more seasons depending on other requirements (possibly - my speculation - including the contractual time period desired by any new actor playing the Doctor; a one-year contract will likely not be hugely compelling). The next season will apparently deprioritise complex lore and intricate existing backstories, and will take a fresh approach, with the BBC preferring the initial use of new monsters and aliens, but existing, iconic enemies are free to return.
It is known that BBC Studios is interested in the project and may be the frontrunner, but several other British production companies and potentially several overseas ones may be interested, though the BBC is apparently not actively looking at American studio partners at the moment.
The BBC likely is looking at international distribution deals, though. Netflix seemed to rule itself out of any such deal recently, but Amazon has expressed some interest. The BBC has also licensed its Doctor Who library to AMC in the United States, which may suggest they could be a preferred partner for at least American distribution; AMC also owns BBC America, the channel that aired Doctor Who at the height of its American success in the Matt Smith era.
It will be interesting to see how this moves forwards, but in the meantime 2026 will be the first year since 2004 in which no new episode of Doctor Who has aired at all, a remarkable milestone, and it sounds like 2027 will be the same.
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