Who could replace Chris Chibnall as the next DOCTOR WHO showrunner?

Doctor Who's current showrunner, and the third since its return to the air in 2005, Chris Chibnall, has announced he is leaving the series after the next season (expected to air this autumn) and a series of four TV movies to follow, airing up to the end of 2022. A new showrunner is expected to take over in 2023. This would ordinarily be daunting, but might be even moreso in this case, as 2023 is also Doctor Who's 60th anniversary.

The field of potential replacement showrunners is much more open than it was in 2014, the last time this question arose, with more chance of a wildcard selection creeping in. Still, let's take a look at the options.

Mark Gatiss

If you want a slam-dunk, "that was easy," choice, Mark Gatiss is arguably the most obvious selection. He has more than twenty years of experience as a television writer and showrunner, having co-showrun the League of Gentlemen franchise (along with his co-creators) since its TV inception (and on radio before that). Since 2010 he has also written and co-produced Sherlock, alongside ex-Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat. He also co-created Dracula. He is also an experienced actor, having recently starred in Taboo, Wolf Hall and Game of Thrones (as Tycho Nestoris, of the Iron Bank of Braavos).

His Doctor Who experience is significant: he has written five Doctor Who novels and four audio plays since 1992, written multiple short stories and penned no less than nine episodes of the series itself, ranging from 2005's The Unquiet Dead to 2017's Empress of Mars. He also wrote the 2013 drama about the creation of the show itself, An Adventure in Space and Time, which was a highlight of the 50th anniversary celebrations. Bearing in mind that the new showrunner is taking over in the show's 60th anniversary year, Gatiss is probably the strongest candidate to do something interesting that draws on the show's history.

A few things may count against Gatiss: the BBC has been showing signs of preferring a clean slate from the Russell T. Davies/Steven Moffat era, and might prefer someone with a fresh attitude to the show. In that sense, Gatiss might be over-experienced from his previous Doctor Who work. His episode form is arguably variable (though his novel form was much stronger). However, his recent break from the show (he did not pen any episodes during the Chibnall era) and pursuing other projects might have helped develop his experience (just as Chibnall arguably had to earn his chance to work on the show via Broadchurch).

Sally Wainwright

Sally Wainwright is a formidably-experienced British television producer and writer, noted for creating the offbeat drama At Home with the Braithwaites (starring former Doctor Who Peter Davison), followed by Unforgiven, Scott & Bailey, Last Tango in Halifax, Happy Valley and the critically-acclaimed Gentleman Jack.

She has no Doctor Who experience and limited SFF genre form, but is otherwise one of the most critically-regarded TV producers and writers working in British television; several papers and commentators have ranked Wainwright as the leading choice for the role. The BBC might also consider it a bonus to have a woman as showrunner, something that has not happened since 1965 (when Verity Lambert, Doctor Who's first effective showrunner, stepped down), especially if the next Doctor is also to be played by a woman (which remains unconfirmed).

The main negative against Wainwright is the success of Gentleman Jack in the United States, where it airs as a co-production with HBO, potentially opening up the US film and TV market to Wainwright, which she might choose to pursue over several years attached to a difficult-to-make and under-funded Doctor Who. Wainwright may also prefer to focus on Gentleman Jack, which is shooting a second season and may continue beyond that, rather than hand the project over to someone else.

Toby Whithouse

Whithouse was easily the favourite choice to take over from Moffat when he announced his departure, and some fans remain baffled why he wasn't selected over the arguably less-experienced Chibnall (though Chibnall had scored a bigger one-off hit with Broadchurch).

Whithouse is best-known for creating and showrunning No Angels, Being Human, The Game and Nought and Crosses, which have attracted reasonable degrees of critical acclaim over the years. His Doctor Who experience has also been reasonable, consisting of six episodes of the show proper (from School Reunion in 2006 to The Lie of the Land in 2017) and one of spin-off show Torchwood. His Doctor Who work has been relatively well-received by the (notoriously fickle) fanbase.

The points against Whithouse are not particularly strong. He is less of a known "superfan" than Gatiss, which the BBC may prefer (although that might count against Whithouse in the anniversary period). More significant is the fact that he has signed on to executive produce and showrun a new TV adaptation of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast novels alongside Neil Gaiman. However, the project has not moved forwards in three years and Gaiman's recent development of multiple new projects with Netflix and Amazon may have put it on the backburner, potentially freeing up Whithouse for Who.

J. Michael Straczynski

A writer-producer with arguably more showrunning experience than everyone else on this list combined. Straczynski is most famous as the showrunner and executive producer of the cult space opera classic Babylon 5, whose unusually-for-the-time heavily-serialised story arc was strongly inspired by both Doctor Who and fellow BBC SF series Blake's 7.

Straczynski's other work is extremely formidable: he co-wrote and co-showrun (with the Wachowskis) the Netflix drama series Sense8, and was the lead writer-showrunner on Jeremiah and Babylon 5 spinoff projects Crusade, Legend of the Rangers and The Lost Tales. He also wrote and produced for Murder, She Wrote, Jake and the Fatman and Walker, Texas Ranger. He was also a key writer in animation, and got a lot of acclaim for his work on The Real Ghostbusters.

In film, he co-wrote the 2011 Marvel Cinematic Universe entry Thor (and had a cameo in the film), and also has script credits for Underworld: Awakening and World War Z. He wrote, and was nominated for an Oscar, for his screenplay for the 2008 movie Changeling, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Angelina Jolie.

In comics, Straczynski has had popular runs on The Amazing Spider-Man (including the acclaimed 9/11 issue), Silver Surfer, Thor and Superman: Earth One, as well as creating the properties Rising Stars and Midnight Nation. He recently created or co-created and wrote, The Resistance, Moths and Telepaths. 

He has also penned three novels, an autobiography and two guidebooks on scriptwriting and writing in general. He has also posthumously prepared for publication The Last Dangerous Visions, a fifty-year project undertaken by his friend and mentor Harlan Ellison before his passing in 2018.

Straczynski has not written in the Doctor Who franchise before, but has noted his fandom of the series since watching the original series on PBS, starting in the 1970s. He has cast multiple Doctor Who actors in his shows (including Sylvester McCoy and Freema Agyeman on Sense8), has frequently mentioned it on his Twitter account and certainly has the writing chops to tackle the project and the showrunning experience to make it work.

He does have one potential strike against him: he is American. Although there is no formal rule against an American working on Doctor Who, especially as a producer-writer (American actors have appeared on the show before), the BBC seems lukewarm on the idea. They rejected a script idea by acclaimed American SFF novelist Joe Hill a few years ago, despite the endorsement of Neil Gaiman, apparently solely because he was American. Doctor Who is seen as the jewel in the crown of UK TV productions with worldwide appeal, and putting an American in charge seems politically iffy at the BBC. However, as many have pointed out, Doctor Who was created in 1963 by a Canadian (Sydney Newman) and its second showrunner, John Wiles, was South African.

There is also the possibility that, despite Straczynski's enthusiasm on Twitter for the idea, that when presented with the reality of the pay (low by US standards), the time commitment (all-consuming) and the need to move to the UK for the duration, he might reconsider the idea, especially given the other projects he is involved with. However, Straczynski is, easily, the most popular current choice with the fans, has a wide-ranging knowledge of the show and its history, and would bring back the sense of SF adventure whilst continuing the apparent BBC wish for social awareness in its storytelling (as a cursory look at Sense8 would confirm). Straczynski is arguably the strongest choice on the list, but I suspect not the most realistically likely.

Kate Herron

Herron is a nuclear-hot writer-producer-director at the moment after directing the extremely well-received first season of Loki for Marvel. Herron has already ruled herself out of returning for a second season and is looking at other projects. Her other credentials are reasonable and varied.

However, Herron may be ruled out due to inexperience: she directed Loki but was not the showrunner. She also does not have a ton of recent writing experience, her sole writing credit since 2014 being the short film Smear. Still, Herron is a favourite for those looking for a fresh creative with a lot of talent, especially those who have been advocating a return to Doctor Who's "classic" setup of splitting the showrunner role between a business-focused executive producer and a creative-focused script editor.

Pete McTighe

If the BBC decides to promote from within, arguably the most likely choice from Chibnall's existing roster of writers is Pete McTighe. McTighe wrote Kerblam! and Praxeus.

A British writer with strong experience in both the UK and Australia, where he served as a leading writer on the critically-acclaimed Wentworth (a more serious and contemporary reboot of Prisoner: Cell Block H), McTighe ticks most of the boxes as a good "compromise candidate." He has solid experience on The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Tatau, Cara Fi, Nowhere Boys and Glitch. He also became a writer and executive producer on A Discovery of Witches (produced by Bad Wolf Productions, a company founded by ex-Doctor Who vets) and earlier this year produced the well-received BBC mini-series, The Pact.

McTighe mixes recent Doctor Who experience with freshness and a lot of experience from other TV projects.

Vinay Patel

If the BBC wants continuity from the current era and McTighe is not chosen, then the next logical choice would be Vinay Patel.

He showed range with Demons of the Punjab, a serious (and Hugo-nominated) historical drama about postcolonial India, and Fugitive of the Judoon, probably the best-regarded story of the Chibnall era that mixed humour with an unexpectedly epic left turn into Doctor Who's history and future.

Patel's other work includes the critically-acclaimed television film Murdered by my Father and the first season of The Good Karma Hospital. However, Patel is seen as an outside choice due to a relative lack of experience.

Paul Cornell

Another established Doctor Who writer whose experience in the franchise ranges all the way back to the 1991 novel Timewyrm: Revelation (which inspired multiple storylines in both the Davies and Moffat eras). Cornell is widely-acclaimed as the greatest living Doctor Who writer, having penned many of the best novels in the franchise (including Love and War and Human Nature), some of the best comic stories and penning three of the best-regarded episodes of the TV series: Father's Day, Human Nature (loosely based on his novel of the same name) and The Family of Blood. All three episodes were nominated for Hugo Awards.

He has also written three Doctor Who audio dramas and the animated Doctor Who short Scream of the Shalka in 2003. He also created Bernice Summerfield, by far the most popular Doctor Who companion to never appear on screen. Cornell's other TV work includes episodes of Casualty, Holby City, Robin Hood, Primeval and Elementary.

Despite his formidable Doctor Who writing experience, Cornell has limited recent TV experience and no showrunning/producing experience, which makes him a very outside choice for the role. However, he could be formidable as script editor if the BBC decided to resurrect the split producer-script editor approach instead of a single showrunner.

Other, more unlikely-to-impossible choices:

• Neil Cross: a highly-regarded writer and producer for his work on Luther, and a leading candidate to succeed Moffat. He has written two episodes of Doctor Who. However, he is currently committed to a multi-season project for Apple TV+, The Mosquito Coast.
• Sarah Dollard: A popular choice due to her mixture of Doctor Who experience (as the writer of Face the Raven and Thin Ice) and work on other properties, including Merlin, Primeval, Being Human, A Discovery of Witches and Cuckoo Song. However, she is unlikely to be available given her commitments as a writer-producer on the hit Netflix show Bridgerton.
• Neil Gaiman: one of the most popular SFF writers in the world, with two Doctor Who writing credits to his name and a huge amount of TV experience. However, Gaiman has already ruled himself out, citing both a lack of interest in a full-time role and his existing commitments to The Sandman on Netflix and Good Omens and Anansi Boys at Amazon.
• Howard Overman: The creator of Misfits and Atlantis, and at one point a favourite to replace Moffat if the BBC wanted a fresh face with no Doctor Who experience. He recently produced the War of the Worlds mini-series and The One for Netflix, which is not expected to return for a second season. He feels like an outside chance at the moment, but not impossible.

The BBC has reportedly not yet made its choice for the role of the new Doctor Who showrunner, and I'm sure we'll hear the choice (which might very well be none of these!) in due course.

Who could replace Steven Moffat as DOCTOR WHO showrunner?

Doctor Who has just begun filming the eighth season since its return from the dead in 2005, with Peter Capaldi firmly ensconced in the role of the Twelfth Doctor and due to start transmission in August or September. However, there is mounting speculation that Steven Moffat, the show's chief producer and showrunner since 2011, will be moving on from the show either this year or by the end of 2015.

Steven 'Okay, the Last Few Seasons Have Been a Bit Ropey, But Remember Blink?' Moffat

Moffat has indicated in interviews he is closer to the end of his tenure than the start, and there are some widespread rumours that the plan was originally for Matt Smith to stay on for an extra year with both Smith and Moffat bowing out together allowing a completely new team to take over. Smith's departure was actually a relatively late decision (backed up by interviews where he confirmed he'd be back for Series 8 just a few weeks before announcing his departure), forcing Moffat to remain on board to handle the transition. This would also explain why the recent Christmas special, The Time of the Doctor, was horribly rushed in how it patched up Smith's remaining plot threads, because it originally was not designed for that purpose.

Speculation is now mounting as to who will take over the role. Doctor Who is one of the most demanding shows on British television, filming for nine or ten months of the year and requiring substantial amounts of writing work and rewrites, without having a massive writing budget (one of the reasons recent showrunners have written a large number of scripts themselves). The BBC would also presumably prefer someone with showrunning experience who can cope with the show's arduous schedule and demands.

Here's a run-down of some of the candidates believed to be in the running, together with maybe a couple of bonkers choices.

The Most Likely Choice

Toby 'Gave Unto the World Aidan Turner' Whithouse

Doctor Who experience: Wrote the episodes School Reunion, The Vampires of Venice, The God Complex and A Town Called Mercy, as well as the Torchwood episode Greeks Bearing Gifts.

Other experience: Created and produced No Angels for Channel 4 which ran for three successful seasons before creating Being Human for BBC3. A major hit smash for the channel, it ran for five seasons and spawned a popular American remake, itself in its fourth season. My girlfriend informs me it must be mentioned that Whithouse is thus responsible for the rise to fame of Aidan 'Human Perfection' Turner (not my words), for which we must all be eternally grateful. Whithouse has written and produced The Game, a spy thriller for the BBC due to air later in 2014.

Pros: Whithouse has significant writing and showrunning experience and his episodes are (mostly) well-regarded. Whithouse has also - provisionally and cautiously - said he'd be interested in the role if offered.

Cons: Whithouse's new project, The Game, might be a big hit and he might prefer to concentrate on that. Beyond that, there's not too many problems.

Likelihood: Pretty high.

The Experienced Choice

Mark 'I Have Actually Played the Doctor (sort of)' Gatiss

Doctor Who experience: Gatiss has written four Doctor Who novels, starting with Nightshade in 1992. He has also contributed multiple short stories to anthologies. His scripts for the new series are The Unquiet Dead, The Idiot's Lantern, Victory of the Daleks, Night Terrors, Cold War and The Crimson Horror. He has appeared twice in the programme as an actor, playing Professor Lazarus in The Lazarus Experiment and Gantok in The Wedding of River Song. He wrote and produced An Adventure in Space and Time, the extremely well-regarded drama about the creation of Doctor Who. Gatiss has also played the Doctor in various comedy sketches.

Other experience: Gatiss was one of the co-creators and co-producers (as well as writer and actor) of the League of Gentlemen comedy franchise, incorporating three seasons of a successful TV series, a feature film and radio shows. He co-created the international smash hit show Sherlock with Steven Moffat and co-showruns it.

Pros: An extraordinary amount of Doctor Who experience and passion for the programme. An Adventure in Space and Time is widely-regarded as the highlight of the show's 50th anniversary celebrations.

Cons: His script work on the show itself has drawn a mixed reception, though his recent episodes have been better-received. Gatiss was recently cast in the role of Tycho Nestoris on the HBO series Game of Thrones. Although a small role, it is one that is expected to recur regularly over the next 2-3 years. However, the show has shown an ability for recasting minor (and even larger) roles when needed.

Likelihood: Reasonable.

The Fresh Blood Choice

Howard 'I Created Misfits, People' Overman

Doctor Who experience: None whatsoever.

Other experience: Overman has written for shows including New Tricks and Merlin, but is best-known as the creator of the BAFTA-winning Misfits for Channel 4 and the Dirk Gently TV series for the BBC (based on the novels of Douglas Adams). He also created the police comedy Vexed and, most recently, is the co-creator of the BBC drama Atlantis.

Pros: Misfits is one of the most well-received and critically-acclaimed UK SF shows of the past decade and is a cult success in the United States. Dirk Gently was also well-received. Overman's familiarity with the SFF genre and his experience combined with a lack of working on Doctor Who previously gives him a good, fresh perspective which the BBC might find attractive.

Cons: Vexed and Atlantis have not exactly been setting the world on fire. The BBC has renewed Atlantis for a second season, which may take up too much of Overman's time.

Likelihood: Possible.

The Writing Plaudits Choice

Neil 'Has Del Toro On Speed Dial' Cross

Doctor Who experience: Wrote the episodes The Ring of Akhaten and Hide for the previous season of Doctor Who and will be contributing two scripts to the next.

Other experience: Neil Cross is the creator and executive producer of Luther, which, alongside Doctor Who and Sherlock, has been the BBC's most successful drama production of the last few years. He is also an experienced scriptwriter on movie projects, penning the recently successful horror film Mama. He is a frequent collaborator of Guillermo Del Toro, penning the script for his on-hold Lovecraft adaptation (At the Mountains of Madness) and the forthcoming Midnight Delivery. He also performed rewrites on Pacific Rim. Cross is also an experienced novelist and has been longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Pros: Cross is a formidable writing talent, with a number of varied projects in different genres under his belt. His telephone contacts list is also interesting: could we imagine a Doctor Who episode directed by Del Toro and featuring Idris Elba? His relatively limited Who experience but clear genre savviness could give the show a jolt of fresh blood and a fresh perspective. Hide was a pretty good episode.

Cons: Cross is based in New Zealand and prefers not to travel abroad for long periods (along with bduget issues, presumably one of the reasons Luther's seasons were only three episodes long). Becoming a Doctor Who showrunner would require a permanant relocation to the UK for several years. This would also require Cross to put his lucrative Hollywood scripting career on hold, or at least reduce it substantially for several years, which he may not be keen to do. Also, The Rings of Akhaten was embarrassingly bad, despite some good ideas.

Likelihood: Not impossible.

The Oh God No Please No Choice

Chris 'I Promise To Never Write Anything As Bad As Cyberwoman Again' Chibnall

Doctor Who experience: Chibnall has written five episodes of Doctor Who (42, The Hungry Earth, Cold Blood, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and The Power of Three) and eight episodes of Torchwood. His Torchwood script, Cyberwoman, is regarded as possibly the writing nadir of the entire combined Doctor Who-and-its-spinoffs franchise to date.

Other experience: Chibnall has also written two episodes of Life on Mars, multiple episodes of Law and Order: UK (on which he has also served as a producer) was the prime creative driving force on the badly-received 2011 historical fantasy series Camelot (interestingly, Chibnall had pitched this show to the BBC years earlier which eventually saw the light as the - far superior - Merlin, without Chibnall's involvement). In 2013 Chibnall penned the extraordinarily well-received series Broadchurch (starring Doctor Who's David Tennant), which will be both getting a sequel series and also an American remake.

Pros: Chibnall has a tremendous amount of writing experience on Doctor Who and Torchwood. Broadchurch has - somewhat unexpectedly - given Chibnall a renewed cachet and a stronger reputation on the UK drama scene.

Cons: Chibnall is really unpopular with Doctor Who fans. His episodes are widely-regarded as being among the new show's weakest, and his Torchwood work was, at best, risible. Broadchurch Season 2 and its forthcoming US remake also make it unlikely he'd have the time to work full-time on Who.

Likelihood: Pretty unlikely.

The Fans Will Love It But Would Be Almost Impossible Choice

Neil 'Makes Death Palatable' Gaiman

Doctor Who experience: Neil Gaiman is the writer of the extremely well-regarded episode The Doctor's Wife (which won a Hugo Award in 2013) and the somewhat less-well-regarded (even by its writer) Nightmare in Silver.

Other experience: Gaiman is the writer of the highly critically-acclaimed graphic novel series Sandman, regarded as one of the most important comic series ever written. He's also written well-regarded novels including American Gods, Anansi Boys, The Graveyard Book and the recent The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Several of his books have been adapted as successful films, including Coraline and Stardust. He was also the only person other than J. Michael Straczynski to write an episode of Babylon 5 in its last three seasons. He is also the creator of the TV mini-series Neverwhere, which he later adapted into a bestselling novel. He has been working on a TV version of American Gods for the best couple of years, formerly at HBO but now for an unidentified network. As well as being a major fan of Doctor Who, Gaiman is also a fan of the works of Douglas Adams and has penned a book about the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy novels and radio play.

Pros: Gaiman is highly-regarded for The Doctor's Wife and his many other works. He has an almost unassailable level of 'geek-cred' amongst SFF fans. He is extremely well-known in both the UK and USA, and would likely broaden the show's appeal further in the USA.

Cons: Gaiman prefers to work on several projects simultaneously rather than one for very long periods of time. He is also based in the United States and would likely prefer not to have to return to the UK to work on the series. Most notably, although a very fine writer he does not have much day-to-day showrunning experience. The American Gods TV project also seems to be a time-consuming project moving forwards, and it is possible that a new attempt to make a Sandman movie (by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) may also require his attention.

Likelihood: Highly improbable.

The Will Never Happen But Hey Let's Take a Punt Choice

J. Michael 'JMS' Straczynski

Doctor Who experience: J. Michael Straczynski was a fan of the orginal Doctor Who in the 1970s and 1980s. He has cited it - along with The Prisoner and Blake's 7 - as an influence on the writing of his TV show Babylon 5. Specifically, he has cited the season-long story arcs (such as the Key to Time season) as being influential on his development of Babylon 5's story structure.

Other experience: Straczynski was a script-editor and producer on shows like Murder, She Wrote and Captain Power whilst also writing for animated series including He-Man and Ghostbusters. He is best-known for being the co-showrunner and primary writer of Babylon 5, which ran for five seasons in the late 1990s and is credited with the boom in 'story arc' storytelling in television (which Doctor Who itself has latterly employed). Straczynski later went on to become the primary showrunner on Jeremiah before writing the script for the Clint Eastwood move Changeling. He is also extremely active in comics, writing for everything from Spider-Man to the recent Before Watchmen project.

Pros: JMS is a highly experienced writer and showrunner. He is famed for bringing in shows under-budget and on time (a notably different situation to the Moffat era of Doctor Who). He is, generally speaking, well-regarded as a writer, though his extremely prolific output (he wrote some episodes of Babylon 5 in less than a day) does mean there's a fair amount of mixed material as well.

Cons: JMS is American, based in LA and is working on the TV series Sense8 for Netflix, based on an idea from the Wachowskis. This would presumably tie him up for some years to come, and it's unlikely he'd be willing to relocate to London, despite occasionally-voiced ambitions to retire to the UK to write novels. JMS is also well-known for having many fingers in many pies and it's unclear if he would be willing to give up his comics work and other projects to commit to Who for such a long time.

Likelihood: Non-existent. If they ever do a US-based remake or reboot of the series, however, don't be surprised if his name came up.