As Doctor Who’s fourteenth (or third, depending on who’s counting) season enters its final weeks on-screen, the rumblings persist: all is not well with the BBC’s flagship show.
Ratings are bad. Rumours abound that the broadcaster’s multi-million pound deal with Disney (now up for renewal) is hanging in the balance. There have even been reports – swiftly quashed – that star Ncuti Gatwa is eyeing the exit, or even that he’s been cut loose. And though the BBC has pushed back firmly – “Whilst we never comment on the future of the Doctor, any suggestion that Ncuti Gatwa has been ‘axed’ is pure fiction”, a spokesperson said – it’s clear not all is well.
What’s going on?
Firstly, the ratings. Perhaps this is because the show has been running for so damn long (20 years this year since it was rebooted by Russell T Davies and BBC Wales); perhaps it’s the effect of all the (unjustified) negative headlines about the show’s increasingly diverse cast and storylines. Perhaps it’s the fact that Who seems increasingly keen on preaching to its audiences than telling those stories.
Either way, people just aren’t tuning in in the numbers they used to. This season’s fifth episode, Lucky Day, achieved an overnight audience of 1.5 million – by far the lowest of the run.
But even considering that, the current series high of 3.5 million – for its premiere, The Robot Revolution – is a long way from Who’s glory days. Towards the start of the show’s run in 2005, it regularly hit an average viewership of 8 million; in 2009, for David Tennant’s three-episode run of specials, it hit 10.
Over the years, that has steadily declined, barring a slight bump in 2023 where Tennant made his reappearance as the Tenth (or Fourteenth, technically) Doctor.
This isn’t just about Who, of course: it’s also a consequence of the streaming revolution, dividing our attention between more platforms than ever before and stealing eyeballs from legacy broadcasters. The BBC are aware of this – of course they are. And in recent years, attempts have been made to give the show a little extra pep. Most notably, this has come in the return of beloved showrunner Russell T Davies, who helped bring the show back and steered it to ratings glory in 2005 alongside Christopher Eccleston, then Tennant.
This was followed in 2022 by a multi-million pound deal with Disney, which gave the show a much-needed cash injection in return for exclusive streaming rights outside the UK.
The deal was only for two years, so it remains to be seen if Disney will continue to fund Who going forward. But there have also been rumours of trouble behind the scenes: in February, it was suggested that Gatwa had quit the show in pursuit of success in Hollywood.
“Ncuti doesn’t want to be tied to the series beyond this and plans to relocate to Los Angeles with several Hollywood projects standing by for him,” a source told the Sun in February.
"His team also see a lot of fan backlash from the series, and don’t want the perception of him still being The Doctor to get in the way of any future work. The show has been poorly managed in recent years, and there’s a lot of people who’ve been working on this show for years and now being cast aside due to poor leadership."
This was firmly rebutted by the BBC at the time. "This story is incorrect, Doctor Who has not been shelved,” a spokesperson said.
“As we have previously stated, the decision on season 3 will be made after season 2 airs. The deal with Disney+ was for 26 episodes - and exactly half of those still have to transmit. And as for the rest, we never comment on the Doctor and future storylines.”
But season two is coming to an end soon, so where does that leave Doctor Who? Certainly, Gatwa has other projects on his radar. There’s a much-publicised run of Born With Teeth coming at Wyndham’s Theatre from August until November this year, which already makes it difficult to gauge when a third season would even be shot if it is greenlit.
And apart from the upcoming spinoff, the clumsily-titled The War Between the Land and the Sea, nothing else has yet been given the go-ahead.
Not even the showrunner (who has himself committed to a new project: bringing his LGBTQ+ drama Tip Toe to Channel 4) thinks that Who will survive without outside money. “I had already said in interviews that I think Doctor Who will have to become a co-pro, there’s no way the BBC is going to fund that,” Davies told theThey Like to Watch podcast about the Disney deal.
“You’ve also got to look in the long term at the end of the BBC, which is somehow, surely, undoubtedly on its way in some shape or form. What is Doctor Who going to do then? You have to prepare for that.”
If the Disney deal doesn’t get renewed, the BBC face a difficult choice: either shop around for a new partner, take things in-house or (if neither of those options work) put the show on hiatus.
And maybe it’s time. Twenty years after it was first rebooted, perhaps we’re all simply a little tired of it. After all, there are only so many stories about aliens that can be told, which is probably why the show has leaned so hard on various cameos in recent years: Tennant, Catherine Tate’s Donna Noble, and even hints at the return of his granddaughter Susan.
Plus, Doctor Who has form in resurrection. It came back bigger and better after being unceremoniously axed by the Beeb in the late eighties, and has a thriving off-screen presence, with radio plays, spin-off books and fan conventions still going strong.
Perhaps it’s time to put the breaks on and let us take some time to fall back in love with the show again. After all, it’s a national treasure: it’ll never be dead for long.
