It has been rumored for months and now it has become reality.
Disney+ will be exiting the TARDIS and will no longer be involved with Doctor Who after partnering on two seasons with the BBC plus an upcoming spin-off titled The War Between The Land and the Sea.
The BBC just confirmed that the show will continue and will return with a Christmas special in 2026 penned by showrunner Russell T. Davies. Details of future seasons will be announced in due course along with more information on an animation for pre-school children.
BBC drama director Lindsay Salt thanked Disney for “being terrific global partners and collaborators over the past two seasons, and for the upcoming The War Between the Land and the Sea.”
“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,” she added. “We can assure fans, the Doctor is not going anywhere, and we will be announcing plans for the next series in due course which will ensure the TARDIS remains at the heart of the BBC.”
Rumors have been swirling for months that Disney+ would exit the deal, which initially ran for two seasons plus the spin-off, totaling 26 episodes once The War Between the Land and the Sea airs next year.
Estimated to cost around £10M ($13.3M) per episode with Disney money, Davies’ regenerated Doctor Who has returned with a bang over the past couple of years along with a bunch of big stars and splashy storylines. Yet it hasnt necessarily rated as well as the BBC might have hoped, and it didn’t appear to be making such a big splash on the other side of the pond for Disney+. Deadline recently analyzed official seven-day viewing figures for Season 15 and it did not make easy reading for those involved.
More than a year ago, our Doctor Who deep dive spoke with connected sources who said the show’s future with Disney+ was hanging in the balance, and these rumors only ramped up as the months wore on and the initial deal neared completion. At the same time, Ncuti Gatwa, the 15th Doctor, exited the show under something of a cloud, seemingly handing over the keys to a familiar face in Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler. Gatwa later blamed burnout for his exit, which didn’t do much to ease the cloud.
In a production diary for the latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine, Davies said the BBC’s iconic sci-fi series will never end, but he was less certain about its immediate future following Season 15. “We don’t know what’s happening yet, and while everyone works that out, I’ll take a pause on this page … Hopefully, we’ll have news soon,” the showrunner wrote.
But the BBC has always made clear that the show will go in with or without Disney. Last week, Jane Tranter, the show’s EP and a close friend of Davies’s, lambasted a “rude” former Doctor Who writer who had said it was “dead as we’ve ever known it.” Prior to Disney’s involvement, Doctor Who had aired on and off for two decades without a big contribution from American co-producers.
Tranter’s Bad Wolf production outfit, which was given the keys to the Doctor Who contract when Davies took on showrunning duties for a second time, will produce the Christmas special. BBC Studios continues to sell the series around the world.
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