Back when the BBC struck a deal with Disney to bring Doctor Who to Disney+, allowing the show to be made with American money, it was very exciting. The rebooted series even brought back showrunner Russell T Davies, who ushered in the 'New Who' era back in the 2000s.
Ncuti Gatwa's run as the Fifteenth Doctor was largely hit and miss. By the end of his second season, he regenerated into our new Sixteenth Doctor, played by none other than Billie Piper, who previously played the Doctor's companion Rose Tyler. It does sometimes feel like the show is constantly setting up the next event. Or as former star Peter Davison (who played the Fifth Doctor from 1982-84) says, it's like watching a big trailer.
"It’s like watching a trailer for a Doctor Who show you’d like to watch later," Davison said during an appearance on The Lewis Nicholls Show. "There are huge gaps in the narrative. They’re just leaping onto the next bit and hoping your brain fills in the rest."
I mean, he's kind of right, but the whole idea of 'setting it up for later' isn't restricted to Doctor Who. Look no further than Marvel, where MCU movies have been doing it for years; just look at the post-credit scenes at the end of every movie. Often they're more talked-about than the movies themselves. The endings are essentially trailers for the next thing.
Over the years, Doctor Who has had its culminations, such as 50th-anniversary special The Day of the Doctor. But overall, Davison's views are correct: the Whoniverse needs to exist for the now, and not rely on teasing future projects. However, while we can say all that, it's doing a great job at building hype for the new season, which will see Billie Piper as the titular Time Lord.
Davison had other concerns, particularly when it comes to the rapid pace of the show as well as the over-use of special effects. “They seem terribly worried now about people’s attention spans,” he said. “If something isn’t happening every two minutes, they think people are going to turn off, but I don’t believe that’s true...People became more gripped. But for some reason in science fiction, they think it all has to go at 100 miles an hour."
"As the special effects got better, there’s a danger it becomes just about special effects. They’re just sequences of enormously impressive effects with no real story."
Doctor Who star pushes back on cancellation rumors
It's unclear at the moment when or if we'll see that next season of Doctor Who. There are rumors going around that the show could go on a break, although star Alexander Devrient, who plays UNIT member Colonel Ibrahim, pushed back on that in an interview with Radio Times.
"As it stands, I haven't left! We are here, UNIT is here, Kate [Stewart, played by Jemma Redgrave] is doing her best!" Devrient said. "It's stressful and there's never a boring day in UNIT. We're still here, and there's still lots of work to do, as you'll see in the spin-off as well."
There is indeed a Doctor Who spinoff on its way to Disney+, called The War Between the Land and the Sea, although there's no release date yet set.
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h/t ScreenRant, Doctor Who TV