The Satan Pit anniversary screening

The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit in cinemas for Whosday, with deleted scenes. Trailer

What would I pitch for Doctor Who?

Based on the tender...

More shorter episodes, ten to twelve of forty-five minutes including credits. More episodes mean more variety, more room to show off the breadth of the format and play with it, and also more time to make it a regular fixture.

A regular person companion. Just one.

Maybe a second full-time or later companion who is a historical human or a scifi thingy?

Wanting to be aware of the brand, see what the planned animated CBBC series is doing. That’s all the Doctor Who well see on screens for a couple of years and for the youngest members of the audience that will be Doctor Who. Refer to their version of the Doctor, any new companions and opponents.

Mainly new monsters, ideally some toy-friendly ones.

A Dalek episode assuming we can get the rights, with a small number of Daleks, maybe an episode involving something else where the Daleks interrupt as a complication, to sell them as a threat for next time they show up en masse.

The Doctor Who tender

“We’ve published an invitation to tender for the production of Doctor Who. The contract is for a multi-episodic series (including specials) for transmission in 2028/29, with an option to extend the contract at BBC’s discretion to produce a second series. It’s offered on a work for hire basis with the BBC continuing to broadcast the programme and retaining all rights.”

The BBC site for the tender

Thanks to Ian for the link.

Most of the tender document is practical stuff, so here’s the editorial brief - what they want Doctor Who to be.

Doctor Who is one of the most enduring and distinctive brands in global television. For over sixty years, it has captivated audiences through imaginative storytelling, compelling characters, and ambitious adventures that span all of time and space. The series occupies a unique position in popular culture, combining entertainment for a broad audience with sophisticated science fiction concepts, emotional depth, humour, and spectacle.

We are commissioning a new flagship series of Doctor Who. The series should feel contemporary, and creatively ambitious, whilst remaining true to the values and characteristics that have made Doctor Who a beloved series across generations.

We invite longlisted eligible producers to first pitch, in no more than three (3) pages, a brief editorial outline for a new multi-episode series, including ideas for specials.  Shortlisted producers will then be invited to put together a comprehensive editorial pitch as part of their ITT submission. 

Aside from the central character of the Doctor, you will need to develop at least one companion for the series. Companions should be distinctive, authentic characters in their own right, whose lives, relationships, ambitions, and personal journeys enrich the series. They should serve as an access point for audiences whilst also challenging, supporting, and influencing the Doctor.

We see this pitch as an exciting opportunity to innovate and surprise us. Stories should balance high concept science fiction with strong emotional narratives, ensuring that spectacle is always grounded in character and human experience. Episodes should transport audiences to extraordinary times and places, ranging from historical settings to distant futures, alien worlds, and contemporary Earth. Successful pitches will deliver ‘back of the sofa’ scares, jeopardy and tension, whilst remaining suitable for a broad family audience. Doctor Who embraces themes that celebrate curiosity, courage, intelligence, and compassion, themes that interrogate the human condition and most of all, it should and will always be distinctively British storytelling. We are flexible in the way the series is structured i.e. serialised or ‘story-of-the-week’ and the number of episodes which make up the series.

Iconic, established villains are a mainstay of the series over 60 years and we invite you to use them, but we will want to begin to get an understanding of the original characters, aliens and themes that producers wish to bring to the show and are keen not to be overly reliant on existing Doctor Who lore. We are looking for a new perspective that ensures Doctor Who remains relevant, surprising, brave and inspiring for both long-standing fans and new audiences.

At this stage of the process, it is not a requirement to formally attach a writer. You may want to pitch with writer suggestions, or if you are already working with a writer, please do include them and their ideas/vision in your submission. We are not necessarily looking to work to a strict showrunner model and would expect once in production that the series will also use episodic writers.

Visually, the series should feel cinematic, distinctive, and ambitious, capable of competing for audience attention in a highly competitive global market. We encourage innovative approaches to production, world-building, visual effects, and storytelling that maximise the scale and emotional impact of the Doctor Who universe.

We are seeking a creative vision that embraces the breadth of what Doctor Who can be and could be. Doctor Who is a show that has sparked conversation, taken risks and inspired audiences for decades and we are looking for this series to continue that tradition. Be brave, have fun and we look forward to hearing from you. 

The Commonwealth Games 2026

Judging the how the opening ceremony started, the BBC bid to show the Commonwealth Games really did fall through pretty late, huh?

(Glasgow still has TARDIS style police boxes, though they’re now coffee shops and the like. Edinburgh always had wider ones.)

Sylvester McCoy from his official Bsky

Regeneration time again

Charlie Jane Anders on some ways to make Doctor Who new again. And not just posted because she agrees wth me about one major reason the 1996 version failed and the 2005 version succeeded.

Update on plans for the future of Doctor Who

Update on plans for the future of Doctor Who at BBC.co.uk

Russell T Davies on departing, being positive about the unknown.

Roundup at Empire.

Christmas (special) is cancelled.

“the BBC will put Doctor Who out to competitive tender this year.”

The CBeebies cartoon is still happening. Beyond that,,,?

Doctor Who Title Card Generator

Doctor Who Title Card Generator inspired by the Star Trek one from last week.

Back in the day I had to screencap the background and add text myself. Kids today.

The Daleks' Master Plan

Now streaming the recovered and restored first and third episodes along with the second.

Two lost episodes found!

The first and third episodes of The Daleka’ Master Plan have been found and will be watchable on iPlayer at Easter.

And so the number of lost episodes goes down again.

(Shame about the Mavic Chen of it.)

Five Doctor Who Moments

Five Doctor Who Moments That Live In My Head Rent-Free by Lizbeth Myles

Christmas 2025

Of relevance, the Doctor Who Annual and the DWM 15 and Ruby comic collection The Monster Makers.

All month on the regular blog I came up with adventure ideas and the like based on fairytales for my Adventure Calendar.

And could spin them around here to provide a festive adventure for The Door In Time except one of the stories in that comic collection is already about Hans Christian Andersen and the Snow Queen.

So to do another one...

King Of The Mice

The travellers arrive at a 19th century German Christmas and find themselves being asked for help by mice. Their king has gone missing!

The War Between The Land And The Sea

Homo Aqua

An interesting slow start, could be a prologue to the kind of thing the Doctor deals with in a two-parter.

(Also Barclay notes meeting the Doctor, for a few seconds, and being amazed.)

Plastic Apocalypse

Good speech. Kate should know people can rise to the occasion without the Doctor there to help.

But also a twisting of words. The Sea side (sorry) is naturally sympathetic here but they aren’t playing fair.

There was a vodka advert eighteen years ago where everything dumped or lost at sea was hurled back to the land. The makers of Aquaman may have seen it. Just mentioning it here.

(Also Kate reflects how nice it would be to have the Doctor here.)

Introducing Guest Star as the Doctor

Daft celebratory thing for this year, idly thinking that almost as soon as Doctor Who came back it had guest stars who’d make great Doctors. Off the top of my head examples starting with where I got the idea:

2005: Zoë Wanamaker

2006: Don Warrington

2007: Christina Cole, Miranda Raison, Jessica Hynes (Mark Gatiss did it already and Carey Mulligan might as well for Blink)

2008: Peter Capaldi! Wait... Fenella Woolgar, Steve Pemberton

2009: Lindsay Duncan, David Harewood

2010: Iain Glen, Helen McCrory, Meera Syal, Neve McIntosh

2011: Sarah Smart

2012: Mitchell and/or Webb

2013: Jessica Raine, Rachel Stirling

2014: Jonathan Bailey, Keeley Hawes

2015: Reece Shearsmith

2016: Charity Wakefield

2017: Stephanie Hyam

2018: Alan Cumming (who was up for the role in one of the unmade 1990s versions)

2019: Charlotte Ritchie

2020: Maxim Baldry

2021: Jacob Anderson, Annabel Scholey

2022: Aisling Bea

2023: Davina McCall

2024: Majid Luke Mehdizadeh-Valoujerdy

2025: Ariyon Bakare

Whosday

The 62nd anniversary may not be the most significant, but it is the one happening today.

Telefantasy Time Jump 1963

Paul Cornell and Lizbeth Myles talk about the biggest new show on UK genre TV every year and guess what they talk about for 1963!

You could absolutely use the other 1963 shows as setups...

“And thank you for joining us on this very special episode of Telefantasy Time Jump.”

“We’re so sorry.”

Only fourteen months to go

Doctor Who to return, without Disney money, for Christmas 2026. Which I suppose explains the DWM arguments about where it’s dead or not.

We’ll get The War Between The Land And The Sea in the meantime, sometime late this year apparently.

The Door In Time 2025?

Could run Doctor Who this academic year. I’d probably manage more than eight episodes.

Doctor Who: the CBeebies cartoon

The Doctor coming to CBeebies, as announced today.

The Reality War

15.2.8 The Reality War

Anita! Yay!

Wish World

15.2.7 Wish World

After a What The beginning, the classic reality is not as it seems to torment someone. And Conrad was already a prick, but even for a fascist that really leaned on retrograde thinking for a guy in his twenties these days. Bowler hats?

Although of course his Doctor Who book looks like that.