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,,,?

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!

You work with what you get

No Doctor Who special this year!

At least we get A Ghost Story For Christmas.

And also, er, Gladiators.

Okay, what are the Gladiators involved called? Maybe something will spark an idea.

Apollo and Athena

The travellers are tested by Greek gods, because if Star Trek can do it...

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.

1970s BBC Poe

Via horror writer and media critic Kim Newman, something I had never heard of:

In the mid-1970s, BBC2 tried to get a tradition going in parallel with BBC1's MR James-heavy Ghost Story for Christmas by doing Edgar Allan Poe stories as special editions of their Centre Play slot. Only two were made, both directed by James Ormerod.

Here's Andrew Davies' adaptation of 'The Imp of the Perverse', with Michael Kitchen, Philip Stone, Lalla Ward and Milton Johns. 

And here's Hugh Whitemore's 'William Wilson' with Norman Eshley, Stephen Murray, C-3PO and Robert Tayman.

Joy To The RT YouTube

Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat discuss the Christmas special, and Christmas specials in general, on video as well as in the Radio Times.

Joy To The Preview

The traditional Children In Need mini bit, a Christmas preview introdcued by Ncuti.

Joy To The World

As well as announcing a new series and naming the new companion (Belinda Chandra... related to Rani?) we got a four-minute-ish pre-credits for the Christmas special Joy To The World introduced by Joy herself Nicola Coughlan.

The Church On Ruby Road

The Church On Ruby Road is the first Christmas special in six years and the first as the first full adventure for a new Doctor since 2005, introducing a new companion as well.

A big goofy singing goblin adventure too. (With a deeply sad bit.)

Ruby being established as having heroic tendencies right away.

And Davina McCall as well!

Lovely little bit with the policeman’s reaction to the Doctor’s assurance, happily ignoring the police box disappearing.

Which I thought was going with Mrs. Flood’s equally casual reaction to establish that the Doctor isn’t unknown in this version of the present, but apparently not... Hmm...

The reveal of the King reminded me of Wizards Vs. Aliens, which also had a massive power-eating king behind a spaceship door in that case.

And a Buffy shoutout when mentioning the musical number in Unleashed!

As well as Long Lost Family being a visitor from ITV.

I knew Ncuti Gatwa lived in Edinburgh in his youth but I didn’t know he was round the corner in Oxgangs!

Non-Unleashed behind the scenes bit

See you lot in May!

Doctor Who: The Official Annual 2024

A Merry Christmas to all of you at home!

Having a new Doctor and companion debut at Christmas means you can’t have much merch for them, but Ncuit Gatwa gets to share the Annual cover with David Tennant (as well as all the magazines - so many magazines!) and the back pages, after the story and comic section in between features and mostly puzzles.

A happy Christmas to all of you at home!

Doctor Who finally daring to tackle one of its classic non-TV stories. Meep!

A happy Christmas to all of you at home!

This year has seen a new edition of the RPG, the return of The Davies due in a couple of years, a miniseries, Big Finish secure...

Paul Cornell's 12 Blogs Of Christmas

Paul Cornell presents his 12 Blogs of Christmas, this year looking at formative fannish things starting with Geoff Love and his orchestra with, among other things, a startlingly funky Doctor Who theme.

A festive adventure hook

Doing Christmas related plot hooks through December on the main blog, and included a Doctor Who hook.

Flux: The Halloween Apocalypse

Halloween joins Christmas and New Year in having a special episode, which feels long overdue.

Although it’s not very Halloween-ish, apart from the bit with Di. One of several teaser scenes that made this feel less like part one of six and more like the pre-credits of six stories...

I like a Thor Ragnarok opening as much as the next viewer.

The Han Solo guy and the Chewbacca guy don’t start out together.

How’s the rampant speculation about Claire looking a bit like Clara going?

Don’t you just hate when someone you don’t know comes up and says they’re your archenemy? Take a ticket, blue guy.

Sunday adventure hook Christmas Special: Gift Of The Magi

With a New Year special on the way, we shall have our Christmas here. With the prior importance of Christmas specials I do go on about it, and on the general blog as well, and could probably do a whole series by now (the Twelve Specials Of Christmas?) but never mind...

Gift Of The Magi

The Door opens onto a street in medieval Baghdad and the travellers soon find themselves drawing the attention of a group of astronomers, whose leader has spotted a celestial event and believes that something strange and dangerous is on its way and the Stranger is involved.

“Of course I’m involved now! You changed the result by observing it!”

Hear The Chimes Of Midnight

As the Doctor Who watchalongs have the episodes streaming free, Big Finish has followed suit, putting their classic Eighth Doctor Christmas special The Chimes Of Midnight on Soundcloud free for the listen-along tomorrow.

Merry Christmas!

Doctor Who Annual obtained. Going back to the storybook format to an extent, with two longish illustrated stories as well as episode featurettes.

DWM Yearbook on the way.

Warren Ellis suggests...

Remember that time in the early 80s when Kate Bush, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Cranes collaborated on a Christmas song for a Doctor Who episode where everyone was heartbroken and lost in an infinite snowdrift on a planet that orbited the afterlife? Well, that’s because it never happened, but this is the fugue delusion I sank into on the fourth replay of this wonderful little winter piece by Jodie Lowther, currently available as a free/pay-what-you-want stream/download. Lovely sound to come home to.

I can see exactly what he means.

Paul Cornell's Twelve Blogs Of Christmas

And today... a Doctor Who Christmas story by Juliet E. McKenna, unseen for fifteen years because it features the Doctor meeting Charles Dickens.