Is Disney the Reason We Lost Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor?

After months of speculation, the truth is finally out there: Disney is getting out of the Doctor Who business, officially ending its two-year partnership with the BBC that funded the last two seasons of the show and gave it a streaming home. For most Whovians, this is generally a relief, if only because the announcement means we can all stop waiting for Disney to confirm something most of us had long assumed was coming. 

But as with any messy break-up, the recriminations, speculation, and fallout are already starting. While spinoff The War Between the Land and the Sea will air in the U.K. next month, the status of its premiere outside of the British Isles is now a big question mark. The flagship series itself won’t return until Christmas 2026. We have no idea how the show will handle the Billie Piper cliffhanger that was suddenly tacked on to the end of the season 15 finale or even the identity of who’ll play the next Doctor. And plenty of folks are already starting to try and hash out (read: place blame) for all the things that went wrong between the two entertainment giants.

Anonymous behind-the-scenes reports attribute everything from ratings woes and budget concerns to outright political pressure as the reasons the Doctor Who experiment on Disney+ failed. While it’s likely we’ll never know the precise truth of what happened, this mess ultimately may have cost us all something much bigger than a hefty effects budget and a streaming home for a series that has already had many of them in the past. It seems very likely that Disney’s decision to drag their feet about the future of the franchise is to blame for the exit of Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor, and that’s a loss that many of us aren’t going to get over anytime soon. 

The first Black and openly queer actor to be cast as the iconic Time Lord, Gatwa’s Doctor was fairly groundbreaking from his first moments onscreen. (And that’s without dealing with the whole made-up biregeneration mess.) His Doctor was effervescent, charismatic, and warm, and Gatwa easily found a balance between the character’s lighthearted and more poignant moments. With just two seasons under his belt, it certainly seemed as if the show had barely scratched the surface of this version of the character and what the actor who played him could do. It’s the reason Fifteen’s surprise regeneration at the end of “The Reality War” took many viewers by surprise. It didn’t feel as though it could possibly be time for this to happen yet.  And that’s maybe because it originally wasn’t. 

Yes, both the BBC and Disney were adamant over the course of its run that no decision had yet been made about the show’s future, and wouldn’t be until after season 15 aired. They constantly hedged their bets in public statements and were as vague as they could get away with about what might happen next. But both Gatwa and showrunner Russell T. Davies made comments at various points that certainly implied that another season with Fifteen was, if not the original plan, at least something they were both actively thinking about and even working toward.

Per his own admission, Davies was working on scripts for a third season with the Fifteenth Doctor as early as the summer of 2024, and while he acknowledged it “hadn’t been commissioned yet,” he also was “very confident” about its likelihood and said “we might be shooting those scripts early next year [winter 2025]”. That also seemed to be the initial plan in Gatwa’s view as well. Five months later, during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show, he seemingly confirmed a third season would film the following year. The BBC cut this confirmation from the chat show’s final broadcast. 

Much of this is just further evidence that “The Reality War” wasn’t originally meant to end with a regeneration, and that Gatwa’s decision to leave the show came much later than the company party line would seem to indicate. Which means that something definitely changed, and whatever it was most likely revolved around Disney’s drawn-out refusal to commit to the BBC partnership beyond the agreed-upon two seasons.

It’s understandable why Gatwa might take the chance to jump ship when it presented itself; after all, he’s a fairly hot commodity as a performer at the moment with multiple movie roles and buzzy stage plays among his recent accomplishments. But the idea that he would have stayed for at least one more season if everyone behind the scenes had managed to get their act together just adds another layer of frustration to an already awful situation. What would another season of Fifteen’s (or Belinda’s or Ruby’s) story have looked like? Would Gatwa have finally gotten to realize his dream of facing off with a Dalek? It’s such a shame we’ll never find out.