Former Doctor Who Writer Bleakly Proclaims the Show’s Death

Being a Doctor Who fan is not for the weak. From a combative, often pessimistic fandom to one of the wildest rumor mills in all of entertainment, let’s just say that Whovians generally have to deal with a lot. The situation feels even more fraught than normal these days, with the general state of the franchise in such flux. The series’s most recent season ended fairly abruptly, with Fifteenth Doctor Ncuti Gatwa’s regeneration and the surprise reveal of former companion Billie Piper in a role that looks like it might be (but almost certainly isn’t) his successor. Spinoff The War Between the Land and the Sea is slated to air next year, but it still doesn’t have a premiere date, and its Sea Devil-focused premise isn’t something that much of the fandom is all that excited about. (Forgive me, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, I still love you.)  

Worst of all, there’s no real sense of direction when it comes to what’s next for the flagship series. No new Doctor has yet been announced — don’t forget Piper’s mysterious character wasn’t introduced in the finale’s credits as Sixteen — and Disney+ is still dragging its feet about whether the streamer will continue to be involved with the show at all. (Something that’s undoubtedly slowing down any larger decisions about its future.) It’s rough out there, and suddenly everyone who has even the slightest connection with the show is suddenly being asked for their thoughts on everything that’s happening. 

Robert Shearman has written multiple Big Finish audio dramas and several Doctor Who novels based on those stories, which feature the adventures of the Sixth and Eighth Doctors. But he’s probably best known for penning the season 1 episode “Dalek” starring Christopher Eccleston, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Speaking to Doctor Who Magazine about the history and inspiration behind the episode, Shearman also reflected on his own relationship with the series and his (fairly blunt) thoughts on its future. Spoiler alert: He pulls no punches.

“I go through phases; I have a real push/pull thing with the show,” he said. “At the moment, I’m in a ‘pull’ phase. It’s weird because the show is probably as dead as we’ve ever known it.”

For Shearman, it’s not just the lack of a season 16 renewal, but an established successor to Gatwa’s Doctor that makes the franchise feel so directionless. Not just in terms of the flagship series but also the ancillary materials that surround it, such as the novels and audio dramas that expand the world of the story.

“After 1989, we had, for years, a current Doctor. Now, everything that is ever going to be produced in Doctor Who terms is going to feel retrogressive,” he said “At least with the New Adventures and then the BBC Books, you thought, ‘It’s the current Doctor – McCoy or McGann’. No one’s going to start writing Doctor Who books with a Billie Piper Doctor, because no one knows what that means. In a funny way, the closing moments of ‘The Reality War’ seem to put a full stop on things. We didn’t have that before.”

To be fair, Shearman’s view regarding the show’s future is certainly one of the most negative we’ve seen since the finale aired earlier this year. And the BBC itself has pushed back against such catastrophizing, insisting that the broadcaster is firmly committed to the series, with or without Disney’s involvement. But it’s definitely uncomfortable for fans to read such dire predictions, many of which insist we’re about to endure another indeterminate hiatus like that which followed the Seventh Doctor episode “Survival” rather than the outright cancellation that followed the poorly received Eighth Doctor movie.

And while we still don’t know any actual facts about the series’s status — or plan to return — it’s hard to fully ignore such worries. But since its inception, Doctor Who has always been a franchise grounded in hope. It seems a mistake to abandon that philosophy now.