Russell T Davies Rules Out New Doctor Who 20th Anniversary Special

He’s got a point. Doctor Who hasn’t lacked for anniversary celebrations of late. The 60^th in November 2023 came in alarmingly hot pursuit of the 50^th in November 2013. (Apparently there was an entire decade between them but where’s the proof? It felt like… five minutes.)

And just before the diamond celebration, there was a whole 100-years-of-the-BBC hoopla complete with a multi-Doctor(ish) story and special episodes of Blue Peter and The Repair Shop.

Really, for anybody who’s keeping track, there must be a Doctor Who anniversary to celebrate on any given day of the year (first appearance of the Daleks, first regeneration, first time the polarity was reversed on the neutron flow, the Cyber-Controller’s birthday…). To mark it all would be madness, and so showrunner Russell T Davies makes perfect sense when he says that 2025 won’t have a special to mark two decades since the show’s 2005 revival.

Writing in March 2024 in Doctor Who Magazine 602, Davies explained:

“…ever since I came back to this job, people have been asking me if I’m going to do anything special for the 2025 season, to celebrate the fact that it marks 20 years of new Who. But to be honest… no. Sorry. I don’t think that’s wise.

Even though it’s a time-travel show, I don’t think it looks good to have a 100^th, then a 60^th, then a 20^th. Let alone the fact that’ll be Season 2, or Series 15, within a 20-year span. Mind-boggling. Let’s just look forward.”

Solid plan. 2025 is already scheduled to have eight episodes of Doctor Who plus a Christmas Day special. To stuff in a new Who anniversary special navigating around a conspicuous Christopher Eccleston-shaped hole wouldn’t make sense. Especially when David Tennant’s Doctor already made such a successful return as Fourteen in last year’s specials. Nobody wants to prove the law of diminishing (Doctor) returns.

Onwards and upwards, then, for new Who. Unless of course, all of this is another big showrunner ruse and April 2025 is about to be wall-to-wall farting Slitheen, in which case, grab your Lady Cassandra action figures, pop on Britney’s “Toxic” and we’ll see you there.

Doctor Who returns at midnight on Saturday May 11 on BBC iPlayer in the UK and at 7 p.m. ET on Disney+ in the US and around the world.