Asked about a third season on the BBC’s Newsround, Davies replied, “I kind of know that the Doctor’s reached the status of, like, Robin Hood. Sometimes there might be a pause, and during that pause, the viewers of Newsround now will grow up a few years and start writing stories and they’ll bring it back,” he said. “So I have absolute faith that that will survive because I am living proof of it and that’s what happens to good ideas. No good idea ever dies.”
Yikes! The last significant “pause” in the Who-niverse lasted more than 15 years. Could things really be so dire for one of the most beloved and well-established sci-fi series around? Unfortunately, yes—particularly because the U.K. television industry as a whole is struggling. According to a recent study (reported by The Guardian), “British broadcasters slashed spend on commissioning programmes last year to the lowest level since the height of the pandemic”; the industry also faces “the worst downturn in TV advertising since 2008.” Like other broadcasters in the country, the BBC has enacted job and programming cuts, and reported its income had fallen 30% between 2010 and 2020. The deal for a Disney co-production not only granted Doctor Who its biggest budget ever, but it also just kept the show afloat. Without a Disney cash infusion, it’s uncertain that the series could survive a demotion back to basic broadcasting.
We can cross our fingers that Davies is engaging in a classic Whovian misdirect, but the signs as they stand aren’t great. Gatwa reportedly said on The Graham Norton Show that he’d be shooting the third season in 2025, but the quote was cut from broadcast (and now Gatwa is engaged in a play on the West End from August to November, with a chance of transferring to Broadway…). But hey, if enough people tune in to the upcoming season (premiering April 12), there could still be a chance. “There’s no decision until after season 2,” Davies previously told Radio Times. “It’s funny, because even people who work on the show think that means we’re having secret meetings about it. People I work with every year say, ‘What’s really happening?’ and I’m going, ‘Nothing! No meetings, nothing.’ That’s when the decision is – and the decision won’t even be made by the people we work with at Disney Plus, it’ll be made by someone in a big office somewhere. So literally nothing happening, no decision.”
Davies added: “We’re ready. We’re ready with different plans—could go this way, could go that way. That’s our job, to be ready… but we’ll find out. Dying to find out! Hope it comes back.”
