Doctor Who should take a nice, long break, says Mark Gatiss

Since “The Reality War” beamed onto screens in May 2025, fans have been left hanging about the future of their favorite long-running, time-hopping sci-fi show, especially with its lead generating into, of all the people in the multiverse, Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler. What’s the status of Doctor Who? fans cry out into the unfeeling void. Is Piper truly our next Doctor? Actor, former Who writer, and fan of the franchise Mark Gatiss is in no rush to discover the answers and, in fact, suggests that everyone should relax about a potential dearth of the series.

Speaking on the Half The Picture podcast, Gatiss reiterated his earlier comments that Whovians should embrace a break from the series, saying it’s “absolutely amazing” that Who has enjoyed a successful run for 21 consecutive years since its relaunch with Christopher Eccleston in 2005—a run for which Gatiss contributed perhaps one of that Doctor’s better appreciated episodes, “The Unquiet Dead.” “I think it should stop,” Gatiss says matter-of-factly, citing the time between the series’ prior cancellation in 1989 and its popular relaunch sixteen years later. “That length of time somehow meant people really missed it. Those who remembered it really missed it. Those who had never heard of it, [the relaunch] was their show. Somehow you need a bit of a space.”