Any time a beloved cult-favorite TV show gets unceremoniously canceled draws the ire of fandom. Star Trek ceasing production earlier this year certainly saw fans fuming. But Doctor Who fans have a bit more of a reason to freak out. Today’s announcement that the BBC was parting (of the) ways with showrunner Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf Productions, and that the Christmas-turned-Easter special would not happen, sent fans. It positively sent them! (Yes, I am 42, how did you know?) Not least sent because the BBC has no replacement in place. When/if Doctor Who returns in several years time (presumably) with a new production company, showrunner, and lead actor, it’s a near-certainty the show’s big Billie Piper cliffhanger will never see resolution.
Perhaps this is an unpopular opinion, but…good. It was never going to pay off anyway.
For some context, the second of two Disney+ seasons of Doctor Who ended with the surprise (and if reports are correct, very last minute) departure of Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor. This came about so last minute that Davies didn’t have time to find a new fulltime Doctor before the finale and regeneration scene were to air. So, in a very typically RTD move, he went for shock and spectacle. The Fifteenth Doctor regenerates into…Billie Piper?!
Piper, of course, played Rose Tyler, the first companion of the revived series in 2005 opposite Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant. That character, and her relationship with the Doctor (romantic or otherwise) still routinely ranks at or near the top of people’s favorite Doctor/companion pairings. She as much as Tennant is synonymous with a particular era of Doctor Who. The resolution to this cliffhanger, we heard, would occur in the 2026 Christmas special. Well.
This caused quite a lot of both ker and fluffle in fan communities. Debates raged about whether this meant Billie would be the for-real-for-real Doctor, even if just for a single special, or if this would be a weird regenerative crisis, time warp, or some such mishigas. Davies had only just recently given an update on the status of the special, saying he had an outline and that the BBC was super into it, etc. This was very likely just spin at a time when the future of the special and show were in flux. But the big question remains: Even if Davies got to make the special, and even if we did get the explanation for why the Doctor was Billie Piper, would it really have satisfied people?
From his first tenure on the series in 2005-2010 up through the now-last episode of his second, Davies has always struggled to find a balance between genuinely good storytelling and boom-bam spectacle. He’s less concerned, often, with a cogent explanation for huge, wild, audience-shocking moments than he is with simply having them. He’s wonderful at smaller, quieter character moments. That’s where, I feel, much of his strengths as a writer lie. It’s the conversations, it’s the philosophical dilemmas. But when he wants to go big, he throws caution to the wind. Sometimes fans go with it, sometimes they don’t.
I’ve seen some fan sentiment today that express feelings of betrayal that, it appears, the Billie Piper cliffhanger not only won’t have a pay off but ultimately didn’t have a pay off in RTD’s mind when it happened. I think very likely Davies just thought he needed something so we’d get the mere semblance of continuity. The Doctor wouldn’t simply regenerate with no clear path forward. At the very least, Davies could buy himself some time while the BBC and Disney figured out their next moves.
I won’t call this a mistake necessarily, but it’s definitely indicative of Davies’ M.O. When in doubt, do a weird thing! He’ll figure it out later! I have no doubt he would have come up with some kind of explanation that, at least for the purposes of a single special, would have worked out okay. Piper was Rose Tyler’s memory within the Doctor, or the Doctor found a weird middle-moment between regenerations where they needed a screensaver face or something. It would have been what it was always meant to be: a placeholder.
Whether that special was going to be good or suck is kind of irrelevant. It wasn’t going to be a new status quo, nor would it likely have much impact on anything going forward. Billie did her pal Russ a solid. We got a face rather than just a glow of yellow. It was basically Davies’ version of the Looney Tunes short Duck Amuck. It was him saying “ain’t I a stinker?” before we got a “That’s All Folks!”
Whatever happens next with Doctor Who, whether it’s a clean break, a reboot, or even a continuation that simply ignores the Piper of it all, it was never going to be more than a stop-gap. So, why not just pretend it didn’t happen?
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.
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