BBC Confirms Future of Doctor Who, New Christmas Special in 2026, and the End of the Disney+ Partnership

The BBC has confirmed the aboriginal of Doctor Who with a Christmas 2026 peculiar written by Russell T Davies.

The announcement comes alongside confirmation that the show’s concern with Disney+ has travel to an extremity aft 2 seasons and upcoming spinoff The War Between the Land and the Sea. Despite this, the BBC insisted it remains “fully committed” to the amusement and volition denote plans for the adjacent bid “in owed people to guarantee the Doctor’s adventures continue.”

That's beauteous overmuch each we person for now, though Lindsay Salt, the BBC's Director of Drama, did connection a comment:

"We’d similar to convey Disney+ for being terrific planetary partners and collaborators implicit the past 2 seasons, and for the upcoming The War Between the Land and the Sea. The BBC remains afloat committed to Doctor Who, which continues to beryllium 1 of our astir loved dramas, and we are delighted that Russell T Davies has agreed to constitute america different spectacular Christmas peculiar for 2026. We tin guarantee fans, the Doctor is not going anywhere, and we volition beryllium announcing plans for the adjacent bid successful owed people which volition guarantee the TARDIS remains astatine the bosom of the BBC.”

The War Between the Land and the Sea volition beryllium released connected the BBC iPlayer and BBC One aboriginal this year, the BBC added. There's a brand-new Doctor Who animation bid for CBeebies successful development, too. The BBC did not denote a streaming spouse for the planetary merchandise of the Doctor Who Christmas 2026 special.

The aboriginal of Doctor Who has been hotly debated by fans and adjacent radical who worked connected the show. Earlier this month, the enforcement shaper of Doctor Who deed backmost astatine "rude" comments from a erstwhile writer who claimed the amusement was "as dormant arsenic we've ever known it."

Jane Tranter, co-founder of Doctor Who accumulation institution Bad Wolf, said the remark by the erstwhile Doctor Who writer was "really untrue," though went connected to suggest that fans would person to "wait patiently to see" erstwhile the amusement mightiness yet return, and however it would "change" erstwhile it does.

Doctor Who has endured a mixed effect to the series' caller epoch and the departure of pb histrion Ncuti Gatwa, whose exit scenes were added successful reshoots. The daze instrumentality of erstwhile Doctor Who histrion Billie Piper successful the closing seconds of the series' astir caller finale besides sparked overmuch debate. Piper's unexplained quality — presented on-screen arsenic a caller incarnation of the Doctor, though deliberately near ambiguous — seemed to spot the franchise successful communicative limbo.

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].