SDCC ’25: The future of DOCTOR WHO remains murky

by Ani Bundel

It was standing room only for “The Future of Doctor Who” panel, held in a section of the Omni ballroom across the street from the convention center at San Diego Comic- Con 2025. The crowd was double the size of the room, with a ton of Whovians left in the hall, as a bewildered staff wasn’t sure what to do.

One can understand the confusion. The Doctor Who fandom expanded tenfold when the series regenerated on Disney+ in 2024, making it more than able to fill a Hall H panel on a Friday. The sudden comedown in presence to a single off-branded panel held by the team that haunts Gallifrey One that wasn’t even in convention center proper reflects the current state of the series in the eyes of the entertainment world.

The sudden resignation of its popular star, Ncuti Gatwa, the lack of a renewal by Disney+ (either due to lack of ratings or changing political climate)—Doctor Who seems to be in trouble. The BBC doesn’t even have a proper spot on the convention floor. Instead, it’s taken the TARDIS set from last year outside and across the tracks and turned it into an “activation” where it also has its display merch available for sale online. It’s about as far away as one can get from the Disney+ logo.

But fans have been relentlessly positive about the show’s future, if not the fate of current showrunner Russell T. Davies. (Ask the Titan Booth how fast its Doctor Who merch sold out to a surge of fans the likes of which it hasn’t seen before, to get an idea of how much the Doctor Who booth was missed.) 

Moderated by Sandro Monetti with River Alexandra Song, Karen Glover, Sarah Lynn Dawson, Cody Shoberg, Myriam Lp, and Kristi Schoeman, “The Future of Doctor Who” panel seemed cheerfully ready to kick Disney to the curb and move to Netflix, a streaming service with actual global ambitions. (One did suggest the once and future HBO Max, but that was booed.)

Monetti’s dry British humor added a touch of whimsy to the proceedings, referring to Whoniverse series The War Between the Land and the Sea as “Russell Tovey Makes Love to a Turtle.”

Some of the questions he lobbed at the panel (and the audience) included, “Who is ready for David Tennant back a third time?” and “Who should be the next showrunner?” Of course, there were no real answers to be had. But the speculation ran rampant of where the show could go next and what it would have to do to keep going. No one for a minute believes Billie Piper as the next Doctor.

That being said, “being woke” was not considered to be a detriment to the show, and consensus was that the ratings do not reflect the show’s quality, but the political climate. Sure the word doesn’t help (panelist Karen Glover pointed out the power of a word becoming memed), but the issues the show faces are just as much about the overcrowding of the entertainment landscape and the inability to establish a steady rhythm of seasonal release patterns fans can easily follow.

Most importantly, no one thought the future of Doctor Who would include leaving TV, at least not any time soon. Even if Disney+ fails to return as co-producer, the BBC will find a way to keep it going, whether that’s Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, or BritBox.

Doctor Who is still not officially renewed for Season 3 (/16/42, depending which numbering system you follow).

The spinoff The War Between the Land and the Sea is expected on Disney+ in the U.S. and on the BBC in the U.K. before the end of 2025. Once that series has aired, the Disney+ contract will officially be complete, and hopefully some real news will follow.