The Doctor is out. Or at least he has been since May of 2025. The saga of Doctor Who took a kind of unexpected turn over the last couple of years. The Thirteenth Doctor was the first to be portrayed by a woman, Jodie Whittaker. The end of her tenure marked a bunch of changes behind the scenes and in front of the camera. Some of these were lauded, others criticized. At the end of it all, the show was put out to tender. We should probably talk about all this and what it means for the show’s future.
Back to the Past
Let’s start, briefly at least, in 1989. This was the first time the show encountered a hiatus. We’re not going to dawdle here, but the long and short of it is the show got cancelled by the BBC. A 90s film revival didn’t help bring the show back. It would ultimately be in 2005 that the program made it back to air with Russell T Davies heading up the show. That name will be important later.
Arguably the series’ strongest writer during this time period was Steven Moffat. He would go on to become the showrunner after Davies wrapped up his tenure alongside the tenth Doctor, David Tennant. Moffat would see the show through to 2018 and the show’s 11th and 12th Doctors. Then came the aforementioned Jodie Whittaker in 2018 alongside new showrunner Chris Chibnall. Multiple issues happened all at once that would impact Doctor Who moving forward.
Doctor Who vs. Sexism
The first female Doctor brought out a lot of sexism that poisoned the discourse over the season. Chibnall was widely considered an inferior writer to Davies and Moffat too. But the reduction to 10 episodes per season from 12 didn’t help matters on that front. And it didn’t help further when COVID-19 struck, hampered production, and led to an even shorter season 13 of six episodes followed by some specials. It was a LOT happening, some of which were beyond the control of the production team.
An opportunity of sorts opened up in 2023 to hit a reset button. Production company Bad Wolf partnered with Disney+ to produce new seasons of Doctor Who. They brought in previous showrunner, Davies, and brought back David Tennant to play the Fourteenth Doctor. This special episode series was meant to segue the franchise into its new era and brand new doctor played by Ncuti Gatwa.
A Difficult Last Two Seasons
Cue the haters again. If the backlash against the first female Doctor was bad, it was worse for the first Doctor of color, played by an openly queer actor. Of course, all that discourse is bullshit. We should all know that the quality of a person or their performance is not tied to their sexuality or race. But this was also happening in the midst of a conservative uproar about “diversity hires.” The idea that companies were just hiring minorities for the sake of looking like they’re catering to progressiveness.
In reality, the adventures of the fifteenth Doctor were hampered by another reduced episode count (down from 10 to 8 episodes per season) and a lack of promotion once the series began. One could theorize that once Disney+ saw the ratings numbers, they gave up on trying to promote the series. Effectively just waiting for the contract to end. It makes sense given they don’t seem to want to do anything with the series now that it’s “gone to tender.” Which, let’s talk about that phrase.
The Meaning of Tender
Referring to something as “tender” is a distinctly British term. In this sense, it effectively means it’s being put up for bid. The BBC owns the intellectual property rights of Doctor Who. The BBC is a large entity, though, that is part of the British government. That’s partly why they don’t directly finance or produce some of their content. They do have different television production companies, though. BBC Wales and BBC Studios Productions, for example, produced Doctor Who through different parts of its 2005 revival run. Now the BBC is asking who else wants to take a crack at making it and is taking bids.
Jamie Hall at the BBC has stated their belief that an indie producer at the British Broadcasting Corporation will pick the series up. “We’ve probably got one, potentially two companies,” Hall stated, with each in play for Doctor Who. They didn’t provide any further details about who these companies are. But it’s a hopeful sign. Hall’s optimism is summed up by looking at the show’s absence as such: “It will be off screen for two or three years and that gives the audience a great chance to have a break then rediscover, while also bringing a new audience.”
We’ll keep you posted in the weeks and months to come to see if the Doctor fully regenerates.
