Ncuti Gatwa hosted the SNL UK season finale on May 16 and opened his monologue by doing what Russell T Davies never would: telling the truth about his Doctor Who tenure.
“I’ve had so many fantastic roles in my career. Millions of you watched me as Eric in Sex Education, and then about 12 of you watched me in Doctor Who. Maybe that’s why I kept crying,” Gatwa told the audience. On the Billie Piper regeneration that closed his run: “Even though I have since regenerated into Billie Piper — I don’t understand it either.”
Both lines were delivered as jokes, but neither was wrong.
Season 15 averaged 3.8 million viewers on 28-day Barb figures, down one million from the prior Gatwa season. Both Gatwa seasons fell below Jodie Whittaker’s final season in 2021, which drew 5.2 million viewers — a period widely considered the worst creative stretch in the modern show’s history. The Disney+ co-production that was supposed to give Doctor Who a global platform and rescue it from its domestic viewership slide made things worse. Disney confirmed it would not partner on future seasons, with reports citing disappointing streaming numbers, escalating production costs, and creative direction as factors in the decision to exit.
Gatwa had been nearly silent about Doctor Who since his departure. His most substantial public comment came in July 2025, when he told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: “I’m getting old, and my body was tired.” That was the entirety of his public explanation for leaving one of British television’s highest-profile roles after two seasons. Saturday night was the first time he addressed the show’s reception directly, and he did it with a laugh line that landed because the numbers back it up.
The franchise’s current position is bleak by any honest measure. RTD has reportedly written multiple versions of the 2026 Christmas Special script, reflecting uncertainty over key creative decisions, including the exact nature of Billie Piper’s role. BBC Studios production chief Zai Bennett recently said: “We’re a big, important part of Doctor Who and are all motivated to make sure Doctor Who has a long and flourishing life. We’ve got the Christmas special coming. After that, it’s time for us all to work on it.” That statement carries the energy of a company that does not know what it is doing next.
RTD himself, appearing at a live event the same weekend Gatwa was on SNL UK, offered nothing on the Christmas special. He has been characteristically vague about everything beyond the special’s existence. Longtime series composer Murray Gold acknowledged the franchise sits at a “precarious point,” which is not language you use about a healthy show.
The show’s structural problems run deeper than ratings. Gatwa’s regeneration into Billie Piper was not planned. The ending was reshot with Piper’s scenes added at the last minute after Gatwa decided he would not stay for another year, itself a consequence of the Disney deal collapsing and Gatwa not wanting to put his career on hold waiting for news. The BBC confirmed the regeneration was not canonical in the traditional sense. RTD described it as something he thought would be fun. The official position is that this was not a canonical regeneration to a new Doctor, but a favor from Billie Piper, who had missed working with RTD.
So the outgoing Doctor doesn’t understand his own ending. The showrunner has multiple scripts for a Christmas special he hasn’t started shooting. The BBC has no announced plans beyond that special. The Disney money is gone. The viewership is at series lows.
Gatwa’s SNL UK joke was the most honest thing anyone has said publicly about the Gatwa era in two years. The laughs in the room were real. The problem is the franchise.
What would it take for you to trust the BBC to run Doctor Who properly again? Let us know in the comments.
If the golden age of Trek and Babylon 5 left a hole in your sci-fi diet, The Stars Entwined fills it — interstellar espionage between two civilizations on the brink of war. Read The Stars Entwined on Amazon!
NEXT: Jon Favreau Says Grogu Can Be Both A Jedi And A Mandalorian, But The Lore Says Otherwise.