Russell T Davies Just Said He Won’t Film Anything Until 2027 Amid Doctor Who Christmas Special Cancelation Rumors
Russell T Davies appeared on James O’Brien’s Full Disclosure podcast this week. Toward the end of the interview, O’Brien asked what Davies was doing next.
“I don’t actually know,” Davies began, before mentioning a dance stage show planned for 2027 based on his television series It’s a Sin. “I’m having a nice time. I’m kind of not rushing to write the next thing. I’m going to start now. The Tip Toe, we finished work on that next week and I’ll start right on the next one. So, that script will take a few months then we’ll start talking to people about it. So, I won’t be back filming anything until next year, really.”
He did not mention the Doctor Who Christmas Special.
This is the showrunner who told BBC Newsbeat in December 2025 that after sharing his plans for the Christmas special with BBC bosses, it left them “with jaws agape, loving it.” The man who described the special in those terms did not name it when asked what he was doing next, and then stated he would not be filming anything until 2027.
Three possibilities follow from that statement: Davies is not executive-producing the special and will not be involved with the filming. He is only referring to projects he has not yet written. Or the 2026 Doctor Who Christmas special is not going to be filmed.
Every piece of publicly available information points toward the third option.
The Sun reported earlier this month that the Christmas special was in danger of being scrapped or pushed to Easter 2027 because the BBC could not find a new lead actor. Radio Times followed with the same read. The BBC declined to comment when Radio Times contacted them. When Radio Times reached out to the BBC to comment on the rumours regarding the current state of the Christmas special, the BBC “declined to comment.”
Prior sourcing indicated the original Christmas special script collapsed after both Billie Piper and David Tennant became unavailable, forcing Davies to rebuild from scratch around an uncast Doctor. Composer Murray Gold confirmed in February that Davies had written multiple versions of the script “depending on certain outcomes” — the language of a production that does not know who is in the lead role. BBC Studios CEO Zai Bennett told the press in February: “We’ve got the Christmas special coming. After that, it’s time for us all to work on it.” That statement described the Christmas special as the only confirmed future the show had.
The accumulated picture is now difficult to read as anything other than a production in genuine collapse. Davies completed two full seasons of the show under the Disney co-production deal. Disney exited after Season 2 because the streaming numbers did not justify the cost. Season 15 averaged 3.8 million viewers on 28-day UK figures, below Jodie Whittaker’s final season, once considered the franchise’s creative nadir. Ncuti Gatwa hosted SNL UK in May and opened his monologue by saying approximately twelve people watched him in Doctor Who and that he does not understand his own regeneration into Billie Piper. The outgoing Doctor addressed his own exit as a punchline because there was nothing else to say.
AMC Global Media picked up the 2005-2022 revival seasons for US streaming after Disney’s exit, thirteen seasons from Eccleston through Whittaker, 176 episodes. The pre-Gatwa library is now on cable television. The current era has no confirmed future beyond a Christmas special whose showrunner just said he will not be filming anything until next year.
Davies not feeling rushed to “write the next thing” may also indicate he is not involved with potential future series of Doctor Who at all. The show could continue without him under new creative leadership. It could be rebooted with AMC involvement, which would represent a complete reset of the Disney era. It could simply end with the Christmas special, however and whenever that finally films.
Doctor Who has aired a Christmas special in twenty of the last twenty-one years. The one year it missed the Christmas slot was 2009, the year of David Tennant’s regeneration into Matt Smith. If the 2026 special slides to Easter, the franchise will have missed the Christmas window for only the second time since the revival began, and this time the reason is not a planned regeneration but a production that cannot find a Doctor to put in the TARDIS.
Davies told the BBC his Christmas special would leave them with jaws agape. He did not mention it when asked what he was doing next. Seven months before Christmas, the BBC will not comment, the showrunner is not filming until 2027, and nobody has been cast.
What do you think is actually happening with Doctor Who? Let us know in the comments.
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