Doctor Who legend Colin Baker has weighed in on the show’s divisive end to Ncuti Gatwa’s run, which saw Billie Piper return to the Tardis, seemingly as the new Time Lord.
The finale episode of series 15 saw Gatwa’s Sixteenth Doctor regenerate into the fan favourite companion Rose Tyler, played by Piper ever since Russell T Davies brought the show back with the 2005 reboot.
Since then, fans have been trying to piece together in what exact capacity Piper has returned to the show, since she was not billed as the Doctor in the credits, as is custom with Doctor regeneration episodes.
The options are that they forgot to do that, they haven’t decided either way, or she isn’t really, truly the Doctor.
Now Baker, 82, who played the Sixth Doctor from 1984 to 1986, has weighed in on the creative choice, telling the Oxford Mail of the regeneration: ‘I don’t have a clue, but I suspect it’s a load of old malarky.’
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He continued: ‘I think they didn’t know what to say, so they did that. I think there will be something involving Billie Piper, but she’s not the Doctor, who can she be?
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‘She’s someone else! It’s like me being the Master. Well, I could be, I suppose.’
Further theorising on the regeneration, he added: ‘I suppose she could be a lookalike, but they could come up with anything, and that is the joy of the series. You can do anything with it, so if they choose to do it, they could.’
It comes as Doctor Who’s future remains unclear.
Amid plunging viewership numbers and a less-than-stellar reception to Piper’s regeneration, speculation has swirled that Disney could pull out of its co-production deal with the BBC.
However, the BBC’s new chief content officer has said the BBC is committed to Doctor Who regardless of whether or not Disney are in the picture.
Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Kate Phillips said the series will remain on the BBC ‘with or without Disney’.
She told the crowd: ‘Any Whovians out there, rest assured – Doctor Who is going nowhere.
‘Disney has been a great partnership and it continues with The War Between The Land And The Sea next year but, going forward, with or without Disney, Doctor Who will still be on the BBC.’
To truly hammer home the message, she concluded: ‘The Tardis is going nowhere.’
Doctor Who is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.