10 Reasons RTD's Doctor Who Return Failed
Russell T Davies is no longer generating Doctor Who content. What went wrong?
Having originally helmed Doctor Who from 2005 to 2010, Russell T Davies returned to the show in 2021 for what fans hoped would be a new golden age.
Sadly, it didn’t quite turn out that way, with his second tenure coming to a standstill in 2025, when Disney failed to commit to any further seasons.
For a time, it looked like he might be staying on for a Christmas special in 2026. But this has now been shelved.
There are lots of question marks about what went down behind the scenes, and who was to blame (be it individuals at the BBC, Bad Wolf or Disney, or a combination of all three – and ultimately it certainly will have been a combination, given the scale of the operation and the amount of people involved).
But as showrunner, the buck ultimately stops with RTD. And he definitely made some bad calls. So why wasn't his Doctor Who return quite as golden as his first go? Let's take a look at some of the biggest reasons.
10. Just ASSUMING There'd Be A Third Season
Given that Disney only ever committed to two seasons of Doctor Who, the most sensible approach would've been to play it safe and plot an arc which is definitively wrapped up by the end of Season 2.
Instead, RTD didn’t seem to even consider the possibility that Disney wouldn’t renew, actively leaving a billion hanging plot threads for a third season that was ultimately never greenlit.
In 2024, he even said this:
“I’m working on the fourth script now for season three. It’s not actually commissioned, That’s still up in the air. I shouldn’t say we’re confident, because that’s asking for a fall, but we’re very confident, to be honest. And we’ll just keep going.”
Well that aged well, didn't it?
If it wasn’t bad enough that the Fifteenth Doctor’s regeneration was tacked on to the end of an existing story, we also never got to see him reunite with Susan or Rogue. Or find out who the Boss is. Or find out who picked up the Toymaker’s tooth, and if the Master ever escaped from it.
There's a touch of arrogance to just assuming everything would work out and not considering the business realities of the situation, and it's left fans frustrated, with a story and a vision that very clearly wasn't completed.
Even when the ending to The Reality War was rewritten, and Disney had all but confirmed they wouldn’t be continuing, RTD added another reference to the Boss, and a stunt regeneration!
Talk about digging yourself a deeper hole.