Doctor Who creator admits future of BBC series is in doubt and 'still up in the air'

As the first full series of Ncuti Gatwa as Doctor Who continues to air on BBC One, creator Russell T Davies has opened up about the future of the show. The 61-year-old admitted there will be a Christmas special this year and the 2025 series has already been filmed, but explained that beyond that, things are very much still up in the air.

Speaking in the latest issue of Radio Times, the writer expressed: "I’m working on the fourth script now for season three. It’s not actually commissioned, that’s still up in the air. But that’s the same for every TV programme. 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."

The screenwriter went on to add that lead star Ncuti, 31, will be doing the play The Importance of Being Earnest at the National Theatre in November and they're planning on shooting after that. Doctor Who returned on May 11, as Ncuti returned for his first full series, with Millie Gibson as his companion Ruby Sunday.

In a first for the show, they released two episodes to mark the occasion, Space Babies and The Devil's Chord. Fans were thrilled to finally get a new series and overall there was nothing but praise online for the new episodes of the long-running BBC sci-fi show, with people generally preferring the second episode to the first.

However, there was one element of the show that fans could not get on board with. Having performed a musical number in the Christmas special, The Doctor and Ruby felt like showing off their vocal abilities once more. Having defeated Jinkx Monsoon's evil Maestro and finding themselves at the legendary Abbey Road studios with both The Beatles and Cilla Black he announced there's always a twist at the end.

This was the cue for the music to start and a montage of the characters singing and dancing along to the track. Amongst the people joining in with the fun were Strictly Come Dancing's Shirley Ballas and Johannes Radabe.

While the characters seemed to be loving it, viewers were not nearly as enamoured. They took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to share their thoughts.

One person wrote: "Winks to camera; bit much. Oh dear. Dreadful song - just pay up & play a Beatles song… Johannes & Shirley?! This hasn’t been earnt. (sic)

"Would’ve worked if the song had been good. Why is Abbey Road magically musical? 3.5/5 #DoctorWho #TheDevilsChord #DoctorWhoSpoilers."(sic)

Another X user penned: ""I loved the episode but the Devil's Chord needed to end with a Beatles song.

"They couldn't even get an early one? One of their covers? Nothing?! How much is 10 seconds of a song with Disney money? #DoctorWho."

While a third said: "I had the most insanely great time watching #DoctorWho, but I have one out of context spoilery negative opinion that I must share: They need to stop making Murray Gold write song lyrics #DoctorWhoSpoilers."

Doctor Who continues on Saturday at 6:30pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.