When Doctor Who came to the controversial climax of its latest season recently, it did so with an uncertainty the series hasn’t faced for 20 years: there was then, and still is, no official news if the series will return. But while that’s still case, the BBC has announced news that should give some reassurance that Doctor Who will have some form of future on TV. It’s just perhaps not the way most fans would’ve hoped for.
This morning the corporation confirmed that a new Doctor Who series was in the works: an as-yet-untitled animated series set to broadcast on CBeebies, the BBC’s pre-school focused programming platform. A production company has yet to be found for the series, which will the Doctor adventuring through time and space alongside “their companions and other friends“, solving mysteries and problems across the universe.
“Everyone is welcome at CBeebies, including the Doctor,” the BBC’s Director of Children’s and Education said in a statement provided via press release. “This much-loved franchise entertains millions around the world, so it is only right that our younger audience get to experience the wonder and the magic of the Doctor in a brand new format. ”
No specific incarnation of the Doctor was confirmed for the series, or whether or not the show may follow multiple incarnations of the Doctor from the series’ past. Also of interest is the fact that the series’ announcement makes no mention of an involvement from Disney and its own vast array of children’s programming networks, and that the series will run independently of the main TV show.
The fact that, at the very least, the BBC is commissioning new Doctor Who spinoffs, gives some glimmer of hope that there’s still a chance for Doctor Who to continue–regardless of how its deal with Disney to distribute the series internationally goes. But funnily enough, it wouldn’t be the first time the Doctor has showed up in kid’s TV after the main show faced a dire fate. A year after Doctor Who was cancelled after the broadcast of “Survival” in late 1989, Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred reprised their roles as the Seventh Doctor and Ace for a special episode of the BBC educational series Search Out Space, taking part in an interstellar quiz show where they were tasked with answering rudimentary questions about space.
We’ll bring you more on the BBC’s plans for Doctor Who‘s future as and when we learn them.
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