Ncuti Gatwa is leaving Doctor Who after just two seasons

Note: this post contains spoilers for this past weekend’s Doctor Who season finale.

In the final moments of “The Reality War,” the Fifteenth Doctor (Gatwa) sacrificed his current form to save the life of a child, and in classic Doctor Who fashion, the Time Lord’s regeneration process ended with him getting a (sort of) new face. It’s not exactly clear how or why, but the Doctor regenerated into a form that looks a lot like Rose Tyler (Billie Piper), the human companion to the Ninth (Christopher Eccleston) and Tenth Doctor (David Tennant).

This is the second time in recent Doctor Who history that the titular character has regenerated into a body portrayed by a series veteran. Previously, Tennant returned to become the Fourteenth Doctor after the Thirteenth (Jodie Whittaker) regenerated. “The Reality War” strongly implies that the Sixteenth Doctor might have transformed into a Rose Tyler facsimile for emotional reasons. But, notably, the episode’s credits do not specify who her new character is.

In a statement about her Who reveal, Piper noted how she has “always said I would love to return to the Whoniverse as I have some of my best memories there.” Showrunner Russell T Davies added that “it’s an honour and a hoot to welcome [Piper] back to the Tardis, but quite how and why and who is a story yet to be told.”

In a statement of his own, Gatwa thanked the Who fandom and “everyone that has played a part in my journey as the Doctor.”

“You know when you get cast, at some point you are going to have to hand back that sonic screwdriver and it is all going to come to an end, but nothing quite prepares you for it,” Gatwa said. “There are no words to describe what it feels like to be cast as the Doctor, nor are there words to explain what it feels like to be accepted into this iconic role that has existed for over 60 years and is truly loved by so many across the globe.”

The casting news was somewhat surprising coming after an appearance Gatwa made on The Graham Norton show last fall where he said that there were plans for him to begin shooting a third season as The Doctor. At the time, Gatwa’s comments felt like a sign that the BBC intended to keep the Fifteenth Doctor’s adventures going for a while longer. But, curiously, when Gatwa’s interview ultimately aired on television, his comments were edited to remove any mention of a third season. It now seems like the network decided to shift gears rather drastically and focus on playing to Who fans’ nostalgia by bringing back an old face.

It’s not clear when Doctor Who will return and explain the Doctor’s latest face, but the BBC isn’t letting the franchise go dormant for too long. The network also dropped a new trailer for The War Between The Land and The Sea, a spinoff series starring Russell Tovey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Jemma Redgrave, and Alexander Devrient as a group of people trying to stop a conflict with creatures known as the Sea Devils.

Currently, The War Between the Land and the Sea doesn’t have a firm release date, but we can expect to see it some time later this year.