Doctor Who's Russell T Davies admits it would have been "a nightmare" to do another season

Doctor Who's Russell T Davies has admitted that doing another season since returning to the science fiction show would have been "a nightmare". When Davies' comeback was announced, the BBC and Disney had entered into a deal to produce the show, with the House of Mouse releasing it on its streaming service outside of the UK.

The deal was only for two seasons plus the three 60th anniversary specials and spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea, while there was hopes to do a third (season 16 since the 2005 revival).

In an excerpt from his book The Queerest of Folk published in The Guardian, Davies said: "We knew Ncuti Gatwa was leaving, so I'd written the climax in which the Doctor, having saved the life of a baby in 'The Church on Ruby Road', Ncuti's first episode, now departs by saving the life of a baby because the universe is at stake."

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"But we had to make these final episodes not knowing whether the Disney deal would be renewed," he continued in the book.

"That was nothing to do with us at [independent production company] Bad Wolf; it was down to conversations with Disney and the BBC. So we had no idea what was going on.

"Deep down I thought it wouldn't. You could tell what I was thinking, because I was already creating new work: Tip Toe for Channel 4, and also setting up the dance version of It's a Sin with Rambert.

"In fact, in some ways it would have been a nightmare for me if that third series had come along, but I would have managed it."

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The plan was to end Ncuti's season with an open-ended regeneration, but as the broadcast date neared and it had been "pretty much confirmed that Disney had said no", Davies said that cutting to credits without revealing the actor taking over from Gatwa would look "like the death of the show".

Instead, the decision was made to give Billie Piper step in for the regeneration scene, something that Davies said got people talking about the show again.

The Queerest of Folk: A Life in Television will be released on 8 October. Doctor Who can be streamed on BBC iPlayer.

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Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he's covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish.