As 2026 surges forward, it’s becoming more clear to Doctor Who fans that nothing is clear about the future of Doctor Who. That goes for both on the screen and behind the scenes. Fans are currently wondering who Billie Piper is playing after that truly strange regeneration scene at the end of Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth Doctor run—and how her character will factor into the Russell T. Davies Christmas special, about which very little is known other than it’s coming later this year.
And there’s also the big question of what happens next for the long-running series. Disney pulled out of its BBC partnership last year, dusting its hands so thoroughly of Doctor Who that U.S. viewers are wondering exactly when, if ever, the spin-off The War Between the Land and Sea will hit Disney+. But without the larger budget that Disney’s deep pockets brought, will the BBC—which has said over and over how committed it is to Doctor Who—move forward with a more scaled-down approach, or will it seek a new collaborator?
That question has popped up in recent months, with the BBC’s Lindsay Salt saying the company wouldn’t rule out teaming up with another American entity on Doctor Who. HBO, which years back launched its streaming service, Max, with several seasons of Doctor Who, was mentioned as a potential partner, with Salt saying “HBO have been great partners creatively.”
However, that’s apparently news to HBO head Casey Bloys. Speaking to the Radio Times, Bloys said he’s unaware of any speculation to that effect. He’s not against it, mind you. But on the other hand, “it has not been presented to us,” he said.
“As with anything, I would say ‘Never say never’—it’s just not something that I know about.”
In other words, the CEO of HBO and Max knows as much about what’s going on with Doctor Who as we do. Or at least that’s what he’s saying for now; with HBO parent company Warner Bros. in its own transitional period, maybe Bloys is holding back on making too many big declarations at once. We’ll learn more, surely, as the Christmas special approaches and those “future of Doctor Who” questions become even more intense.
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