We Now Know Who Doctor Who's Next Showrunner Should Be

It’s not easy being a showrunner for Doctor Who, the world’s longest-running sci-fi TV series. In fact, since the show returned back in 2005, only three people have done the job: Russell T. Davies (twice), Steven Moffat, and Chris Chibnall. The ideal Doctor Who showrunner will be a creative visionary with great writing skills, good people management and administrative abilities, and smart insight into PR too – an almost impossible list. The task seems to be becoming even harder as the years pass, too, perhaps explaining why both Chibnall’s and Davies’ second tenure have struggled.

Videos by ComicBook.com

All the signs suggest Russell T. Davies is set to depart after the Doctor Who 2026 Christmas Special. Although the BBC confirmed that Doctor Who will continue, their press releases were notably silent about who the next showrunner would be, and attentive viewers suspect that’s because it’s time for a change. The so-called “RTD2” era hasn’t been the success everyone hoped for, with the BBC’s Disney+ deal collapsing due to poor viewership. But who should take over the mantle of Doctor Who showrunner next?

Doctor Who’s Latest Spinoff Confirms Who the Showrunner Should Be

Step forward Pete McTighe, an experienced writer and showrunner who’s been involved with Doctor Who for several years now, under both Chibnall and Davies. “Doctor Who is the reason I’m a writer,” McTighe explained in an interview with The Doctor Who Companion. “I’ve created and showrun my own shows and written hundreds of hours of TV, but nothing beats Doctor Who.” McTighe is notable for a strong character focus, which perhaps explains why his RTD2 episode “Lucky Day” was an exploration of what life is like when the Doctor isn’t around.

There’s a sense in which the last Doctor Who spinoff, The War Between the Land and the Sea, should really be seen as a baptism by fire for McTighe; a chance to prove just how good he really could be as a potential showrunner. Although the spinoff had its flaws, The War Between the Land and the Sea was easily the best Doctor Who story we’ve had in years, surely putting McTighe in place as frontrunner. It had a fairly strong character arc, an overarching narrative that worked pretty well, and made classic tropes feel fresh and new.

Modern Doctor Who has become overly nostalgic, with Davies seeming to believe audiences would be drawn in by appeals to deep lore; in reality, the show has become increasingly inaccessible to new viewers, depending on continuity and lore for impact rather than strong character arcs. Remarkably, though, The War Between the Land and the Sea managed to bring back the classic race known as the Sea Devils without obsessing over Easter eggs and references; it was unusually accessible, making perfect sense for new audiences.

It’s true that McTighe’s main Doctor Who episodes haven’t been perfect; there have been odd stumbles in terms of political messaging (Kerblam! being a particularly tone-deaf example). That said, the main problem we have in assessing those episodes is simply that he was operating under different showrunners; the Chibnall era was oddly conservative in terms of its politics, feeling almost like a rejection of past messaging in Doctor Who, and it’s entirely possible some aspects of McTighe’s episodes weren’t really under his control. The War Between the Land and the Sea feels like the best demonstration of his skills to date.

There May Be a Better Way to Run Doctor Who

Speaking at the Oxford Union, former showrunner Steven Moffat pointed out how difficult it had been to replace Chris Chibnall. “Everyone you can think of who would be good for it, doesn’t want to to it, because they know how hard the job is,” he explained. He has a point, because the role of Doctor Who showrunner has always been impossibly demanding, and it seems to have evolved to become almost insurmountable. We have to accept a simple truth; the last two showrunners have both struggled, including Russell T. Davies, the man responsible for the show’s 2005 relaunch in the first place.

Doctor Who could perhaps take inspiration from a larger franchise; Star Wars. Latest reports suggest Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy is being replaced by Lucasfilm’s current Chief Creative Officer (and George Lucas protege) Dave Filoni and ILM stalwart Lynwen Brennan. Like Doctor Who showrunner, the presidency of a film studio has evolved into something quite impossible in the modern world, and Luasfilm’s solution is simply to split the job. It’s possible a similar approach would work for Doctor Who, with two bosses working together – one a creative, the other an administrator.

Under this model, McTighe would surely be one of the best to co-lead the show; he’s demonstrated strong creative instincts (not just in Doctor Who, but also in the excellent A Discovery of Witches, The Pact, and The Rising). He knows the lore, but The War Between the Land and the Sea proves he doesn’t allow that to dominate his stories, making classic foes seem fresh and new. If he wants the job, and if the right changes can be made to make it doable, McTighe feels like the right choice.

Who do you think should be the new Doctor Who showrunner? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!