After way too long a wait, Doctor Who finally returns on New Year’s Day for its twelfth season premiere with a James Bond-inspired two-parter called “Spyfall.” This will feature Stephen Fry as the head of MI6 and show Whittaker’s Doctor and her companions investigating a sinister alien threat to Britain’s secret agents. What we’ve seen so far indicates that the series is returning in style, too, but what else could the future hold for the thirteenth Doctor?
Well, Whittaker has some ideas. One of the most beloved aspects of Doctor Who are the ‘multi-Doctor’ episodes. These began way back in 1972 with “The Three Doctors,” which brought together William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee. The most recent was the 50th anniversary special “The Day of the Doctor,” which showed David Tennant and Matt Smith’s Doctors teaming up, cameo appearances from all previous Doctors (plus the incoming Peter Capaldi) and to top things off, a wonderful special appearance from Tom Baker.
Now, Whittaker has named her choices for her multi-Doctor episode. When asked by the Radio Times who she’d want in it, she said:
“I’d say David [Tennant], because I’ve worked with him before and he’s brilliant and Chris [Eccleston]. That’s what I’d like, because having worked with them both previously, I know that it would be an amazing time.”
Tennant would be easy to convince, having stayed close to the franchise since his departure from the role. Eccleston would be a bit trickier, though. He famously left the show under a cloud, going so far as to blame the BBC for blacklisting him and negatively affecting his career in the years that followed. However, he seems to have warmed to the show over the last few years, perhaps because the specific people he didn’t get on with have departed.
Either way, in 2023 it’ll be Doctor Who‘s 60th anniversary and they’ll be wanting to cook up something very special. And if Whittaker is still the Doctor by then, she’d be coming to the end of her tenure, so what better way to send her off in style by granting her wish and patching things up with Eccleston?
