Doctor Who is about to undergo a massive relaunch, as this year’s season 11 will star incoming Doctor Jodie Whittaker and be helmed by new showrunner Chris Chibnall. However, some evidence has surfaced this week that hints that a face from the past could returning to the show to smooth the transition.
Recently, actress Billie Piper – who played iconic companion Rose Tyler – teased a major piece of news about something she’s working on. She posted a photo of herself on her Snapchat with the caption “Billie Piper Has News” followed by the message “What could it beeeee?!!” While that doesn’t give anything away in and of itself, Doctor Who fans were quick to pick up on the fact that Piper placed a rose emoji at the end of her post.
The actress must have known what she was doing here. But is she legitimately teasing a comeback as Rose, or is she just deliberately leading her fans down the wrong path to keep whatever the real reveal is a secret? There’s no way of telling for sure at this point, but it doesn’t seem too out of the question for Rose to reappear in the series.
Despite leaving her role on Doctor Who back in 2006, Billie Piper has hardly been away from it ever since. She returned for a multi-episode arc in 2008, for example, which she followed up with a cameo in David Tennant’s last episode in 2010. She then appeared in the guise of the shape-shifting Moment (which took Rose’s form) in the 50th anniversary special in 2013. Finally, in 2017, Piper reunited with Tennant to star in a series of official audio dramas from Big Finish Productions.
It’s possible that her announcement could be to do with another run of these audios, but something about Piper’s post makes us think that, if her news is to do with Rose, it concerns an even more significant return for the character. The actress has teased Rose meeting the Thirteenth Doctor before, after all, and has even said that she feels the character would still be in love with the Time Lord, despite the change in gender. Is that something we’ll get to see explored on screen sometime soon? Possibly.
We’re not sure how long Piper is going to keep teasing us with this news, but we know for certain that Doctor Who season 11 is set to arrive on the BBC this autumn, so we should learn more in the near future.
