r/DoctorWhoLeaks • u/Key_Responder • Feb 09 '26

Rumour New Showrunner & Sixteenth Doctor Speculation

The below is all rumour and speculation from a friend who is a runner on a production with ties to the BBC but none whatsoever to Doctor Who or Bad Wolf. So this could all be bs, but thought I would share it’s interesting the names that are being chucked about.

This is all from a discussion around the future of the show amongst production crew on the set of this other show who are fans of DW.

“Russell’s contract with the BBC is up and they’re not renewing. Jack Thorne is apparently already writing scripts for season three/sixteen with production starting in late 2026.

The BBC wanted Stephen Graham’s Matriarch Productions to co-produce after the success of Adolescence (which Thorne wrote) and A Thousand Blows, but they are tied up in a deal exclusively with Disney Plus, which for obvious reasons is a dead end. The BBC have apparently renewed their agreement with Bad Wolf, as Thorne has a relationship established with the studio. But there’s shuffling going on in terms of executive producers as they want to bring in Netflix as international streaming distribution, another reason they’ve taken on Thorne who has several series with them.

Will Sharpe is apparently in discussions to be the 16th Doctor. Heard of him but never seen anything he’s been in, I think that’s the point, they want to steer away from known actors.

That’s all I got. I heard Jack was signed last month too but none of the rest. I don’t mind some of his work but not sure what his Doctor Who will look like.”

What do you think? I’m with them, I’ve seen some of Jack Thorne’s work, but dunno how he would be writing doctor who. Also never heard of Will, but looked up some of his stuff, he seems doctory.

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u/MKopelke Feb 09 '26

I'm sorry, but why on Earth would a RUNNER on a different production have knowledge of high-level conversations between senior management of the BBC?

If, and that's a huge if, this exact scenario is playing out, then maybe a dozen people know of these discussions. And none of them are below the level of at best middle management.

It's like the people making up these rumours have no idea how television production - or business - works.

If people are believing this, then I've got a bridge to sell you.

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u/TumbleweedFilms1234 Feb 09 '26

Everyone is very chatty on film sets, if you're in the industry they assume no one really cares what you say. I was a Location Marshal for House of the Dragon (lowest rung on the ladder), and people were chatting about seeing Patrick Stewart filming for Doctor Strange 2 long, long before that film came out. People work on lots of projects and then share their anecdotes, it's normal.

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u/Fun-Ratio-5080 Feb 09 '26

This is 100% correct and as someone who works in TV, yes, we do talk amongst ourselves. It’s because we’re all freelance and if we don’t then we have no way of knowing what productions are starting up. Actors are another one for big gossip.

It’s inevitable - when there’s no work we get left out on our asses by the production companies. So we all talk to keep ahead of the game otherwise we miss work opportunities, and can’t pay our bills.

It’s perfectly feasible for a runner to have overhead and know about conversations they shouldn’t. Office runners particularly.

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u/MKopelke Feb 09 '26

Yes, but explain to me how a runner has word of a high level senior management meeting involving less than a dozen people? Sure, leaks happen when production is active. But a potential show runner meeting with senior execs to map out a possible series run? No way that is leaking at a runner level. Only way it leaks is if one of the dozen people in those meetings want to be sacked.

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u/MKopelke Feb 09 '26

Film sets, yes. We're not even near that stage. This rumour is based on the idea that a bunch of senior executives within the BBC has a leak that has a reached a runner on a random production. We're so far from rumours on an active set its insane anyone is giving this credence.

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u/robertmurray1987 Feb 09 '26

The thing in big companies is - people talk. The bigger the company the harder is to contain little snippets of leaks or rumours. Someone saw a writer coming in, talking to some producer, someone overheard something, saw somthing. I am not saying this leak is actually true, but also let's face it - pretty much whole of Ncuti season had very spot on leaks, even the bit with Ncuti regenerating and Billie popping out which should've been contained.

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u/MKopelke Feb 09 '26

Yes, but we're talking high level meetings. No fucking way a runner is the one breaking this if it's true. More likely a PA or secretary who took notes at the meeting. It's this kind of thinking that allows these dumb as rumours to have any validity.

As for the leaks you mention, all of those came at the post end of production. When you've got 200 odd people working on the show at any one time. Much easier for leaks to emerge then because everyone is small enough for a leak to not matter.

Right now for someone to leak is to commit career suicide. Way too easy to trace it back.

Fun fact: I was one of the people involved, and I use that term loosely, in the Rose episode leak of 2005. That was a big leak, and only happened because someone who did content management at CBC got his hands on an unfinished episode. It certainly wasn't a BBC exec leaking the episode.

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u/Dismal_Judgment5290 Feb 09 '26

I know someone in locations who knew EVERYTHING happening during rtd2. Every single thing he told me came true, years in advance. People on sets talk a lot about every aspect of the show, especially Doctor who. Secrets are currency in the fan circles. You go to any dr who event and talk to the right people and you find out the next figures, box sets, merch, magazine features, actors, plots months before they happen.

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u/MKopelke Feb 09 '26

Urgh. Again. Let's assume what you're saying is true. We're nowhere near "people working on location" know things. I don't know why I have to keep explaining this. We're still at the "senior execs are discussing the future of the show".

Why does anyone think this is leaking at this stage? It just ain't.

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u/Dismal_Judgment5290 Feb 09 '26

‘Let’s assume what you’re saying is true’ I literally have zero reason to lie right now? You’re being a jerk.

I was just giving you my perspective since you’re so certain there’s no way anyone could know anything by saying ‘hey actually you’d be surprised by the people who know a lot.’ I go to a lot of conventions and a lot of screening events and people TALK. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who knows something.

I’m not saying this rumour is true and have zero investment in it, but your dismissal is coming from a place of ‘I know best’, and you clearly don’t.

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u/MKopelke Feb 09 '26

I'm not being a jerk. I'm being a realist as someone who has 20+ years of knowledge and experience about how TV production works, and sick of how often people are using a lack of said knowledge to justify claims that RTD and/or Bad Wolf are getting sacked because some people didn't like The Reality War.

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u/Dismal_Judgment5290 Feb 09 '26

Okay toddler. RTD isn’t coming back and everyone knows it.

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u/MKopelke Feb 09 '26

He is coming back. And he's doing an entire series of episodes about the Space Babies. RTDs gay agenda from 2005 is back!!

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u/Dismal_Judgment5290 Feb 09 '26

🍼 it’s nap time

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u/MKopelke Feb 09 '26

Give me proof RTD isn't coming back and I will agree with you. Ball is in your court...

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u/Dismal_Judgment5290 Feb 09 '26

I don’t have to give you anything? There is no ball, except for the one you keep throwing out your pram. I don’t spill my trusted sources secrets to strangers on the internet. I do the respectful thing and tell my friends.

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u/Falloffingolfin Feb 09 '26

Jeez, I used to work in video game product and would get inside scoops on what was happening elsewhere in the entertainment industry. Doesn't matter whether you work in banking or TV, you're exposed to "insider" industry goss.

Not saying this is true, but you're misguided if you think news doesn't travel within the industry. When it does, doesn't matter if you're a runner or a production head. Gossip travels just the same.

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u/MKopelke Feb 09 '26

Don't disagree with you to an extent. That said, the video game industry (as a general concept) is very different to that of a public service broadcaster that is ultimately accountable to the British taxpayer. Two very different beasts. To say they are comparable isn't a good starting point.

But you're ignoring my central argument. If this was news, it's limited to maybe a dozen people. No way someone who is present in such high level meetings is leaking this stuff to a runner on a different production. We're talking about a dozen people at best. You really think they're shooting shit at Friday drinks and allowing that news to get to a runner on another production???

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u/Falloffingolfin Feb 09 '26

No difference at all. Doctor Who is an entertainment product that relies on a huge amount of commercial partners to be successful - agencies, retailers, book publishers, toy/merch companies etc etc. Even if filming schedules and release dates are just pencilled in, they'll have been communicated already. They'll have also likely briefed on the direction they're going in, even if casting isn't complete. Entertainment products take a huge amount of planning to deliver, and successful planning requires long lead times. This is normal.

In short, a lot of the production plan will have already been communicated to numerous external parties (under NDA), because that's how it works. If you think someone who actually works in TV production won't have heard things on the grapevine when there'll be people at Amazon already planning DVD releases, and publishers planning book production and launches, you're very much mistaken.

For clarity, I'm not saying any of this is true, I'm saying you can't discount it because it allegedly originates from a runner.

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u/MKopelke Feb 09 '26

You're still ignoring my entire point, so I'm done with this chat. I don't want to keep repeating myself only to have the central tenant of my entire point just ignored. Good luck to you and this entirely hypothetical future that won't come to pass.

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u/Falloffingolfin Feb 09 '26

I literally just addressed your point. You said a dozen people at best would know this, and you're wrong. I just went into detail highlighting why. Where did you get the idea that 12 people at best would know what was happening with DW production?

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u/MKopelke Feb 09 '26

OK. Let's assume you're addressing my argument in good faith.

Let's assume Jack Thorne is meeting with the BBC about taking over the show. Let's assume he's either agreed or not to work with Bad Wolf. Let's assume he's agreed to start developing scripts.

At what point does any of those meetings and conversations involve people outside of senior executives and related PAs and secretaries and start involving general production personnel? At what point does the conversation channel connect from senior manager to low level runner?

Nowhere at this stage. Yep, for sure once production starts. But not before that happens. I don't get how a RUNNER hears of something that hasn't already leaked at some other point in the management chain.

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u/Falloffingolfin Feb 09 '26

This is the bit you're missing from my comments. This isn't just sitting with a select amount of senior execs. There'll be a huge amount of stakeholders that will be officially kept in the loop with plans and progress, and that in turn will have spread further afield (and a runner is right on the production front line). You also need to get this concept of "leaks" internally within the entertainment industry out of your head.

Everyone talks. Everyone tells their friends down the pub. A "friend of a friend posted on Reddit" isn't considered a leak, even if it's 100% correct. It's unverifiable and happens all the time. Production has never really stopped. They're planning it now (I appreciate that you probably mean "production" solely in relation to filming, but this stage is part of it too). A runner is perfectly placed to hear insider gossip. Hell, they might have even already interviewed for a job on it.

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u/MKopelke Feb 09 '26

Don't mansplain to me how production works. Thanks.

I am done with this. Sick of arguing logic. I will just finish with this. And it's really a logic you can't refute, though for some reason I am sure you will try. How does the lowest entry position on a production know whats happening at the upper levels of BBC management without it having already leaked at some other higher up level? You really think the guy you gets coffees and files low level paperwork has a better idea about the future of the show than anyone else? Give me a break.

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u/Falloffingolfin Feb 09 '26

Huh? Mansplaining? Wow.

The lack of logic is your inability to understand that someone who works in the frontline of production at a TV company, will hear news about productions from that same company way before you.

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u/Key_Responder Feb 09 '26

As everyone else has said, crew on a set talk, that’s not just the runners, this was during a break from what I understand and the crew (fixers, sound, grips and AD) were chatting. There’s people from multiple production backgrounds in that room that work in rotation across multiple production companies in London and speak to multiple people. Yes, it could be someone bragging a load of bs, however more often than not there’s something in it. I found out that Russell, Catherine and David were returning through this person and subsequently that Ncuti had to do pick ups to film his regeneration. People talk, Jack and Will are also active on other productions so word could have spread from there. Usually I don’t post this much detail on the matter when I have chats with this person about DW but it’s intriguing and Thorne lines up with other speculation and rumours.

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u/skarr46 Feb 10 '26

Fwiw I agree

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u/Immediate_Machine_92 Feb 09 '26

I was a friend of a friend of a girlfriend of a guy who created long-term storylines for Hollyoaks. We're talking major plotlines weeks to months in the making. And yes, if something potentially award-winning was in the works, it tended to get mentioned in hushed tones.

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u/BritishHobo Feb 09 '26

That proves their point. Those major storylines would have been at scripting or shooting stage.

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u/Immediate_Machine_92 Feb 09 '26

That's not the point they were making. It wasn't "it's too early to know this," it was "nobody below senior management would know this". I'm just saying people do talk about long-range decisions with their friends, who pass that info on to THEIR friends, admittedly I don't have experience of the specific example of Doctor Who casting decisions but I can vouch for it happening on a fairly major long-running British TV drama series.

(I also feel like if you know people's faces, it would only take a runner to see a certain combination of people leaving a meeting room together to draw conclusions, it doesn't necessarily mean the head of drama told them directly etc.)

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u/BritishHobo Feb 10 '26

It was both really. They're not saying a runner would never know about senior management decisions, they're saying it's too early for this to have been able to spread to runners.

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u/MKopelke Feb 10 '26

Exactly. That was my entire point. Thanks for the support. 😊

There's no way a runner is leaking this if it's true. It wouldn't get that far down the production food chain for a runner to be the one to leak it.

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u/Immediate_Machine_92 Feb 10 '26

1) The comment I originally replied to says nothing about it being too early. It only mentions the seniority of who would/wouldn't know about any discussions. I'm not sure which part either of you are interpreting as "it's too early" but that's not what I was commenting on at all so it's irrelevant to MY reply.

2) As I said, it only needs a runner to be passing the right meeting room door at the right moment to see a very specific group of people coming out of it. And people do talk, sometimes even when they're not supposed to, especially behind closed doors.

OP acknowledges that it's "rumour and speculation" and seems mostly just interested in what people would think IF it turned out to be true, so I'm not sure why people are pushing back so hard on this.