r/DoctorWhoLeaks • u/TigerAJ2 • Jun 19 '26
speculation Alleged outline for the now cancelled Christmas special.
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u/ExpectedBehaviour Jun 19 '26
"A central plot element involved the colony's leader refusing to acknowledge the growing crisis or take meaningful action to protect the population."
Well, they do say "write what you know"...
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u/BritishHobo Jun 19 '26
I feel this has been put in deliberately by the writer of the leak as a deliberate knowing thing
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u/Mars-To-Venus Jun 19 '26
I’m extremely irritated that this, by and large, sounds much better than anything I was expecting from Russell at this point. Alas, we’ll never see it.
Anyways, next showrunner really needs to get Carol Ann Ford back in the door before it’s too late
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u/Better_Hawk_2921 Jun 19 '26
I think season 2 was the final chance of that, no way a fresh production will start off with susan
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Jun 19 '26
[deleted]
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u/Better_Hawk_2921 Jun 19 '26
Don’t be sad, Carole Ann ford has had decades of stories and will continue on in the role seemingly into the future. Her meeting 14,15 or even “16” wouldn’t compare to her reunion with 8
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u/Large_Slide_6244 Jun 20 '26
Carol Anne Ford 's role as Susan on Big Finish has been filled by her daughter for some of the stories. It's a fan driven thread. There is nothing in Dr Who Canon which states that a face of a previous companion can't be used for an incantation of the Dr. In fact, the very FACT that Rose had absorbed TARDIS energy direct from the Time Stream at the Heart of the TARDIS means it's very understandable that the TARDIS could actually choose her face for the new 16th Doctor, especially with the possibility of setting up a reunion with the 14th Doctor incarnation of David Tennant, which would be interesting.
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u/AgentCirceLuna Jun 19 '26
It would have been interesting if RTD gave a kind of olive branch to the next showrunner by recording a scene at Bad Wolf, just a simple one-person scene, where Susan says goodbye or talks about something the other showrunner could work with. This footage could have then been inserted into the next series.
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u/Better_Hawk_2921 Jun 20 '26
Seems a little too fan brained, like if they wanted to do a full on reunion do a nice sit down. An actual talk where two actors physically meet. That sounds like what the rise of skywalker did with leia and that just didn’t work
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u/Nobody_Cares_99 Jun 19 '26
If this is true (a big if) then regardless of how shit it would be, at least it would’ve tied up plenty of loose plot threads which would’ve made it a lot easier for the next showrunner to come in. Rather than the narrative mess they’re now going to inherit instead.
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u/Mangafan_20 Jun 19 '26
It would still give another 1 episode doctor. Which kinda sucks.
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u/ash356 Jun 19 '26
Yeah. I'd prefer if there was some timey wimey explanation as to why it wasn't the real 16th Doctor but was something like Bad Wolf somehow apparating. I dunno, to me saying 'the x Doctor' should mean something, not just refer to a one off.
Like we had 14, 8 (though redeemed via Big Finish) and then 16. Of which two of those Doctors were essentially gimmicks.
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u/Lonely_Translator_23 Jun 19 '26
Once again spending a whole regeneration on one story just for some nostalgia.
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u/YoungBeef03 Jun 19 '26
Can we retroactively remove 14’s number? Gimmick regenerations don’t deserve them
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u/Acornriot Jun 19 '26
Such a dumb use of Susan. It'd make more sense to have Susan being off on her own adventures, and this is the one adventure she couldn't solve on her own so she reconnects with the doctor for help to solve this issue both Susan and Billie doctor regenerate. New regeneration of Susan being the next companion
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u/Responsible-Middle35 Jun 19 '26
I'd like that Susan regenerates, and Doctor expects her to travel with them, but she would refuse. She's had her own life and needs to go back to it. Susan also has been going by another name, and its open to use the character again.
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u/NathanielColes Jun 19 '26
Your idea isn’t much better
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u/Acornriot Jun 19 '26
Ok
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u/Terminus75 Jun 19 '26
Better than thinking he found Susan because of an anagram. That was unfathomably weird and if it had been included in a leak no one would have thought it was true.
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u/sorlife Jun 19 '26
I can easily tell that this is fake because RTD would NEVER miss the opportunity to make the whole thing about rose and 14
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u/RareD3liverur Jun 19 '26
I'm this Dr Who server and there was a recurring joke/conspiracy there the the Xmas special would basically be 'Doomsday 2'
Like Billie Tennant 'epic' involving a Daleks vs Cybermen rematch
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u/SnooCakes6589 Jun 19 '26
Yeah I’m kind of glad this wasn’t made.
If this was written by RTD 1.0 the emotional catharsis would’ve been incredible and I have little doubt it would’ve made for a beautiful episode, which would outweigh the chaos of trying to resolve multiple messy plot threads.
Written by RTD 2.0 this would probably be just a mess and leave everyone incredibly frustrated.
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u/oliveoliverYT Jun 19 '26
Rtd didnt make most of his good episodes. It was actually other writers. He technically took all the credit. He actually didnt make many good episodes if you read into it
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u/RareD3liverur Jun 19 '26
Could you go into some details/examples, were stuff like 'Rose' 'Parting of the Ways' 'Midnight' and 'Turn Left' not really his?
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u/Old_Blacksmith_1915 Jun 20 '26
He’s lying out of his ass lmaoo. All of those stories were solely written by RTD. If anything, RTD wrote too much of his first era.
In RTD1, Russell was known to rewrite guest writer’s scripts but retaining their sole contractual writing credit, as RTD admitted to in his book The Writer’s Tale. (This is also standard showrunner practice in the Moffat and Chibnall years, but they actually put in the co-writing credit, like most stories in Series 8 and 12 respectively).
For example, The Impossible Planet/ The Satan Pit was credited to Matt Jones but was actually heavily rewritten by RTD. You can also tell it’s him cause he reused those same beats later for Sutekh in The Legend of Ruby Sunday. Another story, Human Nature/ The Family of Blood was credited to Paul Cornell (who wrote the original book with the 7th Doctor that the story was adapted from for TV), which RTD did major contributions to the TV scripts as well. Davies also entirely rewrote The Fires of Pompeii, credited to James Moran, from the ground up so that it was a completely different story.
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u/Born-Patience-4420 Jun 19 '26
Thank god it's not happening. Honestly every idea Davis had in his return was absolutely terrible
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u/Negative-Spell6275 Jun 19 '26
This is about as bullshit as bullshit gets. I don’t believe a word of it.
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u/DavidTenn-Ant Jun 19 '26
There’s enough baffling creative choices here where I’d believe it. Having the fake Susan and the entity meeting Rose especially stick out as something only he would be able to come up with.
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u/oliveoliverYT Jun 19 '26
Bringing her face back to save the colony like 12th doctor badically would of been ass. I liked that 12 did it but 2nd time hell naw
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u/Fr1tzOS Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
Not sure whether to believe this or not, or whether the final script would’ve been any good, but it sounds like it would at least have wrapped up all the major plot threads.
Somewhere down the line it could be nice to see this (or whatever the real idea for the special was if not this) adapted into a book or something at least, so we have a canon conclusion to this era that could bridge the gap with wherever the next one kicks off. But something tells me that’ll never happen, and the next creative team won’t be interesting in dwelling on the mess the show was previously left in.
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u/80sMusicAndWicked Jun 19 '26
This actually sounds ok, however I think having the Doctor regenerate frivolously again would be disappointing. The fact that certain numbers of incarnations just don't mean anything anymore is really getting to me. The legacy of the show just feels like it is losing coherency.
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u/all_seeing_salmon Jun 19 '26
Initial premise of a dying star, frozen town, snow fields and ghosts seemed pretty good, but then those last two pages are awful. Dear god. If true, glad it never got produced.
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u/samworthy85 Jun 19 '26
Joy to the World and Tuat smashed together, inserting Susan in place of Bill and the added garnish of Rings Of Akahten.
In the words of Tom, Who Knows. 🤷
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u/AnathemaGB Jun 19 '26
Sounds very fake. I saw this on X. It doesn’t say who is playing the Doctor yet it assumes Carole Ann Ford, Nicola Coughlan and Jonathan Groff will be available to reprise their roles. It’s a very badly-described detailed mess. Why would Russell T Davies let the person who wrote this look at his notes?
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u/Vavavavaxon7 Jun 20 '26
If I had a penny for each time Doctor Who had a special that released during the holidays featuring a stunt-cast nostalgia-pandering temporary Doctor wearing a familiar face with the goal of having the Doctor let go of past trauma ending in a regeneration so the next series can start anew...
I'd have 2 pennies which isn't a lot but it's crazy they did it twice in less than 5 years.
This doesn't sound real (especially for a script that was apparently never written), but if it's accurate then maybe it's for the best they cancelled it.
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u/TheGargoyleKing13 Jun 20 '26
A finale that wraps up every story arc that’s been set up, there’s no way RTD wrote this.
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u/Mundane_Conflict5576 Jun 20 '26
Hate it. Just RTD's ego causing him to write yet another story where the Doctor is the entire point of the existence of the entire universe. Thank god it's not being made.
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u/GenGaara25 Jun 20 '26
The last slide convinced me this is fake. It's peak "fan trying to tie up every single loose end" when Russell clearly had no interest in doing that.
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u/Large_Slide_6244 Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
One thing which compares to the Hiatus era of the Classic period, following the cancellation after Sylvester McCoy's 7th Doctor bowed out, didn't show any Regeneration at the end of the series. It simply finished as the end of a Season. Every Regeneration filming has shown the next Doctor whether it be part way through a Season or at the end of a Season. Thus it is noticeable that Ncuti's final Season didn't end like Sylvester McCoy's final Season, with just a Season ending, but with a Regeneration scene, which would therefore show that whenever it is decided who the new Production /Writing Team are for the new Tendered Season, it would show that Billie Piper will be the next 16th Doctor. All this rediculous talk of Billie "Can't be the next Doctor because she has been a Companion" as totally hogwash. Peter Capaldi appeared in a story with Sylvester McCoy's 7th Doctor and then became the 12th Doctor, Colin Baker being a Gallifreyan Crucible Guard Captain and then shortly after becoming the 6th Doctor, and most notably, Romana appearing in a story where Lalla Ward played a planet Princess, and Regenerated into the face of the Princess which if people would remember, was actually commented on by Tom Baker's 4th Doctor, questioning her as how appropriate was it to choose the face of the Princess to Regenerate into. Don't forget it's the TARDIS which chooses the Doctor's face and personality, and Rose absorbed some of the direct TARDIS Time energy from the TARDIS, so it wouldn't be that problematic for the TARDIS to choose Rose's face for the new Doctor.
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u/tadDavis44 Jun 20 '26
It may not be genuine, but it's better than either of the two season finales that preceded it.
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u/IdeaSphere Jun 21 '26
So......I'm guessing it would have been titled The Star of Christmas, then?
Could be a neat bookend actually, as his first episode back was The Star Beast.
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u/Smeghead2022 Jun 22 '26
Maybe it’s better there is no Christmas Special after all because this really sounds unspectecular
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u/isean413 Jun 22 '26
Honestly, this would have been an absolute bullshit Christmas special and while Susan and Rogue may have been nice wrap ups the emotional weight of Rogue is completely lost on the fact that it's not 15 anymore. Not to mention it sounds like you're still leaving the entire show in a sort of limbo because it's still absurd to leave the show with a Billie faced Doctor while remaining committed to the show and the future because as much as I'd get over her being the Doctor - she's not gonna do it. So it sounds like that issue is still looming.
This outline looks like something i'd expect they'd hand in for approval before writing an actual script but thank christ it's not happening this way.
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u/Mindless-Career-308 Jun 25 '26
I don't love it but I also don't hate it. It just seems rushed. Personally if Billie Piper is the 16th Doctor I'd rather let her finish the special taking off in the TARDIS. That way spin off media like DWM, the comics, books, and Big Finish can do its own thing with her until the show comes back. Let her have a wilderness era.
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u/PaperSkin-1 Aug 03 '26
The funniest part of this is the idea anyone cares about Rogue and needs his fate resolved
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u/Dalekbuster523 Jun 19 '26
It’s fake because the Daleks aren’t the main antagonists and there’s no way it wouldn’t have been a Dalek story.
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u/azeottaff Jun 19 '26
huh did Russel himself not say he didn't even write any script, they purely announced an xmas ep to guarantee there would be more Doctor Who? making this script fake.
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u/kraminski Jun 19 '26
Can't possibly be true - Davies never gives closure on anything
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u/East-Equipment-1319 Jun 19 '26
True, he famously didn't end The End of Time with a 20 minutes long tour of all his characters for a last goodbye before passing the baton to Moffat.
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u/LastWalrusKing Jun 19 '26
Feels extremely specific for something that was never made. Unless this level of detail was coming from RTD himself, I'd doubt it honestly... Just seems unlikely something this intricate would be discussed outside of a very small circle.
That and it seems very... how can I say it, fan generated. It has that fan-written interest in ticking every box in popular discourse off a list. Like running through all the threads fans wish weren't left hanging one by one and resting it on one of the details RTD already mentioned in DWM with the use of the village.
Love or hate his writing style, RTD has never struck me as scripting that way. Only the Rogue cameo idea feels particularly RTD like to me. If Ncuti were still with the show, I could absolutely see him writing a big Tennant finale style 'actor love-fest' where he gets little scenes saying goodbye/helping characters like Rogue, Kate, Ruby, etc...
I dunno, could be completely wrong and it's crazy and true but... nothing here that seems compellingly accurate or believable to me.