{"id":260012,"date":"2025-10-30T03:44:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T03:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/260012\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T03:44:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T03:44:13","slug":"9-people-billie-piper-could-play-in-doctor-who-now-that-doctor-who-probably-needs-to-figure-that-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/260012\/","title":{"rendered":"9 People Billie Piper Could Play in ‘Doctor Who’ Now That ‘Doctor Who’ Probably Needs to Figure That Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good news:\u00a0Doctor Who is alive<\/a>. Bad news:\u00a0Doctor Who is now alive and probably has to deal with one of the most bizarre cliffhangers<\/a> in over 60 years of cliffhanging history.<\/p>\n

With yesterday\u2019s news that the BBC would be continuing\u00a0Doctor Who\u2018s future after the termination of its partnership with Disney starting with a new Christmas special in 2026, the series now has an equally as important task to deal with beyond its continued survival: just who the hell\u00a0is Billie Piper meant to have been playing in those closing moments of \u201cThe Reality War\u201d<\/a>, anyway?<\/p>\n

Even before the future of the series was stuck in limbo<\/a> for months, creatives involved in the series, from Piper herself to showrunner Russell T Davies, wanted to suggest that the returning actress was not\u00a0necessarily playing the 16th incarnation of the Doctor, despite her regenerating out of departing star Ncuti Gatwa. Piper was not credited in \u201cReality War\u201d as appearing as the Doctor, as has traditionally been the case for new Doctors, and there was enough going on with Gatwa\u2019s regeneration and the reasoning process for it to suggest that not everything was as it seemed. And since then, any willing commentary that has been made about the decision is purely speculative, other than to indicate that there was not a clear plan in place<\/a> as to how the outcome would play out, with no guaranteed future<\/a> for the series.<\/p>\n

But now that future is at least guaranteed. So while we now have a long wait until Christmas 2026 to actually see who Piper is playing, we have some suggestions\u2026 admittedly only mostly silly ones.<\/p>\n

9) Rose Tyler, Again \"Doctor\u00a9 BBC <\/p>\n

The climax of \u201cThe Reality War\u201d was meant to be about the use of regeneration energy to shunt reality itself\u2026 but what if it didn\u2019t just affect\u00a0Doctor Who\u2018s prime reality and translocated noted reality hopper Rose Tyler into the Doctor\u2019s place, and now she has to figure out how to get whoever they\u2019ve become back?<\/p>\n

8) The Master \"Doctor\u00a9 BBC <\/p>\n

The last time we saw the Master, we\u00a0did see him attempt to violently take over the Doctor\u2019s body during the regeneration process. What better way to mess with the mind of your oldest frenemy than by forcing them to have the face of one of their closest former companions while also being you?<\/p>\n

7) The Bad Wolf, Again \"Doctor\u00a9 BBC <\/p>\n

The 15th Doctor\u2019s regeneration centered the TARDIS in such a way that it feels like it\u2019s going to play an important factor in just whoever Piper is meant to be (if not the Doctor, that is). The Doctor blasted the console with all that energy, we cut to that ominous shot of it darkened and lit only by the regeneration process itself\u2026 and we know the ship\u2019s heart is already familiar with using Rose Tyler\u2019s face as an agent of its will. What if the TARDIS feels that\u2019s necessary once more?<\/p>\n

6) Susan Foreman \"Doctor\u00a9 BBC <\/p>\n

It\u2019s probably too late for the show to use whatever plans<\/a> it had for Carole Ann Ford at this point after whatever was cut from \u201cThe Reality War\u201d\u2014and we don\u2019t know yet if Russell T Davies is going to carry on writing\u00a0Doctor Who after this 2026 special. Given that Susan was brought up multiple times during the 15th Doctor\u2019s era even before she made those mental appearances (depicted in the TARDIS console room; for some reason, again, the TARDIS is key!), what if whatever she was trying to warn the Doctor about was so dire that this shifting of reality allowed her to somehow transpose herself onto the Doctor\u2019s being, and we tie it all up here?<\/p>\n

And now she looks like Billie Piper because\u00a0she regenerated. For some reason. Time Lord stuff!<\/p>\n

5) The Moment, Again \"Doctor\u00a9 BBC <\/p>\n

It was never actually used to destroy Gallifrey, after all. If the veil between the nature of reality itself was so thin after whatever the Doctor did to change it, did something activate the Moment, a weapon capable of consuming galaxies in its devastation?<\/p>\n

Plus, a familiar interface would just be a logical solution for a massive temporal weapon that now has a\u00a0lot of history with the Doctor to take.<\/p>\n

4) The Actress, Billie Piper \"Billie\u00a9 Netflix <\/p>\n

In the 2025 season\u2019s \u201cLux,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0one of the many bizarre things that happen to the 15th Doctor and Belinda while battling the reality-warping Mr. Ring-A-Ding is that they briefly get pulled through a television into a reality where the Doctor\u2019s adventures with their many companions are the subject of a long-running hit TV show named Doctor Who.\u00a0 See where I\u2019m going with this? Don\u2019t have to think about who Billie is; she simply is Billie! Who doesn\u2019t love an existential crisis at the holidays?<\/p>\n

3) The Heart of the TARDIS (Again) \"Doctor\u00a9 BBC <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve already had one instance of the TARDIS itself embodying a physical form. Given how intrinsic it was to the 15th Doctor\u2019s process of \u201cdeath,\u201d maybe the TARDIS is trying to save her pilot by taking over their body for a bit, to sustain it until an actual regeneration can occur?<\/p>\n

And then you can blame the Rose Tyler of it all on the Bad Wolf stuff again, or something. Hey,\u00a0I\u2019m not the one making the show.<\/p>\n

2) The Valeyard \"Doctor\u00a9 BBC <\/p>\n

This is just because everyone always says whenever there\u2019s some mysterious regeneration stuff happening, it simply\u00a0must be the Valeyard, a strangely sinister emanation of the Doctor introduced in \u201cThe Trial of a Time Lord\u201d meant to reflect a future, malicious incarnation that could only be postponed and never truly avoided. Choosing the moment the Doctor\u2019s just sacrificed themselves to move all of reality enough to let baby Poppy exist in some form or another seems like a suitably sinister thing for the Valeyard to do.<\/p>\n

1) Okay Maybe She\u2019s Just the 16th Doctor \"Doctor\u00a9 BBC\/Disney <\/p>\n

Or maybe we just skip all this nonsense, and Billie Piper is a one-off Doctor like David Tennant was for the 60th anniversary specials? This era of the show has been very much about trying to repeat the old hits\u2014maybe 2023 will be old enough by Christmas 2026 to be considered for dipping back into the same bag of tricks.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Good news:\u00a0Doctor Who is alive. Bad news:\u00a0Doctor Who is now alive and probably has to deal with one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[8827,140325,127416,88,139149,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-260012","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-billie-piper","10":"tag-doctor-who","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-superlist","13":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}