For most Doctor Who fans, the news that Disney finally officially announced their break-up with the BBC and the conclusion of the partnership that funded the last two seasons of the show came as an enormous relief. The long-running sci-fi series has been stuck in a bizarre liminal state since season 15 concluded earlier this year, when lead actor Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor regenerated as part of a finale that felt like nothing so much as a quick and dirty patch job on the finale we were originally supposed to see. But like any dramatic relationship end, it is not without its share of gossip and blame. 

Deadline has a deep dive into the behind-the-scenes madness that apparently categorized Doctor Who’s time in the Mouse House, and it’s… a lot. Per their report, the deal fell apart over many things, including but not limited to: ratings woes, concerns over the show’s failure to attract an audience beyond its original fanbase, its hefty price tag, and worries that showrunner Russell T. Davies’ embrace of diverse storytelling was a poor fit for our current moment in Donald Trump’s America. Even Gatwa’s commitment to the role was called into question by some insiders. Apparently, it was just a bad match all around.

“It was pretty apparent from early on that this wasn’t for the long term,” a former Disney executive is quoted as saying. “Everyone got the impression that it wasn’t doing what it needed to do [on Disney+] to be sustained.” 

It’s true that Doctor Who hasn’t exactly been a big hit for Disney+. The most recent season failed to land on Nielsen and Luminate’s streaming charts, and the Mouse couldn’t even be bothered to put out their own official statement announcing their exit from the franchise. (They apparently just confirmed the BBC’s comments when asked about it.)

But ratings for literally everything are declining in the streaming era, and Doctor Who has garnered complaints about being “too woke” for years, and even more so since it put a woman in charge of the TARDIS with Jodie Whittaker’s casting back in 2017. (These aren’t new problems, is what I’m saying.) The budget concerns are certainly fair—it surely cost quite a bit to make the show look as good as it has during this era—but mostly it seems as though this particular partnership was struck when the streaming landscape looked very different than the one we see today.

“The writing has been on the wall for ages,” another anonymous source close to Doctor Who told Deadline. “There has been a complete lack of enthusiasm over at Disney.”

It’s likely that, when the series was originally acquired, Disney had high hopes of expanding the franchise into another tentpole of its brand. Davies has long been an advocate for a larger “Whoniverse” and was the brains behind previous spinoffs Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. The forthcoming series The War Between the Land and the Sea seems to have been intended as the first step in expanding the franchise to multiple interconnected properties, in the same way that Star Trek, Star Wars, and Marvel have done. But with the flagship series struggling so badly—and the truly bizarre choice to start with a Sea Devil series no one asked for—that plan, at least for the moment, seems to be dead in the water. 

There are a lot of unanswered questions when it comes to Doctor Who’s future. The show—and Davies—will return for a Christmas special in 2026. In the meantime, one expects they’ll cast another Doctor, and figure out what the heck to do with former companion Billie Piper and whoever it is she’s playing. But after that, who knows? Will a severely reduced budget force the series to go back to basics, with smaller, more insular sorts of stories? Will Davies step down as showrunner after next Christmas? And who will air the show outside of the U.K.? And is all this uncertainty about pretty much everything connected to the show better than the strange limo we’ve all spent the past few months enduring? Yes, but not by much. 

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