'Doctor Who' Moving House to Disney+ Starting in 2023

For those who grew up with Classic Doctor Who, the 2005 reboot was a huge deal. In those pre-streaming days, franchises weren't revived left and right the way they have been this decade. In many ways, the man behind the reboot, Russell T. Davies, was ahead of his time. He imagined an entire Franchise Whoniverse, with spinoff series starring old favorites like Sarah Jane Smith and new hotness characters like Captain Jack Harkness. The BBC went along with it, but Torchwood never reached its potential, while The Sarah Jane Adventures was tragically cut short by the death of lead actor Elisabeth Sladen.

Nowadays, Davies' idea seems modest compared to the multiple Star Trek spinoffs on Paramount+ or the Marvel-verse, which (no joke) released ten high-profile titles in 2021. Moreover, the series is not set up for spinoff success. The last one attempted by Steve Moffat, Class, was barely noticed. Despite the series being marketed heavily on BBC One and iPlayer, in America, where the actual numbers are, it's lost in the cable wilderness on BBC America, a channel with no direct streamer other than the parent company's AMC+, whose subscriber numbers are so small it only publically releases the cumulative figures of all its services and its second run rights undermarketed on HBO Max.

With that stark reality facing Sony and Bad Wolf, who now owns the majority share of the Doctor Who brand, moving house was the obvious choice. Perhaps had this happened a decade ago, when BBC America was still partly under the Discovery umbrella, the relationship with HBO Max would have been solidified, as Warner Bros. and Discovery recently merged, and their streamers are expected to combine by next summer. (The BBC also has a longstanding relationship with HBO, and HBO Max has quite a few fantastic British series it never remembers to tell anyone exists.) However, that ship sailed long ago, and the House of Mouse monopoly has scooped up the franchise instead.