Speculation had already been running rampant that Olly Alexander could be the next actor to play the Doctor, but with the announcement, Russell T. Davies will be returning as showrunner to Doctor Who, the odds of that happening have just gone up. The Whoniverse had been abuzz over who would shepherd the series into its 60th anniversary season ever since the news dropped that Thirteenth Doctor Jodie Whittaker and current showrunner Chris Chibnall would be handing over the keys to the TARDIS next year. With the showrunner question finally answered, all attention now turns to who will play the Fourteenth Doctor.
The news that Davies will replace Chibnall on Doctor Who is a welcome development since the challenge of crafting an anniversary season could be a daunting prospect for a first-year showrunner. Davies, though, was the person responsible for resurrecting Doctor Who for the modern era in 2005, a task he’s certainly up to tackling once again. He also presided over the tenure of two different Doctors — Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant — so breaking in a new actor to the role while seamlessly hitting all the right marks for Doctor Who’s Diamond Year seems right up his alley.
Alexander’s name had been suggested to replace Whittaker long before the surprise announcement of Davies’ return. Most of the enthusiasm for seeing him in the Time Lord role came about due to Alexander’s breakout performance as Ritchie Tozer in the biggest must-watch show of 2021, It’s a Sin, which happened to be created and executive produced by Davies himself. Given the strong results of that previous showrunner-actor team-up, Alexander would certainly appear perfectly positioned to become the next Doctor.
Davies’ It’s a Sin won Best TV Series at the Monte-Carlo TV Festival and Program of the Year at the BANFF World Media Festival while Alexander was nominated for the coveted Most Popular Drama Performance at the UK’s National Television Awards. Just as Chibnall teamed up with Whittaker whom he had previously worked with on Doctor Who season following Whittaker would be a natural, if not necessary, fit. Considering the high-pressure nature of an anniversary season meant to bring about radical change to an already all-consuming project like Doctor Who, a shorthand between showrunner and star would certainly be a huge asset. And, Olly Alexander isn’t just an actor: he’s also the frontman of the British band Years & Years. Given the fact Davies cast another pop star, Billie Piper, in his first go-around as Doctor Who showrunner, Alexander seems to have yet another leg up on the competition. Not to mention the fact the BBC could use the actor-singer and LGBTQ+ advocate’s built-in fanbase to boost the series’ declining ratings.
Finally, the celebration of six decades of the globally-recognized sci-fi series could be the perfect time to pay off an idea first planted by Davies himself: that the Doctor longs to be ginger. Both the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors commented about their lack of red hair post-regeneration and with Alexander currently rocking auburn locks, he could be the answer to what do you get the Gallifreyan who’s seen and done everything. In the meantime, there’s still a thirteenth season and multiple specials with Whittaker and Chibnall to enjoy before the transition to a possible Alexander-embodied iteration of the famed wanderer in the fourth and fifth dimensions, but it’s good to know whoever becomes the Fourteenth Doctor, the future of Doctor Who is in good hands.