It’s the Sixth Doctor discussing the Sixteenth, and Colin Baker makes a salient point about Billie Piper’s status as Doctor Who‘s potential new lead. Doctor Who fans are no strangers to utter confusion, but season 15’s finale defiantly raised that bar when Ncuti Gatwa regenerated into Billie Piper.

For context, it must be stressed that the rampant uncertainty surrounding Doctor Who season 16 put Russell T Davies in a very difficult position. With Gatwa needing to be written out, the show’s future unclear, and audiences expecting a big finish, Doctor Who found itself seeking an open-ended, ambiguous solution that could serve as both a conclusion and a beginning.

Presenting Billie Piper as (possibly) the Sixteenth Doctor achieved that, but not without creating more problems than it solved. Now the question on everyone’s lips is, “Does this mean Billie Piper is the Sixteenth Doctor?” Enter Colin Baker, who puts forth a simple but effective argument for why the answer should be “no.”

Colin Baker Is Right About Why Billie Piper Can’t Be The Doctor

Speaking with Oxford Mail at Abbey-Con 2025, the Sixth Doctor actor argued,

I suspect it’s a load of old malarky… I think there will be something involving Billie Piper, but she’s not the Doctor, who can she be? She’s someone else! It’s like me being the Master. Well, I could be, I suppose. I suppose she could be a lookalike, but they could come up with anything, and that is the joy of the series.

The all-important notion Baker strikes upon here is the “she’s someone else” point, which, in the world of Doctor Who, is a far more profound statement than it may appear at first glance.

Before digging deeper, it’s important to address the Abzorbaloff in the room. Baker is ever so slightly hypocritical here, having portrayed the Time Lord Commander Maxil before being cast as Peter Davison’s replacement. Baker was, once upon a time, that “someone else” and, sure enough, Doctor Who has a long history of giving bigger roles to supporting actors who make a strong impression.

Nicholas Courtney, Freema Agyeman, Peter Capaldi, Karen Gillan, Varada Sethu – the list of returning faces goes on and on, sometimes with a canon explanation and sometimes with nothing but the silent hope that no one will remember what Bret Vyon looked like in “The Daleks’ Master Plan.”

As implied by Baker, however, the Billie Piper situation is quite different. This is a main cast member returning as a completely different main cast member, which is precisely why Piper should not be the full-time Sixteenth Doctor. In the case of each name listed above, as well as Baker himself, their initial Doctor Who roles were small enough that audiences received only the merest glimpses of their acting prowess.

Ascending into more prominent parts allowed the likes of Courtney, Capaldi and Gillan to make everlasting impressions upon Doctor Who, either in the companion berth or as the Doctor themselves. Billie Piper has already done that, and not by half. As Rose Tyler, Piper embedded herself deeply into the DNA of Doctor Who and could make a respectable claim to being the best TARDIS passenger of all time.

Becoming the Sixteenth Doctor would undermine that legacy. The “someone else” Piper spent years pouring endless emotion into would become the prelude to something designed to be different but feeling irrefutably similar. This perhaps wouldn’t be an issue if Piper resolved to play the Sixteenth Doctor as far from Rose Tyler as possible, but her “oh, hello!” line already proves this will not be the case.

Doctor Who Can Do Anything It Wants, But That Doesn’t Mean It Should

Colin Baker tempers his thoughts on Billie Piper playing the Sixteenth Doctor with the admission that Doctor Who can, within the canon of the show, do almost anything it likes. Whether conjuring up the concept of regeneration as a means of replacing William Hartnell or re-rewriting the Doctor’s backstory, the mechanics of time travel and ambiguity of Gallifreyan science allow for endless possibilities.

But for every big swing that works, Doctor Who botches another. For every Time War, “The Three Doctors,” or “hey, let’s exile him on Earth,” there’s the Timeless Child or bi-generation. And, contrary to popular belief, ambitious misses are not a new phenomenon. The Watcher in the Fourth Doctor era and the Valeyard in the Sixth really did make very little sense.

Doctor Who season 16, therefore, needs to wield its license to “come up with anything” very carefully. And casting Billie Piper as the Sixteenth Doctor is about as careful as challenging a Weeping Angel to a staring contest.

Who Billie Piper Could Be In Doctor Who Season 16, If Not The Doctor

Sixteenth Doctor or not, Doctor Who needs to come up with an explanation of some sort. Ncuti Gatwa did, ultimately, morph into Billie Piper right before the audience’s eyes and viewers need to know why. Doctor Who‘s challenge is answering that conundrum in a way that doesn’t disturb the legacy of Rose.

The most straightforward (a relative term for Doctor Who) solution would be to make Piper’s new role an epilogue to Rose Tyler’s arc rather than the genesis of an entirely new character.

Back in 2005, Rose melded with the TARDIS to become Bad Wolf, and that entity later returned with Rose’s face in the 50th anniversary special. The Doctor’s new visage could potentially be another Bad Wolf interference – a stop-gap between regenerations designed to teach the Doctor an important lesson before they move onto their next regeneration proper.

In this scenario, Billie Piper’s “someone else” is protected. Rose Tyler’s story might even grow stronger, as the notion of protecting and aiding the Doctor from afar aligns beautifully with the companion’s ending.

Another route would be revealing that some anomaly occurred with the Meta-Doctor in Rose’s alternate universe, resulting in a dimensional crossover and the real Rose Tyler emerging from the Fifteenth Doctor’s regenerating body… somehow.

Again, an explanation of this ilk would allow Billie Piper to continue building Rose Tyler’s story rather than clumsily knocking it down by playing a Sixteenth Doctor that looks, acts, and sounds exactly like Rose.

With even ex-Doctors at a loss to explain the situation, Doctor Who has evidently written itself into a corner. History would suggest the Time Lord can wriggle their way out of trouble when the story eventually continues, but with Billie Piper’s legacy as a companion at stake, the Eleventh Doctor’s “squeaky bum time” quote comes to mind.

Source: Oxford Mail

Release Date

May 11, 2024

Network

BBC One

Directors

Alex Pillai, Peter Hoar, Ben Chessell, Julie Anne Robinson, Jamie Donoughue, Amanda Brotchie, Dylan Holmes Williams

Writers

Steven Moffat, Pete McTighe, Kate Herron, Inua Ellams, Juno Dawson

Franchise(s)

Doctor Who / Whoniverse