Doctor Who has never been fantastic at answering every single mystery it sets up. The Valeyard in the Sixth Doctor’s era still hasn’t received a proper onscreen explanation, and precisely what was going on with the Fourth Doctor’s regeneration and the Watcher is anyone’s guess. Wider canon is the best bet for anyone still hoping those puzzles will get solutions.

2026 begins with Doctor Who having more recent mysteries to solve, and plenty of them, but with the show’s long-term future still uncertain, narrative closure is far from guaranteed. We know Doctor Who will return for a Christmas special at the end of 2026, and season 16 lies beyond that, but what comes after, who the showrunner will be, and which actor will be playing the Doctor are all issues the BBC has thus far declined to discuss publicly.

Doctor Who has an opportunity to finish its more pressing unresolved storylines in the episodes confirmed (the identity of the Boss, for example), but other plot points risk being forgotten, dismissed, or forever put on the backburner.

3

Susan’s Cameo In Doctor Who Season 15

Fans waited a long time for Carole Ann Ford to reprise her role as Susan, the original companion who starred alongside William Hartnell in Doctor Who‘s very first episode. The moment finally arrived in Doctor Who season 15, with Susan making cameos in both “The Interstellar Song Contest” and “Wish World.”

From inside the TARDIS, Susan implored the Doctor to find her. She appeared both inside her grandfather’s mind and on a TV screen within Conrad’s alternate reality, but Carole Ann Ford herself has confirmed other filmed material never aired, possibly due to script changes that resulted from Ncuti Gatwa’s exit.

That unused material appears to involve Poppy, explicitly tying Susan’s banished story to Belinda Chandra and Gatwa’s incarnation of the Doctor. Any continuation with Billie Piper or her successor will likely require additional filming, which would be a cheeky ask after reducing Carole Ann Ford’s role the first time. And at 85, no one could blame Ford for retiring before Doctor Who figures out a plan for her.

As such, there’s a very real possibility that Susan apparently being trapped somewhere and asking the Doctor to find her will be quietly ignored. The character can theoretically be picked up in future years via a regenerated Susan, of course, but it won’t be the same.

2

Where The Doctor Really Comes From

The Timeless Child smashed Doctor Who‘s backstory wide open, revealing the Doctor originated not from Gallifrey, but from some unspecified place in a completely different universe. That leaves the Doctor’s real species and home planet tantalizingly unknown, but we’ve since had three separate regenerations without any key details coming to light.

Chris Chibnall decided Jodie Whittaker’s final episodes weren’t the right place to unveil the Doctor’s real origins, and Russell T Davies showed very little interest in cracking that box open with either David Tennant or Ncuti Gatwa. Through the Toymaker, it was even suggested that the Timeless Child was merely one of several histories for the Doctor, not their definitive backstory.

That retcon unburdens future Doctor Who seasons of the responsibility of resolving the Timeless Child fully. And, truthfully, which Doctor Who writer would want to? The question of “where does the Doctor come from, if not Gallifrey?” is so big, so impossible to answer without upsetting people, it’s like trying to solve the meaning of life, or the reason Pringles doesn’t make a can wide enough for an adult human’s arm.

1

The Person Who Picked Up The Toymaker’s Tooth

The last time we saw the Master was in dental form, trapped inside the Toymaker’s golden tooth. After the Celestial villain was defeated, however, a mysterious hand with painted red nails retrieved the tooth, teeing up the Master’s return.

It’s inevitable that the Master will feature again in Doctor Who someday. Whether the mysterious figure with red nails will be explained is another matter altogether. Whenever the Master is recast under a new showrunner, they tend to appear afresh, with minimal explanation regarding how the previous version survived.

Take Missy. Michelle Gomez’s iteration appeared to die permanently at the end of “The Doctor Falls,” but Sacha Dhawan’s Spy Master turned up several seasons later perfectly alive and back to being evil. Doctor Who has covered the details of Missy’s regeneration in audio form, but the TV series never provided a connection between Gomez and Dhawan.

It’s possible Doctor Who‘s next Master will get a similar deal, with the red-nailed hand and how the Master broke free of the Toymaker’s tooth going largely unexplained – a cursory one-liner if we’re lucky.

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