9 Folks Billie Piper May Play in ‘Physician Who’ Now That ‘Physician Who’ In all probability Must Determine That Out

Excellent news: Doctor Who is alive. Unhealthy information: Physician Who is now alive and doubtless has to take care of one of many most bizarre cliffhangers in over 60 years of cliffhanging historical past.

With yesterday’s information that the BBC can be persevering with Physician Who‘s future after the termination of its partnership with Disney beginning with a brand new Christmas particular in 2026, the collection now has an equally as essential activity to take care of past its continued survival: simply who the hell is Billie Piper meant to have been taking part in in these closing moments of “The Reality War”, anyway?

Even earlier than the way forward for the collection was stuck in limbo for months, creatives concerned within the collection, from Piper herself to showrunner Russell T Davies, wished to counsel that the returning actress was not essentially taking part in the sixteenth incarnation of the Physician, regardless of her regenerating out of departing star Ncuti Gatwa. Piper was not credited in “Actuality Conflict” as showing because the Physician, as has historically been the case for brand spanking new Docs, and there was sufficient occurring with Gatwa’s regeneration and the reasoning course of for it to counsel that not all the things was because it appeared. And since then, any prepared commentary that has been made in regards to the choice is solely speculative, aside from to point that there was not a clear plan in place as to how the end result would play out, with no guaranteed future for the collection.

However now that future is no less than assured. So whereas we now have a protracted wait till Christmas 2026 to really see who Piper is taking part in, we’ve some recommendations… admittedly solely largely foolish ones.

9) Rose Tyler, Once more

The climax of “The Actuality Conflict” was meant to be about the usage of regeneration power to shunt actuality itself… however what if it didn’t simply have an effect on Physician Who‘s prime actuality and translocated famous actuality hopper Rose Tyler into the Physician’s place, and now she has to determine the way to get whoever they’ve change into again?

8) The Grasp

The final time we noticed the Grasp, we did see him try and violently take over the Physician’s physique through the regeneration course of. What higher approach to mess with the thoughts of your oldest frenemy than by forcing them to have the face of certainly one of their closest former companions whereas additionally being you?

7) The Unhealthy Wolf, Once more

The fifteenth Physician’s regeneration centered the TARDIS in such a manner that it feels prefer it’s going to play an essential consider simply whoever Piper is supposed to be (if not the Physician, that’s). The Physician blasted the console with all that power, we reduce to that ominous shot of it darkened and lit solely by the regeneration course of itself… and we all know the ship’s coronary heart is already accustomed to utilizing Rose Tyler’s face as an agent of its will. What if the TARDIS feels that’s mandatory as soon as extra?

6) Susan Foreman

It’s most likely too late for the present to use whatever plans it had for Carole Ann Ford at this level after no matter was reduce from “The Actuality Conflict”—and we don’t know but if Russell T Davies goes to hold on writing Physician Who after this 2026 particular. Provided that Susan was introduced up a number of occasions through the fifteenth Physician’s period even earlier than she made these psychological appearances (depicted within the TARDIS console room; for some cause, once more, the TARDIS is essential!), what if no matter she was attempting to warn the Physician about was so dire that this shifting of actuality allowed her to by some means transpose herself onto the Physician’s being, and we tie all of it up right here?

And now she appears to be like like Billie Piper as a result of she regenerated. For some cause. Time Lord stuff!

5) The Second, Once more

It was by no means truly used to destroy Gallifrey, in spite of everything. If the veil between the character of actuality itself was so skinny after regardless of the Physician did to vary it, did one thing activate the Second, a weapon able to consuming galaxies in its devastation?

Plus, a well-recognized interface would simply be a logical resolution for an enormous temporal weapon that now has a lot of historical past with the Physician to take.

4) The Actress, Billie Piper

Within the 2025 season’s “Lux,” one of many many weird issues that occur to the fifteenth Physician and Belinda whereas battling the reality-warping Mr. Ring-A-Ding is that they briefly get pulled via a tv right into a actuality the place the Physician’s adventures with their many companions are the topic of a long-running hit TV present named Physician Who.  See the place I’m going with this? Don’t have to consider who Billie is; she merely is Billie! Who doesn’t love an existential disaster on the holidays?

3) The Coronary heart of the TARDIS (Once more)

We’ve already had one occasion of the TARDIS itself embodying a bodily kind. Given how intrinsic it was to the fifteenth Physician’s means of “dying,” perhaps the TARDIS is attempting to avoid wasting her pilot by taking up their physique for a bit, to maintain it till an precise regeneration can happen?

After which you may blame the Rose Tyler of all of it on the Unhealthy Wolf stuff once more, or one thing. Hey, I’m not the one making the present.

2) The Valeyard

That is simply because everybody at all times says every time there’s some mysterious regeneration stuff occurring, it merely should be the Valeyard, a surprisingly sinister emanation of the Physician launched in “The Trial of a Time Lord” meant to mirror a future, malicious incarnation that might solely be postponed and by no means actually prevented. Selecting the second the Physician’s simply sacrificed themselves to maneuver all of actuality sufficient to let child Poppy exist in some kind or one other looks as if a suitably sinister factor for the Valeyard to do.

1) Okay Perhaps She’s Simply the sixteenth Physician

Or perhaps we simply skip all this nonsense, and Billie Piper is a one-off Physician like David Tennant was for the sixtieth anniversary specials? This period of the present has been very a lot about attempting to repeat the outdated hits—perhaps 2023 will probably be sufficiently old by Christmas 2026 to be thought of for dipping again into the identical bag of methods.

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