With its rickety sets and plastic enemies, the Doctor Who franchise has certainly come a long way since the Time Lord first ventured into space in 1963.
Since then the popular TV show has swelled in budget, with latter-day incarnations David Tennant and Jodi Whittaker enjoying incredibly lavish staging compared to earlier doctors such as Tom Baker and William Hartnell.
But things could reach a lofty Marvel-esque level of excitement thanks to a rumoured £100m cash injection since Disney landed the streaming rights to future seasons of the cult BBC show.
Industry site Broadcast speculated that showrunner Russell T Davies's current "£1-3m per episode budget could triple to circa-£10m" when filming begins for the show's 14th season - with Ncuti Gatwa wielding the sonic screwdriver as the 15th Doctor.
An insider told the publication: "Beyond the hardcore fans, Doctor Who has never quite become a broad appeal show. But with the right investment [from] Disney Plus, Russell has a bigger blank piece of paper to really do something different".
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The extra money also paves the way for spin-off shows like Star Wars off-shoot series The Mandalorian and Andor, as well as Marvel hits like Loki.
"My sense is that this is an investment to fully exploit the franchise and bolster the BBC coffers," the source added.
They also guessed that Disney probably paid the BBC 'tens of millions' to share creative control of the time-honoured show.
Gatwa steps out as the Time Lord next year, airing exclusively on the BBC in the UK and Ireland but streamed globally on Disney Plus.
Davies recently said in a statement: "I love this show, and this is the best of both worlds – with the vision and joy of the BBC and Disney Plus together we can launch the Tardis all around the planet, reaching a new generation of fans while keeping our traditional home firmly on the BBC in the UK."
Doctorin' The Tardis: Timelords through the ages:
- William Hartnell (1963–1966)
- Patrick Troughton (1966–1969)
- Jon Pertwee (1970–1974)
- Tom Baker (1974–1981)
- Peter Davison (1982–1984)
- Colin Baker (1984–1986)
- Sylvester McCoy (1987–1989)
- Paul McGann (1996)
- Christopher Eccleston (2005)
- David Tennant (2005–2010 and forthcoming 2023)
- Matt Smith (2010–2013)
- Peter Capaldi (2014–2017)
- Jodie Whittaker (2018–2022)
- Ncuti Gatwa (forthcoming 2023)
