Doctor Who season 14 episode count revealed to be shorter than last

Screen OD staff

Doctor Who season 14 will have fewer episodes than season 13 showrunner Russell T Davies has revealed.

The upcoming series, which will star Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor and Millie Gibson as his companion Ruby Sunday will consist of just eight episodes.

 The showrunner confirmed the episode count in an interview with Doctor Who Magazine issue 585, which is released on Thursday 7th December.

“OK, that’s fewer episodes than the last full season. But give us time. We have plans, and that’s a promise!” said Davies.

Season 13 of Doctor Who, which was the final season to be run by Chris Chibnall in charge of the show and also the final season with Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor, has nine episodes (including specials) and season 12 of the show had ten episodes.

But although the next season appears to be slightly shorter than the one before it, it sounds from Davies “plans” that they could be quite epic episodes in their nature.

Season 14 began filming on Monday 15th December and the BBC tweeted a behind-the-scenes photo from the set on that day. The same day Millie Gibson shared a picture of her accommodation in the Welsh capital with the message that she was a “Cardiff resident” now.

Since it was revealed that the BBC and Disney had struck a deal for Disney+ to be the global streaming partner of Doctor Who there has been much speculation in the press and amongst fans that there could be more budget in the show, with some speculating that per-episode budgets could be up to three times what they previously were. Perhaps this could mean that those episodes in season 14 are longer and higher budget even if there are fewer of them?

In addition, there has been speculation that there are likely to be more spin-offs of Doctor Who in the future that could involve expanding the Doctor Who universe once again, just like Russell T Davies did during his first time in charge of the show with Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures.

Doctor Who will return in November 2023 with three one-hour-long specials celebrating the 60th anniversary of the show and starring David Tennant, Catherine Tate, Neil Patrick Harris and Yasmin Finney amongst other names. It has also been reported that Miriam Margolyes will have a part in the specials.

The full interview with Russell T Davies can be read in Doctor Who magazine which is out on Thursday 7th December.