In Doctor Who Magazine 633, David Tennant suggested that “shiny” actor might be a strategy for a production company to entice the BBC to accept their pitch to develop Doctor Who.

“There are lots of options available, and there are lots of different ways to do it. I suspect it will probably be led by the creative direction of whoever takes it over. There are so many variables it’s impossible to guess, until you have a sense of who might be writing it or who might be producing it… Unless some production company decides to mount some bid around a particular performer, that would be a way forward, I suppose. If a writer or producer had a relationship with a particular actor… I don’t know. This is not me hinting at any insider knowledge. I just think there are probably different ways to approach what happens next. I mean, it’d be a way of doing it, wouldn’t it? And it might be a way of luring in the BBC, if they got someone shiny.”

Tennant was undoubtedly interviewed by DWM before rumours surfaced that Electric Entertainment might put forward a pitch to the Doctor Who tender with him attached to reprise his role of the Doctor.

The actor briefly shared his hopes for the production company with the winning pitch.

“Whoever the new team are, [they] need to be able to think fresh and think new and not be too hidebound by expectations of what came before. I guess you need to be inspired by the source material, and then you have your own take on it, just like Russell did back in 2005. The same show, but different.”

He expressed optimism about the competitive tender process to DWM in uncertain times for Doctor Who fans.

“…there’s nothing to indicate that it’s gone away. It’s just going to have a breath and come back in a different form and that’s probably quite exciting, I’d have thought.”

“Even in the gap between 1989 and 2005, either side of the Eighth Doctor TV movie, it kept going. The fire may have dimmed slightly, but it certainly never went out. It was always burning fiercely somewhere. I think this will provide a new energy, a new direction. Until you have evidence to the contrary, you should regard it as a positive.”

The BBC announced its intention to post the Doctor Who Invitation to Tender on June 10, 2026, with a plan to offer the tender some time “this year”, the details to be announced “in due course.”