As he spoke on BBC Radio Wales to promote his new novel, former Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall was asked by host Eleri Siôn what his reaction was to the news that Doctor Who is “on ice for the foreseeable future.”

It will be years before new series of Doctor Who will be once again on television after the BBC announced its intention of putting the program out to competitive tender. Chibnall spoke to this development.

“Definitely disappointing. I probably had the same reaction as everybody else did. I think it’s a shame that it’s not going to be on for a while. I hope they’ve got good plans to bring it back. It’s an amazing idea. It’s an amazing series. Hopefully, they’ll find people who, you know, reinvent it for the next generation of kids.”

“I feel sad for the kids who are not going to have a Doctor for a little while because I think that’s always the amazing thing, when you work on the show, you cast a Doctor and you know that that Doctor is going to be quite a lot of people’s first Doctor. And your first Doctor is a bit like your first love. I think if you watch Doctor Who, it’s a real connection and it’s there for life. So I think it’s a shame it’s not going to be on the air. It’s not the best thing but hopefully people are going to be working to bring it back.”Former Doctor Who producer Jane Tranter of Bad Wolf is confident in her belief that Doctor Who production will remain in Wales. Wales would seem to be the ideal place to continue to film Doctor Who, according to Chibnall.

“I have such incredible love for the city [of Cardiff] and the people, let alone everybody who worked on those shows, but the places we went and the locations that we found and what was always amazing – to be able to put the region on camera and know that it was going to go around the world. We would turn, you know, Cardiff Barrage into an alien Amazon warehouse with robot killers inside. And it was just such a delight for that! I mean, goodness me, the things that Cardiff and the surrounding area have doubled for in Doctor Who and Torchwood over the years – and all those beaches. Just wonderful and incredibly happy memories.”

Fans are still waiting for the BBC to post the Doctor Who Invitation to Tender (ITT) on its BBC Commissioning website. After the ITT is posted, production companies will have a specific amount of time to submit a pitch. The BBC will then consider the pitches for a few months before selecting the winning bid. The production company will then take some time to prepare their studio space, put their writing and production team together and cast the Doctor and other actors. After that, filming will commence over the course of months. It will take some time after filming wraps to complete post-production. The entire process will take years.