Russell T Davies Rebukes BBC Boss Over AI-Generated ‘Doctor Who’ Remark and Teases the Show’s Next Era

Artificial intelligence has become one of television’s most divisive subjects, and few shows are as protective of their creative legacy as ‘Doctor Who‘. So when a BBC executive praised an AI-made episode of the series, it was always going to cause a stir.

The BBC has been here before. In 2024, the broadcaster began using generative AI to create marketing materials for its flagship shows, starting with ‘Doctor Who’, then dropped the plan within weeks after complaints and called it a small trial. It has also been a turbulent year for the series itself, with the planned 2026 Christmas special canceled in June as showrunner Russell T Davies and the production company Bad Wolf departed and the show went out to competitive tender.

Now the outgoing showrunner has weighed in on the controversy. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The Media Show, as reported by Variety, Davies described the BBC director-general’s comments about an AI-generated episode of the series as clumsy.

BBC director-general Matt Brittin spoke at the Royal Television Society conference in London in late September. He said someone had recently sent him a fully AI-generated, 50-minute episode of ‘Doctor Who’, and that he thought it was pretty good, while adding that AI is not going to replace humans. He did not say who made the episode or whether it used existing actors.

The timing made it worse. Days earlier, Brittin had said he would allow AI to present future programmes within guardrails, and he only took over at the BBC in May after 18 years at Google.

The criticism was swift. Brittin later admitted he had got into trouble over the remarks, and he was reportedly taken to task at a BBC staff meeting. He softened his stance, saying he believes in human creativity enhanced by tools and that the BBC has to stand for human trust.

Davies took aim at the framing rather than the technology alone. He said it was a clumsy thing to say in an industry full of writers and artists, noting that the people most directly affected are the first to take the blow. He also joked that his own inbox had been flooded after the comment, adding that he could only imagine what Brittin’s looked like.

He was not entirely harsh. Davies suggested that Brittin has not worked in television for long and might be less eager to share opinions in future. It was a pointed remark, but delivered with the wry tone fans know from his years steering the show.

Despite no longer being involved, Davies assured listeners that a new series is definitely happening. He said viewers will start to see production with a brand-new Doctor and a brand-new companion next summer. It’s welcome news for fans who have been waiting since Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor regenerated into Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler at the end of the last series.

Davies has previously stressed that the Christmas special was never written and that no actor was ever approached to play the next Doctor. His exit marks the end of a second era that began in 2023, following the revival he led in 2005.

The episode shows how raw the AI conversation has become for creatives. A single throwaway line from a broadcasting chief was enough to put a decades-old show at the center of the debate, and the BBC will have to work hard to reassure fans that the next chapter of ‘Doctor Who’ will be made by humans.

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