Billie Piper appears to slip up in pre-recorded Doctor Who: Unleashed special, teasing her return

"Yeah I would… I would come back, Piper said. "What’s funny is that I never feel like I’ve left Doctor Who, because there is this huge Doctor Who afterlife, which is, you know… Obviously people still really want to talk about it, it’s a massive fandom, so we do conventions and we meet lots of the fans, and there’s always features.

"And it’s always on the TV on some channel, and a new generation pick it up, so it never feels like it’s over, like it does with all the other jobs I’ve done."

Then, the moment came. Piper added: "So coming back is really good fun, but I also… And so I would do it, but I still feel like I’m in it. Just a lot older."

Piper, of course, played Rose Tyler on the series between 2005 and 2006, before returning as the character in 2008 and 2010, and playing AI weapon the Moment in 2013's The Day of the Doctor.

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For most of the special, Piper spoke alongside Tenth and Fourteenth Doctor star David Tennant, while other figures from Doctor Who's past to be interviewed included Jodie Whittaker, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, Pearl Mackie and Mandip Gill.

After The Reality War aired, Piper said in a statement: "It’s no secret how much I love this show, and I have always said I would love to return to the Whoniverse as I have some of my best memories there, so to be given the opportunity to step back on that TARDIS one more time was just something I couldn’t refuse, but who, how, why and when, you’ll just have to wait and see."

While it has yet to be confirmed that Piper is in fact playing the Doctor, and a credit revealing as much was conspicuously absent at the end of the episode, if she were to be doing so it would fulfil a suggestion made by Ninth Doctor star Christopher Eccleston three years ago.

Eccleston said in 2022, before Gatwa was cast: "I was saying to somebody today in the green room that Russell T Davies is coming back, right, and who’s going to be his Doctor? I think it should be Billie Piper, actually. Catherine Tate’s great but, I think there’s your Doctor.

"And I'd like to see you all struggle with it. 'How can she be the Doctor when she was an assistant?!' I like the idea of it blowing fuses in the canon, or whatever it's called. 'No, this cannot! Dissonance, dissonance!'"

Doctor Who and Doctor Who: Unleashed are available to stream on BBC iPlayer in the UK.

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