Peter Davison doesn't think Billie Piper is the Doctor – and is baffled by twist

"I don’t know what Billie Piper is doing," he told the publication. "I have just read about it, and I don’t know what it’s about. It’s a completely mad idea.

"I don’t think she is the Doctor. I think it’s kind of just a hand grenade thrown into the final episode to try and go, 'Whoa, what’s this?' And then it’s almost like, 'Get out of that.'"

He added: "I thought she was a fantastic companion, but she’s got a great career, and she’s got options galore. I don’t know why she would voluntarily choose to go back to Cardiff for a year."

Of course, it's not yet been revealed if this regeneration – which had not been confirmed prior to the episode – really means that Piper will be stepping into the TARDIS as the next Doctor should the show be renewed for another season.

Interestingly, a credit revealing whether Piper has indeed become the Doctor was conspicuously absent at the end of the episode, and so it's a question that seems destined to keep fans speculating for a good while yet.

If she were to become the Doctor, 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!'"

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."

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