It's been over six years since Steven Moffat bid farewell to Doctor Who after successfully overseeing both Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi's respective stints in the TARDIS.
He'd written for the show under Russell T Davies' watch and was a natural successor given how critically acclaimed the episodes he penned were. Now, though, there are rumblings online that Moffat plans to return to Doctor Who for this year's 2024 Christmas special.
As we first reported on SFFGazette.com, television producer Alison Sterling recently updated her CV to reveal she worked on the upcoming episode. Beneath that, Alex Pillai was listed as the untitled special's director with none other than Moffat named as writer. Both have since been removed.
Various sites have reached out to BBC for comment but, oddly, the channel declined to confirm or deny Moffat's return.
It's worth noting that, back in 2022, Davies - who has returned to Doctor Who as showrunner - revealed he was writing the special. "For the first time ever, I'm writing a Christmas Special...at Christmas!" he said. "And this isn't for next year, no, the 2023 script has been long since signed-off. The new one is for end-of-year 2024!"
Something could have quite easily changed since then, of course, and when Moffat was recently asked about rejoining the franchise earlier this year, he perhaps protested a little too much.
"Look at my ageing face. How can I fit in?" he wondered aloud. "And I know, because I've seen the feedback, that people think I'm being evasive on the subject. The truth is, if I say anything negative about Doctor Who it goes everywhere, like boom, everywhere, right?"
"It doesn't exactly bring joy to the world that I just say something negative about Doctor Who. The fact is, it's fine without me," Moffat continued. "We've got Russell there. We've got a bunch of new writers there. We've got Ncuti [Gatwa, Fifteenth Doctor] there. It's all good."
We'll see what happens, but what we do know is that this year's Doctor Who Christmas Special will feature Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor and Bridgerton's Nicola Coughlan in a guest role.
Doctor Who is the longest-running action-adventure television series in the world spanning 60 years and winning over 100 awards. This quintessentially British show has a massive global following, with 9.6m fans across social platforms/channels and 100m video views on YouTube in the last year alone.
The series is produced by Bad Wolf with BBC Studios, for BBC and Disney Branded Television. Executive producers include Davies (writer and showrunner), Jane Tranter, Julie Gardner, Joel Collins, and Phil Collinson.
Would you like to see Moffat return to Doctor Who? And if so, should he bring Smith or Capaldi with him?