Doctor Who is the longest-running sci-fi series, but it hasn’t released episodes for every year of its 62-year history. While more than a dozen actors have taken on the role of the Doctor, there have been years where the future of the series was thrown completely into question, especially between the years 1989 and 2005, when the show was rebooted entirely. Now, two years after the latest reboot, the future of Doctor Who is yet again in jeopardy, but this time, the series can’t fall back on the lifeline that kept it going before.The Fifteenth Doctor may have regenerated into Billie Piper, but that doesn’t make her the Sixteenth Doctor. | Disney+Doctor Who’s future has been in question since the finale of Season 2 of the Disney+ reboot, overseen by 2005 reboot showrunner Russell T. Davies. Since then, we’ve heard conflicting reports about whether or not we can expect Season 3, from Davies warning about a “big pause” to a BBC executive saying more is coming “soon”. The most recent update — or, perhaps, warning — comes from Robert Shearman, the writer of fan-favorite Doctor Who episode “Dalek.” His worry concerns the big cliffhanger in the last few seconds of Doctor Who Season 2: Ncuti Gatwa’s 15th Doctor regenerates into a familiar face: Billie Piper, who played the Doctor’s companion Rose in the first two seasons of the 2005 reboot. Crucially, the end credits said “and introducing Billie Piper” without naming any specific role, unlike other similar regeneration reveals that included “...as the Doctor.” Shearman told Doctor Who Magazine (via Cultbox) this vagueness puts the series in a tenuous place. When Doctor Who went off the air in 1989, there was still continuity in place for the series to continue through novels, comics, audio adventures, and other non-TV ventures. “Now, everything that is ever going to be produced in Doctor Who terms is going to feel retrogressive,” he said. “At least with the New Adventures and then the BBC Books [original novels published in the ‘90s] you thought, ‘It’s the current Doctor — McCoy or McGann’.”After Doctor Who stopped airing, adventures following Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor could continue. | ShutterstockAfter Doctor Who stopped airing new episodes, the supplemental materials could continue the story with Sylvester McCoy’s 7th Doctor, and after the 1996 TV movie, they continued with the 8th Doctor, Paul McGann. The continued publication of those supplemental materials is what kept the show alive in the cultural consciousness, even if there were no new episodes airing at the time. And the 2005 reboot of the series even took inspiration from those materials, adapting popular novels like Paul Cornell’s Human Nature into successful episodes. But now, there is no incumbent doctor. “No one’s going to start writing Doctor Who books with a Billie Piper Doctor, because no one knows what that means,” Shearman said. Hopefully, Doctor Who can come back onto our screens and clear this issue up, but if not, then the future of this time travel show may, ironically, be forced to focus on the past. Doctor Who is now streaming on Disney+.