I was more downbeat than normal with my recent post Doctor Who has peaked – so what? I do think I time will come when the show has a break from TV (and not just the odd year we already get), but I also do think we will make the sixtieth anniversary in 2023. Yes, the next big one (after this year’s twenty years at Big Finish) is the diamond anniversary. What can we expect, even this far out?

Doctor Who 2023 – four more years

Let’s roll forward (and I’m guessing):

• 2019 – there are some rumours we might get an episode in or around the end of year
• 2020 – Jodie Whittaker and chums appear for series 12 to the usual barrage of opinions and reviews
• 2021 – we might get another break, given we did for 2019. Rumours abound that Chris Chibnall isn’t coming back but he does, though Jodie Whittaker announces she will leave after series 13
• 2022 – Jodie regenerates part-way through series 13 giving us a new Fourteenth Doctor (I’ll speculate nearer the time). We start looking for clues to the sixtieth anniversary
• 2023 – the year starts with Chris Chibnall announcing he will leave after the anniversary and despite his well-known views as a fan on Trail of a Timelord, he marks the anniversary with a run of tightly connected episodes, with the sixtieth at the end

All nonsense, but I think once the sixtieth gets near, whoever the showrunner is will stay around. Three series might be enough for Jodie (spread over five years) and this gives us another Doctor incarnation to think about.

Who else will appear? Will it be multi-Doctor, or will various Doctor drop in during the series? So far my thoughts are:

• Christopher Eccleston has said many times he would make the next anniversary, though it will be 18 years since he first appeared as the Ninth Doctor. Age creeps up!
• David Tennant will surely make an appearance and still fit his original costume
• Matt Smith has yet to appear on audio, and of them all I can imagine the Tenth Doctor making only a minor appearance, if at all
• Peter Capaldi must surely be appearing on audio by 2023 and I can’t imagine the Twelfth Doctor won’t be there
• Jodie Whittaker should appear, though I would imagine the gender change will not be overplayed (with multiple past incarnations there could be a lot of interactions as we found out in 1983)
• And of course the Fourteenth Doctor, whoever it is

I’d also like Paul McGann to bring the Eighth Doctor back to the foray. Steven Moffat’s War Doctor would mean recasting John Hurt, so I don’t think that will happen.

Beyond that some versions of the Master might work, UNIT and Paternosters are all possible if not all likely.

The more I look at it, the more I’d like each returning Doctor to have their own episodes, or just pairs (as Big Finish did with Light at the End) so we don’t clutter up with too many digs and comments.

More rather nearer the time!