It’s been 20 years since Doctor Who was revived, with the Ninth Doctor played by Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper playing his companion, Rose. She continued on in David Tennant‘s first season as the Tenth Doctor, then returned in his last as well as the 50th anniversary special. She’s also now back in a regeneration twist following Ncuti Gatwa‘s two seasons as the Time Lord.
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the show’s return, the BBC released a special Doctor Who: Unleashed documentary with interviews from cast, crew, and writers on Saturday, June 7. (Unleashed episodes are posted after each episode on the show’s official YouTube channel.)
As the 20 Years in Wales host Steffan Powell noted for the last segment (which you can watch below), “When we were shooting this episode, the Unleashed team had absolutely no idea about Billie’s return, so it only seems right to play out by sharing some of the cheeky little hints she gave us during our interview.”
And at the end of #DoctorWhoUnleashed‘s 20 Years special, Steffan reveals that they had no clue Billie was back… but she was dropping a little hint or two when she was asked about the notion of coming back to #DoctorWho.
And so we end on – Billie Piper’s thoughts… pic.twitter.com/dBLmuPUciu
— -𝐉𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐄- | ♟️ (@AMadmanNotABox) June 7, 2025
Billie Piper said, “Yeah, I would come back. What’s funny is that I never feel like I’ve left Doctor Who because there is this huge Doctor Who afterlife, which is, 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. So coming back is really good fun, but I also — so I would do it, but I still feel like I’m in it, just a lot older.”
Her statement about coming back being “really good fun” could be her nod to her current return, as Powell said, or it could simply be a reference to her previous appearances following her exit.
The Doctor Who Season 2 finale on May 31 ended with Gatwa’s Doctor regenerating into Piper. There is, however, a question of who exactly she’s playing since the credits didn’t list, “Introducing Billie Piper as the Doctor,” as they usually do for the next actor playing the Time Lord. With it just saying, “Introducing Billie Piper,” she could somehow be playing Rose or even Bad Wolf (created when she looked into the TARDIS) again. We’ll just have to wait and see.