The future of the main Doctor Who series remains up in the air amid a competitive tender to take over production following Russell T Davies’ exit. In the meantime, the BBC has ordered an animated Doctor Who series to fill the timey wimey void.
What took them so long? I hear you ask. Possibly a fear of the kind of comments the news has inevitably sparked on social media. Many Whovians aren't impressed by the first artwork from Doctor Who: TARDIS Crew. And there's one criticism that hard to unsee.
There have been animated Doctor Who shorts before, and the BBC has used animation to remake lost episodes' Doctor Who: TARDIS Crew is more ambitious. Announced by BBC Children's and Education and created for the kids' channel CBeebies, it will have an initial run of 52 eleven-minute episodes.
The series will follow a young blue-haired Doctor and his friends Hannah, Beastie and Toast-IE. Villains will include the daleks. Blue Zoo Animation Studio is producing and Dominic Minns, who directed CBeebies' Mojo Swoptops and Supertato, is series director.
"Bursting with imagination, humour and adventure, Doctor Who: TARDIS Crew brings the excitement of the Whoniverse to a new generation of fans. Through action-packed, preschool-friendly stories, the series celebrates curiosity, courage and kindness, encouraging young viewers to explore new ideas, solve problems and embrace the unexpected.," the BBC says.
The series is bound to take some liberties with Doctor Who lore (if there are any left to take). But as a lifetime Doctor Who fan myself, it makes me sad that a lot of the criticism of the animation on social media is a bit ridiculous, particularly since we have only a single piece of artwork to judge it on so far.
Most of the disparagement appears to come from middle-aged men who have mistaken themselves as the target audience for the pre-school friendly cartoon.Some are worried that the series might have a strong female character (shudder).
One perplexing comment on X even suggests the artwork above uses 'bisexual lighting', because cosmic-looking purple gradients are something new in science fiction (I always suspected that the Dumbbell Nebula swung both ways, to be honest).
@bbcdoctorwho why the Dalek have a minion eye😭😭 https://t.co/qroeXi9NzDOctober 6, 2026
There is one recurring observation that I can't argue with though. The daleks do look like one-eyed minions. Whether the resemblance is intentional or not, it was my first thought when I saw the art work.
The toddler-friendly daleks redesign is actually quite clever. It leans into the silliness of their existing design with their sink plunger arms and takes it further, adding more utensils to the mix. Giving them real eyes and making the grille more mouth-like is a logical step to make them appeal to smaller kids, but it's almost inevitable that they'll continually remind us of Gru's henchmen.
@bbcdoctorwho I wasn't aware that this would also be a Red Dwarf crossover. https://t.co/CQnWSgjc9SOctober 6, 2026
Another detail that's raised eyebrows is the character called Toast-IE. Could he be Talkie Toaster from Red Dwarf?
That's actually a crossover I would watch, but the reference is presumably unintended. That makes it feel like the character could have been suggested by AI as an appropriate comedy companion for a sci-fi series. Surely, K9 could have done the job?
In the meantime, check out how they made the animation for last year's Lux episode in the main Doctor Who series.
