The fact the 2005 revival of Doctor Who has now been de facto closed by the BBC is worthy of note.
I know the BBC is saying this is not the end-end for the show, and we know Big Finish audios will keep going (plus some animated spinoff for children is in production apparently, though no word on when or if it may come out), but if you have been paying attention to reports from entertainment media in recent months and now the BBC has announced the show has been put "out to tender" (like how City Hall would look for someone to build a new hockey arena), the overwhelming assumption is that when Doctor Who does return, it will very likely be as a reimagining, a new version of the story. A fresh start. The closest comparisons are how Battlestar Galactica from 1978 was remade as the critically acclaimed version of 2004. Or how Tom Cruise did a one-off remake of Mission: Impossible and made it the longest-running spy film series not featuring a guy named James Bond. Remakes also flop too - I could fill your browser cache with examples of that.
Doctor Who was my favorite show between 2005 and 2017 and of course for me it reached its height between 2013 and 2015 with the 50th anniversary and Peter Capaldi's first two seasons with Jenna Coleman (at least in my opinion). That said, the show also had a remarkable run with Christopher Eccleston's brief tenure, and of course David Tennant's first run and Matt Smith's era had many amazing moments (Doomsday had me shell-shocked for a week, and The Doctor's Wife was my choice for best Doctor Who episode of all time until Heaven Sent came along). Its spinoffs Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood were also for the most part excellent though I wish we'd gotten that Paternoster Gang show. Neve McIntosh probably didn't want to wear all that Vastra make up year after year! LOL
The book The Nth Doctor revealed that Steven Spielberg - who at one point was going to produce the movie and TV series that eventually became the Paul McGann film produced by the guy who later produced Ice Road Truckers and Storage Wars - had intended to do a full remake (the Doctor and Master were going to be brothers looking for their father or something). The tragically never-made film starring David Bowie was not going to connect to the TV series either, nor were the unrealized films planned by Peter Yates, director of the Harry Potter films, that were announced around the 50th anniversary.
There were also plans for a Disney version of Marco Polo in the 60s and a Terry Nation Daleks series for American TV that would have featured Sara Kingdom.
Of course we know it did happen once - the two films in the 1960s starring Peter Cushing as a human scientist named Dr. Who who travelled with his granddaughters Susan and Barbara. The Australian TV series K9 was set in sort of an "alternate universe" from Doctor Who as well, as was the audio drama series The Master of Chance that they tried to make a crowdfunded movie of.
In terms of live action, will a remake happen, will the BBC attempt to continue the current path, will they decide ultimately to retire the show (it's coming up on 65, which is retirement age, after all). Time will tell - it always does.
