Doctor Who Tender: BBC Boss Brittin Defends AI Episode: "Pretty Good"
· BCPosted in: BBC, TV | Tagged: ai, doctor who
Doctor Who Tender: BBC Boss Brittin Defends AI Episode: "Pretty Good"
Did BBC boss Matt Brittin have to wade into the Doctor Who/AI debate, three days before the tender deadline? No, but he did anyway...
Published Tue, 29 Sep 2026 07:40:09 -0500
by Ray Flook
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Article Summary
- BBC boss Matt Brittin says he watched a fully AI-made Doctor Who episode and called it "pretty good" at RTS London.
- With the Doctor Who tender deadline days away, Brittin's AI comments risk undercutting what producers bring to the series.
- The bigger Doctor Who AI debate centers on tools devaluing artists by remixing stolen work and calling it creativity.
- Past Doctor Who AI videos tied to Russell T. Davies drew backlash, reinforcing fears of soulless, derivative fanfic.
It's not like the BBC isn't facing a lot of "big picture" problems when it comes to what the future holds for the multimedia company – especially from a financial standpoint. And yet, BBC head Matt Brittin was able to squeeze some time into his schedule to wade into the AI debate, dragging Doctor Who into it along the way. Brittin's self-inflicted headline-grabber went down during the Royal Television Society conference in London, with the BBC boss sharing that was recently checked out a fully AI-created "episode" of the long-running show. "Everyone's got the ability in their hands — or six billion people have — to create content at the standard of a Hollywood studio," Brittin shared. "Somebody sent me a 50-minute episode of 'Doctor Who' that was AI-generated the other day. It's pretty good. I mean, it's not going to replace humans, and we'll come on to that. So everyone's a creator. Not all the creativity is bad."
If it's one of the ones we checked out a few weeks ago (Brittin didn't offer specifics), then we couldn't disagree more with the BBC head. But before we reshare with you our thoughts on Doctor Who and AI from a few weeks back, we can't help but ask the obvious question. Why did Brittin need to bring Doctor Who into the mix? We're only a few days away from the tender deadline; I can't imagine this is the kind of message you want to send them. It diminishes what a potential production company brings to the table when the head of the BBC tells you there are billions of others out there who can get close to doing what they do. The other side of the AI argument that Brittin doesn't address is how AI devalues the work of truly talented people while stealing their work to create "Franken-content" that cosplays as creativity.
Back in March, before the bad news hit. Doctor Who fans were wondering what the deal was with then-Showrunner Russell T. Davies showing some social media love to a site that uses AI to recreate moments in time – in this case, using AI to make it seem as if they were traveling back in time to 1963 to be there as the first episode of the long-running series was being filmed. It definitely caught the attention of Davies, who dropped an "Amazing!!" as a post comment, and then shared snippets on Instagram Stories with "Amazing! ❤️." To say that it didn't take long for social media to jump on his endorsement of the video would be an understatement. Here are screencaps from the examples that Davies shared on Instagram Stories and the comment he left on the post:
Here's Why Those Doctor Who AI Videos Suck Across All of Time & Space
Here's how I see AI working. One morning, I wake up and say, "You know what? I want to create a brand new car." From there, a bunch of cobbler elves head out and steal various pieces from other people's cars. Once that's done, they work until all of the pieces fit, throw me the keys (before downing all of the water in my fridge), and jet. Meanwhile, I get to say, "Wow! I just created a brand new car all by myself." But what I've got kinda looks and kinda acts like a car – except for that occasional fifth wheel or how the horn sounds like a scream every third time you use it. Oh, and it looks like it wants to kill me. With that in mind, I wanted to turn my attention to this week's ramblings about some Doctor Who AI videos that were being passed around and debated, with more than a few featuring David Tennant's Fourteenth Doctor. Setting aside the fact that this kind of work is creatively corrupt at its core and nothing more than high-tech stealing, we have a series of thoughts on the matter that we needed to share:
The Future of "Doctor Who" Is AI… If You Like Seeing Soulless, Heartless, and Impotent Third-Rate Fanfic Frankenstein'd to Life: Seriously, people. What the f**k? Did we run out of Big Finish audio dramas, comic books, novels – and did I mention, 60 years' worth of episodes to rewatch – that we would need to resort to this? If this is the "future" of Doctor Who, then I pray that the show stays out to tender until our society goes extinct and the planet's new tenants offer up some common sense. The nicest thing I can say about what I've screened was that one of them looked like a cross between a religious training-recruitment video, Adult Swim's Xavier: Renegade Angel, and those Coca-Cola holiday ads (speaking of AI that looks like it wants to kill you). One version of Tennant's Doctor looked like he stepped off the set of the horror movie Smile, and another version of the Doctor looked like Dos Equis' The World's Most Interesting Man stole a TARDIS and just got a whole lot more interesting.
"Doctor Who" AI Videos Not Exactly Screaming with Diversity: Far be it from me to make this a "race thing," so I will simply say that a whole lot of them seem really into the idea of having a middle-aged white guy back as the lead. I'm not saying there aren't AI videos out there that work outside that demographic; I am saying that it doesn't seem like there are many of them. In the Doctor Who AI universe, a diverse Doctor means choosing between a middle-aged and an old white guy.
AI "Doctor Who" Does Have a Silver Lining: After watching "The Whoniverse" rip itself apart over the past year or so, over everything from ex-showrunner Russell T. Davies and "The Reality War" to how the whole Christmas Special/tender process was handled, it was nice to see a whole lot of folks come together for a good cause. Because nothing warms the cockles of my heart more than seeing two people who couldn't agree less on anything Doctor Who-related, only to find a common bond in the enjoyment that came from ripping an AI video a new one. Also, one of the longest-running debates has finally come to an end. The next time someone asks what the worst Doctor Who thing was that I ever saw, I can now answer with confidence and pride. Because the only thing that could be worse than this would be if a TARDIS-set snuff film somehow surfaced. And to think that it wasn't that long ago when the BBC ran into its own bit of AI controversy.
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