Prince William walking around the TARDIS set is a good reminder that ‘Doctor Who’ isn’t dead yet

Doctor WhoThe particular limbo is going to stick around for a good while for now, it seems, as no one is too keen to definitively put a stop to the series’ future beyond a general desire and hope that one day it will return. This means that since the bizarro mess of a season finale of the show earlier this year, Doctor Who Fans have been left clinging to scraps to indicate that the show isn’t looking down the Dalek Raygun barrel of total extermination. The last piece? His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales.

Well, especially the set he’s standing on. But Prince William was at least the avenue to remind us that this set – a very important one indeed, the final TARDIS console room – is still ready and available for filming.

Radio Times reports that Prince William recently visited Bad Wolf Studios in Cardiff, where Doctor Who has been filmed in recent years, in his capacity as President of the British Academy of Television and Film Arts, a position the Prince of Wales has hosted since 2010. Photos from the royal visit were released today, along with the news that Prince William recorded a message at the studio which was released at the Bafta Cymru awards ceremony this evening (where where WHO Showrunner Russell T Davies accepted an award for Outstanding Contribution to Television), promoting the local film and television industry in Wales… which of course included British royalty performing inside the TARDIS.

Move away Doctor WhoThe show’s own sexual history with the royal family, including this time around, almost dropped a Titanic-Pepasion tops Buckingham Palace (and then did, in an alternate timeline) – the news here is mostly encouraging for fans who are still waiting to hear more definitive news on the show’s future, with the BBC and Disney remaining vaguely non-commercial but hopeful about an eventual return to adventures in time and space. And that news is that simply the TARDIS set itself, one of the most important standing sets in the series, is, well, still standing.

There had been stray rumors that the set could potentially be broken up – i.e., dismantling the set entirely to open up occupied studio space for other sets – if Doctor Who I wasn’t planning to return anytime soon (or at all). But the fact that the ensemble has at least been maintained, even if only for the occasional visit, at least indicates Doctor WhoThe future on screen isn’t totally done and dusted. That leaves fans in the same place they’ve been since “The Reality War” aired – with a return in 2027 at the earliest, dwindling longer and longer without the BBC making an announcement – but a glimmer of hope is better than any.

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