Series 5 (Doctor Who)

Series 5, also known as Season 31 for clarity over Season 5, is scheduled for broadcast in 2010. It was commissioned at least as early as September 2007, along with five specials to be broadcast between Christmas 2008 and Christmas 2009.

2009 specials
Between the end of Series 4 and the beginning of Series 5 are five specials to be broadcast at various points in 2008-2009. Of the five specials, one has been scheduled for Christmas 2008, one for Easter 2009, and one for Christmas 2009, leaving two unscheduled as of July 2008. These five specials will be overseen by Davies and Julie Gardner, but traditional line producer, Phil Collinson will not be returning for them. All will reportedly star David Tennant.

Series numbering
Although it was initially thought that the "interval" season of specials might come to be known as Series 5, or Series 4.5, however at present it appears that the BBC will not be assigning a series "number" to the specials, much as the previous Christmas specials and mini-episodes do not technically belong to any particular season.

Writers
Russell T Davies is solely writing only the Christmas 2008 special and two others, but will co-write the others. One of the specials will be co-written by Gareth Roberts, and one will be co-written by Phil Ford. These particular specials will be historic in that they will be the first two episodes of the BBC Wales production of Doctor Who to formally credit a co-writer. With the inclusion of Ford, 2009 will mark the fifth straight year that Doctor Who has included at least one new writer for the show, and make Ford the only writer other than RTD himself to write for Torchwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures and Doctor Who.

Christmas 2008
The 2008 Christmas Special is titled The Next Doctor. The Cybus Cybermen are known to be returning. Also, actors Dirvla Kirwan and David Morrissey are involved, as is a probable setting of Victorian England. ''Setting confirmed as Christmas Eve 1851 by a trailer shown at a San Diego Comic Convention in 2008. The trailer also showed what appeared to be a Dalek at one point.''

Series 5
The "gap year" will be followed by a full 13-episode season to be broadcast in 2010; production is expected to begin sometime in the second half of 2009.

In the spring of 2008, it was announced that Steven Moffat, who has written Hugo Award-winning scripts for the revived series in each of its first three seasons and whose association with Doctor Who dates back to his writing of the Curse of Fatal Death Comic Relief parody in the early 1990s, will succeed Davies as head writer and producer of the series. Davies has announced he will officially retire from involvement with the series after the 2009 specials are completed and at present has no plans to retain any direct connection to the series once Moffat's tenure begins.

Also departing at the end of 2009 is co-executive producer Julie Gardner. She will be replaced by Piers Wenger. It has yet to be announced whether a third producer will replace Phil Collinson, either in the 2008-09 specials or the 2010 series.

The involvement of David Tennant — or indeed any other actor — in the 2010 season has not been officially announced as of September 2008. However, Tennant is said to have "already made his decision and informed the BBC".

Numerous rumours have circulated in the media over potential writers for the 2010 series, including noted graphic novelist Neil Gaiman, who was rumoured to have been approached by Moffat to write an episode.

No details regarding possible storylines have been revealed, although given the events of Series 4 there is widespread speculation about the possible returns of River Song (a character created by Moffat) and Jenny (a character Moffat is known to have prevented from being killed off). At the 2008 San Diego Comic Con, Moffat claimed that he had only started writing the season on the plane en route to the convention.