Series 5 (Doctor Who)

Series 5, also known as Season 31 for clarity over Season 5, is scheduled for broadcast in 2010.

Series 5
Following the 2009 Specials, there will be 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.

During his acceptence speech for the award for Best Drama Performance at the National Television Awards on 29 October 2008, David Tennant announced that he would not return for the 5th series, and as such the 2010 series will feature the debut of a yet-to-be-announced actor as, presumably, the Eleventh Doctor.

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. Another more recent series of rumours allude to a televised adaptation of the New Adventures novel Nightshade by Mark Gatiss and the return of the Ice Warriors in a story currently entitled Faces in the Sand.

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.