50 Actors Who Could Play the Next Doctor on Doctor Who

Actor Sean Pertwee attends the 2nd Annual Paleyfest presents “Gotham” at the Paley Center for Media in New York, NY, October 18, 2014. (Photo by Anthony Behar/Sipa USA)

Sean Pertwee

Doctor Who isn’t exactly a legacy job. But it’s one of those shows where people whose lives it has touched seem to keep coming back. After all, the real-life daughter of the Fifth Doctor played Jenny, the Doctor’s Daughter on the show. And then she ended up marrying the Tenth Doctor. If anything, one of David Tennant’s kids will end up on a list like this to play the Twenty-Second Doctor some day.

Looking at it this way, Sean Pertwee is a natural choice to play Thirteen. He is the son of Jon Pertwee, who portrayed the Third Doctor in the 1970s. And since Sean decided to follow his father into the family business, it’s only natural that a lot of fans think he could follow his dad right into the TARDIS itself. Pertwee the younger is an accomplished actor in his own right, with a resume that dates back to the 1980s. He’s done everything from period dramas to mystery series to. Currently, Pertwee portrays Alfred Pennyworth on FOX’s Gotham, and plays a much tougher, more action-oriented version of the character. Gotham has been renewed for another season, so the biggest obstacle to Pertwee’s involvement may not be his feelings about whether or not to do Doctor Who, but just if he’d have time for it.

Pertwee certainly appears open to appearing on the show in some capacity. Apparently the Doctor Who folks asked him to appear in Season 9, but the timing didn’t work out. He even dressed up as the Third Doctor for Halloween one year, and posted this on Instagram, which features his father’s iconic Doctor Who hair photoshopped onto his own face:

He not only looks just like his father, he looks like someone who could be a future Time Lord someday.