David Tennant Teases “Very Small Part” In ‘Only Murders In The Building”, Addresses Future Of ‘Doctor Who’: “It Deserves To Run Forever”

David Tennant is in two Hulu series releasing in late 2026, Season 2 Part 2 of Disney+’s Rivals, which is now streaming, and Season 6 of Only Murders In the Building, which premieres December 8. During an interview with Deadline breaking down this week’s eventful three-episode return of Rivals, Tennant spoke about doing the new season of Only Murders In the Building, which sees the crime-solving trio of Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short) and Mabel (Selena Gomez) traveling to London to solve the murder of true crime podcaster Cinda Canning (Tina Fey). “I’m the the definition of a cameo. I think you may also call it a very small part, but it’s either a very small part or it’s a cameo, depending on how confident I’m feeling,” Tennant said. “But lovely to be part of that, and with those legends, what a treat! To go on set like that, something that’s so established, and with people who would have every right to be terribly grand and rather standoffish; to be able to delight in their company and to work opposite these people who you have admired for years, and to find them approachable and funny and great to work with, it’s a true pleasure.” Watch on Deadline The Season 6 OMITB guest cast — a who’s who of British actors — includes three Doctor Who stars: Tennant, who played the Tenth Doctor and the Fourteenth Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, the first woman to portray the iconic Time Lord, and Peter Capaldi, who played the Twelfth Doctor. (Also recurring is Jim Broadbent, who played an alternate version of the Eleventh Doctor in the 1999 Comic Relief special Doctor Who: The Curse of Fatal Death.) The iconic Doctor Who is going through a complete revamp, with the BBC evaluating bids for Season 16 as part of a competitive tender launched in September. The process involves a bake-off, in which producers are asked to pitch new takes that would keep the series “relevant, surprising, brave and inspiring for both long-standing fans and new audiences.” Deadline asked Tennant, the actor probably most closely associated with the role of the Time Lord, whether he thinks the Doctor Who franchise will survive? “It depends who gets it, doesn’t it, and what they do with it,” he said. “It’s clearly a format that has legs. It’s done all right to survive since 1963, so there’s every reason to believe that it can. I think it’s difficult for anything in the current environment, especially a show like that, which needs a bit of money behind it, and I don’t necessarily know where that will come from. I’m so outside that loop now because all the people that I do know are no longer part of it. So I guess it depends who wins the the tender.” Deadline has revealed that Line of Duty showrunner Jed Mercurio and his Hat Trick Mercurio, STV Studios as well as likely two different BBC Studios labels are in the running, with the process still ongoing. “I hope so,” Tennant said about Doctor Who continuing as we await the results. “I love it. It’s a true television original, and it deserves to run forever. It will in some form, the fandom will keep it alive. We’ll have to wait and see, I’m sure somebody brilliant will give it a go. So there’s no reason why not.”