EXCLUSIVE: At least one BBC Studios indie will be throwing its hat in the ring to become the next producer of Doctor Who, with scripted boss Jamie Hall telling Deadline he “firmly believes” the entire BBC group should “reap the rewards” of the iconic sci-fi series.

Hall said “we’ve probably got one, potentially two companies” going for the multi-million pound tender, which if successful would bring the show back in house following two seasons made by Sony-owned Bad Wolf, starring Ncuti Gatwa. His comments followed BBC Studios CEO Tom Fussell recently saying BBC Studios would be applying “with gusto.”

Hall wouldn’t reveal the names of the indies but said he would “100%” be happy for more than one to enter the race.

BBC Studios runs an in-house drama label, which made Doctor Who before Bad Wolf, while it also owns several scripted indies outright including Baby Reindeer maker Clerkenwell Films, Happy Valley producer Lookout Point and Sherwood indie House Productions.

While he hasn’t seen his labels’ proposals, Hall said he has been “very open” and honest with those keen to go for the tender because the process is “quite an onerous undertaking and costs quite a bit of money.” “I have to make sure that it doesn’t become a distraction from the day job,” he added.

If two BBC Studios labels enter, they will likely join Line of Duty producer World Productions, whose boss Simon Heath has previously indicated his ITV Studios-owned outfit is interested. More thoughts from producers can be found in our future Doctor Who analysis from over the summer.

Published a fortnight ago, the tender calls for a “relevant, surprising, brave and inspiring” new vision for the show that should premiere in 2028-29. Notably, it said it is happy for indies to pitch a series using “episodic writers” rather than a “showrunner model,” which would do away with how Doctor Who has been made in recent years.

After several years with Bad Wolf and after the termination of the just-ended Disney+ co-pro deal, Hall was adamant that Doctor Who “should sit within the BBC and the whole group should reap the rewards of it.”

Questioned on what he would want to see from a revamped Doctor Who, Hall harked back to the days when Matt Smith and David Tennant were playing the Doctor.

“It feels to me that there is an opportunity to get back to what the core offering was in that time,” he added. “It will be off screen for two or three years and that gives the audience a great chance to have a break then rediscover, while also bringing a new audience.”

Netflix is returning the inmates to the Lock Upp jail.

A second season of the ‘captive reality’ series, whose full title is Lock Upp: Sach Yaa Sazaa has been ordered following Season 1’s breakout summer, where it placed number one of Netflix’s TV shows list within two days of the premiere and remained in the top ten for seven straight weeks.

The response to the show was so strong that five weekly episodes were expanded to six to satisfy demand, Netflix has said. It eventually amassed 50 million hours viewed in a month.

The show sees Indian celebrities thrown together in a jail cell, where they compete in challenges. What broke through with audiences was some of the more divisive characters discussing their public perception and confronting narratives that have surrounded them.

Netflix said Season 2 “build on that world, bringing audiences back inside the jail for another chapter where personalities collide, dynamics shift, and every secret has the potential to change the game.”

Riteish Deshmukh and Farah Khan return as hosts, with Balaji Telefilms producing. Show creator Ekta Kapoor is producing alongside Shobha Kapoor and Manisha Sharma, with Malaya Pradhan the showrunner.

“Lock Upp: Sach Yaa Sazaa became appointment viewing overnight,” said Monika Shergill, VP of Content at Netflix India. “Viewers invested, debated, and kept coming back. It captured the zeitgeist — not just as entertainment, but also as a space where celebrities talked about topics they rarely do, owned their choices and confronted past trauma.

“Ekta’s bold homegrown idea and the scaled adaptation on Netflix led to entertainment maxxing. Season 2 will be about recreating the same Netflix effect with many new surprises for our audiences.”

Ekta Kapoor, Jjoint Managing Director at Balaji, added: “Lock Upp: Sach Ya Sazaa on Netflix went far beyond what we imagined. The conversations, the inmates, and their most memorable moments continued to live with audiences even after the finale. That’s what makes the return of Lock Upp so exciting.

“The next season will take audiences back into a world they know, but with an entirely new set of stories, personalities, and surprises. And Farah and Riteish will continue to helm the Lock Upp as the formidable jailer duo, bringing their own energy, unpredictability, and dynamic to the next chapter.”

Lock Upp originally launched on ALTBalaji and MX Player in 2022, but was rebooted for Netflix.

New representation is raining on Ryan Kwanten. The veteran actor and producer has inked with Rain for management representation.

Kwanten started acting young, with his first credits coming in the early 1990s. He worked steadily and caught an early break on the Australian television soap opera Home and Away. He segued to Summerland before catching another break on the role that he is perhaps best known for, playing Jason Stackhouse across seven seasons on HBO‘s hit True Blood, which ran for 81 episodes from 2008-14.

Kwanten’s other credits span genres and the big and small screens, including work opposite J.K. Simmons in Glorious, which he also executive produced, Nicolas Cage in Kill Chain and Anthony Hopkins in Kidnapping Mr. Heineken. He lent his voice to Zack Snyder’s Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole alongside Helen Mirren, Abbie Cornish, Joel Edgerton, Sam Neill, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess and Geoffrey Rush.

His more recent credits include The Oath, which he starred in and produced alongside Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Them, Kindred, Head Count, The Portrait, Primitive War and the recently completed Seven Snipers with Tim Roth, Ioan Gruffudd and Radha Mitchell. He can next be seen in the post-apocalyptic werewolf thriller Dead Howling.

Kwanten continues to be repped by RGM Artists.