--- title: "Top BBC Director Says He’s Been Reviewing a Fully AI-Generated Episode of “Doctor Who” and It’s “Pretty Good”" description: "A top BBC director said he watched a fully AI-generated episode of Doctor Who and opined that it was \"pretty good.\"" date: "2026-10-01" modified: "2026-10-01" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore.md" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/bbc-director-ai-doctor-who" categories: - "Art" - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Future Society" --- # Top BBC Director Says He’s Been Reviewing a Fully AI-Generated Episode of “Doctor Who” and It’s “Pretty Good” ![A screenshot from "Doctor Who" shows a Dalek villain in a neighborhood setting.]() *BBC* Slipping ratings, a revolving door of lead actors, and nothing quite hitting like that old school David Tennant run. It's dog days for "Doctor Who" fans, whose lives aren't likely to be made any better by the prospect of AI creeping into the show. While speaking at the Royal Television Society conference in London, *BBC* director Matt Brittin extolled the amazing efficiency of using AI to crank out footage — before raising the possibility of using it on one of the British broadcaster's most beloved series. "Everyone's got the ability in their hands — or six billion people have — to create content at the standard of a Hollywood studio," Brittin said, [as quoted by *Variety*](). "Somebody sent me a 50-minute episode of 'Doctor Who' that was AI-generated the other day. It's pretty good," he continued. "I mean, it's not going to replace humans, and we'll come on to that. So everyone's a creator." Brittin, it's worth noting, was president of Europe, Middle East, and Africa operations at Google — a major purveyor of AI tech — before joining the *BBC*. You have to wonder what Brittin's idea of "pretty good" is. Attempts at using AI to crank out a movie or short film have [invariably produced low grade slop](). While the tech can sometimes create realistic images or scenes in isolation, cobbling together disparate, screensaver-worthy images together doesn't constitute an episode of hit television. There's a reason that filmmakers and other artists have [turned their noses up at AI](), along with the small matter of the tech threatening to drive them out of their jobs, and the fact that it was trained on their artwork and performances without permission. The ones that do use it get are often lampooned as [hacks, has-beens or sellouts](). And for "Doctor Who," a show that's sputtering along on its 41st season and is currently on hiatus as it searches for new ideas, the last thing it needs at this creatively critical impasse is the injection of a tool that recycles old ideas without direction and rigidly conforms to bland aesthetics. Though Brittin insisted that AI isn't going to "replace humans," he could barely disguise his belief that it soon will. "Not all the creativity is bad," he said of AI. "In some cases it's not perfect but look at what you can do and that's changing all the time," he added, [per *Deadline*]()*.* **More on AI:** [*The Winner of Elon Musk’s AI "Odyssey" Contest Will Make You Laugh Out Loud*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()