Born: 21st March 1970 (as Christopher Antony Chibnall)
Episodes Broadcast: 2006-2008, 2010, 2012, 2018-2022

During his childhood in Nottingham, at the age of three, Chris Chibnall watched a repeat of 1972's The Sea Devils, and his status as a lifelong devotee of Doctor Who was cemented. He got involved with organised fandom as a teenager, and was amongst those who became strongly critical of the programme's direction during the mid-Eighties. Alongside fellow members of the Merseyside Local Group, Chibnall was invited to participate in the December 8th, 1986 edition of the BBC's Open Air. There he prominently took writers Pip and Jane Baker to task over that year's The Trial Of A Time Lord, which would ultimately prove to be the final adventure before Colin Baker was fired from his job as the Sixth Doctor.

Having begun to develop his playwriting skills during his youth, Chibnall earned an honours degree in drama and English from St Mary's University, Twickenham. He then moved into television, chiefly working as a football archivist for Sky Sports. Fearing that this would prove to be a professional cul de sac, Chibnall left to complete a Masters degree in theatre and film at the University of Sheffield. He then worked as a writer and administrator for various theatre companies. During Chibnall's time with Complicite in the late Nineties, he met Madeline Joinson, who was a producer for the Out of Joint company. They would marry in 2002, and give birth to two sons: Cal in 2003, and Aidan in 2006.

Chibnall became Torchwood's head writer, contributing seven scripts

Chibnall returned to television in 2001 with a script for the revival of Crossroads. He then co-created Born And Bred, for which he wrote seventeen episodes; he initially served as a consulting producer on the show, and later as an executive producer. Chibnall next wrote for All About George and Life On Mars. It was his experience on the latter which brought him into contact with BBC Wales Head of Drama Julie Gardner, who was an executive producer on Doctor Who and was helping lay the groundwork for the spin-off series Torchwood. Chibnall became Torchwood's head writer, earning a co-producing credit for its first two seasons while contributing seven scripts. Amongst them were 2006's controversial Cyberwoman, 2008 premiere Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and the same season's finale, Exit Wounds. During his time on Torchwood, Chibnall also wrote his first Doctor Who story, 2007's 42, an adventure for David Tennant's Tenth Doctor.

Chibnall left Torchwood to serve as the executive producer of Law & Order: UK for its first season. He was then the creator and executive producer of Camelot. Chibnall returned to Doctor Who for three stories featuring Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, with 2010's The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood reviving the Silurians after an absence of twenty-seven years. He also wrote the online Pond Life series of mini-episodes, which served as a prequel to the 2012 run. Chibnall soon enjoyed his greatest success -- both with critics and viewers -- when he created the crime drama Broadchurch, which starred Tennant and debuted in 2013. Its first season was adapted for both American and French audiences, as Gracepoint and Malaterra, respectively.

In the summer of 2015, with Chibnall's stock riding high in the wake of Broadchurch's success, he was asked to succeed Steven Moffat as the showrunner of Doctor Who. Although Chibnall was initially resistant, he eventually took the job -- not just because of his lifelong love of the programme, but also because the BBC had agreed to his condition that the next Doctor should be female. The part would ultimately go to Jodie Whittaker, who had played a prominent role in Broadchurch. However, Chibnall's commitments to the third and final season of Broadchurch meant that could not take over Doctor Who until 2017, prompting Moffat to stay for a year longer than planned.

Chibnall's first episode as Doctor Who's executive producer was The Woman Who Fell To Earth, broadcast in 2018. His tenure was notable for the gradual revelation of a new backstory for the Doctor. She was no longer a native of the planet Gallifrey but was instead a foundling of unknown origin, whose discovery by the early Time Lords led to the development of their ability to regenerate. Unfortunately, Chibnall's designs for his time on Doctor Who ran afoul of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced significant changes to his plans for the show's 2021 season. The result was the six-part Flux -- ironically, the first season-long adventure since The Trial Of A Time Lord, which he had so publicly maligned. Unlike his immediate predecessors, Moffat and Russell T Davies, Chibnall elected not to remain on Doctor Who to oversee a second incarnation of the Doctor. Instead, he and Whittaker left the programme together with 2022's The Power Of The Doctor.