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The World Doesn't End Because the Doctor Dances

Will Christopher Eccleston Return For Doctor Who’s 50th Anniversary?

by Jill Pantozzi | 11:47 am, August 6th, 2012


Ok look. I know people are mad about Matt Smith these days but we owe a great debt of gratitude to Christopher Eccleston for playing a part in relaunching Doctor Who in 2005. With the big Who anniversary coming up next year, fans have been speculating just how many Doctors will be returning to the show. So far, all signs have pointed to Eccleston not making a return but thanks to some new quotes we can speculate he might give it a go. We also have some news about the upcoming Christmas Special and how the alternate-Ninth Doctor, Richard E. Grant, could factor in. 

Last year, Eccleston reiterated his reasons for leaving the long-running sci-fi show. Namely, politics. “I did not see eye to eye with them. I didn’t agree with the way things were being run,” he said. “I didn’t like the culture that had grown up around the series. So I left, I felt, over a principle.” He also alluded to there being some on-set bullying on behalf of a director.

So with that in mind, how could anyone think he’d come back? Well, he didn’t feel his job was completed as an actor. A report from a recent Q&A at the National Theatre said:

In response to a question about whether he felt he’d taken the character as far as he could he (very tellingly) said he felt that one series isn’t enough to get under the skin of the character and that if he’d had two or three series he’d have developed the role considerably. He said that if you looked at the other Doctors (with the exception of Tom Baker) you can see them working out how to play the character through their first series because it’s such a complex and challenging role. He said several times that there was more for him to do with the character…

Besides Eccleston wishes to do more with the Doctor, fellow Time Lord Smith hopes the actor will join him for the 50th anniversary. “Who knows? I’d love it. I’d love him to come back,” said Smith. “I love his Doctor. I really do. He was from Manchester. Proper hard. Leather jacket. He’d give my Doctor a bit of a whopping, wouldn’t he?”

No doubt about it, I think.

In other news, Richard E. Grant will be guest starring in this year’s Christmas Special along with Smith’s new companion, Jenna-Louise Coleman. The actor is best known to serious Whovians as the actor who was the first official 9th Doctor. He voiced the Time Lord in 2003′s animated Scream of the Shalka. He quickly became unofficial once the BBC announced plans to relaunch the regular series in 2003 but he was also part of a Red Nose Day charity telethon spoof titled The Curse of Fatal Death, in which Rowan Atkinson played the 9th Doctor, Grant the 10th, Jim Broadbent the 11th, Hugh Grant the 12th, and Joanna Lumley the 13th. And yes, it is on YouTube if you’d like to give it a watch.

As to the Eccleston speculation, there is one other hiccup now. We recently learned he’d be taking on the role of Malekith the Accursed, the villain in Thor: The Dark World. That’s likely to keep him busy around the time the anniversary specials are filming.

(via i09)

Previously in Doctor Who

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  • Anonymous

    And that Comic Relief short was written by… Steven Moffat.

  • http://nickbryan.com/ Nick Bryan

    I can see David Tennant making some kind of return guest appearance if he could schedule it, because he seemed to really love the character and enjoy it as a job. Ecclestone, I’m still not convinced. I don’t think the new quote says much other than “I would’ve done more if I’d been willing to stay”. Whatever disagreement motivated him to leave seems to still be a factor.

    But I’m not a telepath so who can say. It’d certainly be interesting to see either or both of them meet Matt Smith’s Doctor, but I think Tennant is the more likely.

  • Mike Hall

    Sure, we’ve seen multi-Doctor stories before, but if done properly, it could be lots of fun.  That the actors have aged considerably isn’t a problem; we’ve seen workarounds for that before, and clever writing could give us many more such workarounds.  I would also be perfectly content to have the surviving Doctors back, though in different roles; that could be lots of fun, too!

    My fondest wish, though, is that we get just one new scene of Paul McGann as the Doctor. His one onscreen outing was a bit of a mess, yes, but HE was amazing.  It would be nice to see him as the Doctor again, perhaps in a scene which somehow connects his one TV appearance with the beginning of Eccleston’s series…

  • http://twitter.com/Laz75 Francesco Spreafico

    They should start filming Thor 2 very soon (this or next month, I believe) and Moffat still has to start writing whatever the heck he’s got up his sleeve for the 50th anniversary… so, I believe that shouldn’t be a big problem! :-)

    I’d really love to see him back! If he just had problems with a single director (or with RTD, but  that’s harder to believe) that should be completely gone by now!

  • Anonymous

    Eccleston was *my* first doctor.  Before him I didn’t like or ‘get’ the whole Doctor Who thing (blasphemy I know!).  He was very interesting to me and  I would not have been along for the enjoyable ride through the character as acted by Tennant and now Smith had it not been for him.  I wish the differences had been sorted so he could have developed his characterization and I’d love to see him come back for a one off multi-doctor episode.

  • Anonymous

    Especially since there is a living version of the Tenth Doctor out there, having a life with Rose.

  • http://twitter.com/DebbieWho Debbie Roche

    I liked Chris’s Doctor and I hope he will come back for a 50th Anniversary special.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/R7IV63B2HAPAOYUQNVEPYFNFOQ Veronica

    Aw he’s my fav doctor, so he better!!!!

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