Doctor Who: Christopher Eccleston Reveals the Real Reason He Hasn't Returned

By Jamie Lovett

Christopher Eccleston opened up about his abrupt Doctor Who departure and why he's never returned to the show. Eccleston played the Ninth Doctor in the first season of the revived Doctor Who series and exited in its finale, regenerating into the Tenth Doctor played by David Tennant. While Eccleston recently reprised his Doctor for a series of Doctor Who audio dramas by Big Finish Productions, he's never returned to the television series. He even skipped the 50th-anniversary special, which saw Tennant return to act opposite Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith, his absence necessitating the retroactive addition of John Hurt's War Doctor into the canon.

Eccleston was a guest at this year's Dragon Con in Atlanta, Georgia. During his Q&A at the event, he opened up about why he left the show, why he hasn't returned, and why it's "doubtful" that he'd show up for the 60th-anniversary celebration in 2023 either, saying "my relationship with the BBC over Doctor Who has not healed" (via Radio Times).

As for why he left in the first place, he says that the first season of the revived Doctor Who was chaotic, and it wore on his relationship with the show's producers. "I left because my relationship with Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and Phil Collinson completely broke down during the shooting of the first series. I think it's fair to say… that the first series nobody knows what they're doing and the politics are raging. The shooting of the first series was a nightmare."

Eccleston had agreed to exit the series quietly and professionally and to speak kindly of the show in the press. Then, he says, the BBC went public with his exit without consulting him first, even fabricating a quote claiming he was leaving because he was exhausted.

"I agreed with Russell that I would go, quietly and respectfully, and I would look after the show publicity-wise, in terms of publicizing it," Eccleston said. "And then, without saying anything to me, they announced that I was leaving. They didn't tell me they were going to do that. I was walking down the street, and suddenly I got quite a lot of aggression. And more importantly… they created a quote, and they attributed it to me, which said I was tired. 

"Now the thing is about that, 'Oh, I found it too tiring,' I didn't find it too tiring," Ecclestons continued. "I found it too tiring working with Russell and Phil and Julia. I didn't find it physically too tiring. When they said that, any other producer reading that would go, 'Oh, we're not going to employ Christopher Eccleston because he gets tired.' So it was a lie, and it was in quotation marks, and I'm from Salford, you don't do that to me.

The BBC later apologized for spinning Eccleston's exit this way and concocting the false quote, but it hasn't undone the damage. "So they issued a kind of apology, but it's not enough, so no," Eccleston says.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments. Doctor Who will return later this year with Jodie Whittaker's final season as the Thirteenth Doctor. With our Doctor Who streaming binge guide, you can get caught up with the show, which is streaming on HBO Max.

Trending Now: