Doctor Who: Christopher Eccleston Reveals Harsh Conditions for His Return

Former Doctor Who star Christopher Eccleston has revealed his conditions for returning to the television series, but they're unlikely to come true. In the past, Eccleston has alluded to frustrations with the culture behind the scenes of Doctor Who while filming the first season of the revived series. However, he continues to get questions about whether he'd return to Doctor Who as the Ninth Doctor (though that's no longer the only option). Eccleston has reprised the Doctor for several Doctor Who audio stories, including one tied to 2023's 60th-anniversary celebration, Eccleston told fans at For the Love of Sci-Fi convention in Manchester, England that earlier this month that there'd need to be some new producers at Doctor Who to get him back.

"Sack Russell T Davies," Eccleston said. "Sack Jane Tranter. Sack Phil Collinson. Sack Julie Gardner. And I'll come back. So can you arrange that?"

Eccleston then clarified that he still enjoys being linked to the Doctor. His issues are with the people making Doctor Who, not Doctor Who itself.

"I love being associated," Eccleston said. "I just don't like being associated with those people and the politics that went on in the first series. The first series was a mess, and it wasn't to do with me or Billie [Piper], it was to do with the people who were supposed to make it, and it was a mess."

Why did Christopher Eccleston leave Doctor Who?

Eccleston played the Ninth Doctor in the first revived Doctor Who season and left at the end, which cleared the way for David Tennant to take over as the Tenth Doctor. Eccleston has never returned to the show despite being invited back for Doctor Who's 50th-anniversary special in 2013. Speaking to Radio Times about it in 2021, Eccleston said, "My relationship with the BBC over Doctor Who has not healed." Those wounds stem from a broken trust over how his exit was handled, with the BBC announcing it without his sign-off in a way that made it sound like he couldn't keep up with the work.

"I left because my relationship with Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and Phil Collinson completely broke down during the shooting of the first series," Eccleston said. "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."

He continued, "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. 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."

Christopher Eccleston's episodes of Doctor Who are streaming now on Max. Future episodes of Doctor Who, including the upcoming Christmas Special, will stream on Disney+.