In 2013, Doctor Who celebrated its 50th anniversary with the special episode ‘The Day of the Doctor’, which saw Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor joined by David Tennant’s Tenth Doctor, and the late John Hurt as the previously-unseen War Doctor.
However, now-departed Who showrunner Steven Moffat has revealed that he originally wanted to include Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor, only for Eccleston to turn down the offer, leading to the creation of Hurt’s incarnation of the Time Lord in order to fill the role
“While novelising ‘Day of the Doctor’, I went back through all the many drafts of the script, and I found this version of the barn scene,” said Moffat (via Radio Times). “The Moment is clearly not Rose Tyler in this draft, and the barn itself has a different, erm, origin. If barns can be said to have origins. But the other big difference is the one that people might get a kick out of. Hope you enjoy, but please do keep in mind this is the roughest of early drafts…”
The script for the Ninth Doctor scene in the book A Second Target For Tommy, but you can read a few extracts via the Radio Times link above.
It’s not really surprising that Eccleston turned the opportunity down, as just this month he has hit out at Moffat and the BBC over his exit from the show, even going so far as to accuse the BBC of blacklisting him after his departure.
Originally published March 25, 2018. Updated November 21, 2019.
