TV Series

What would Doctor Who Series 5 have looked like if David Tennant had stayed on?

By Cameron McEwan

The Fan Show has released the second of three very special episodes which sit down with former Doctor Who boss Steven Moffat and look back on his time on the series.

During the interview, Steven discusses his first year as showrunner and how David Tennant very nearly stayed on to play the Tenth Doctor for one more year. The writer stated:

“Well, David was just going through the – now, to me, very familiar – angst about leaving. Piers Wenger [former executive producer] and I went to talk to David and I ran him through what that series would be if it was him. It would definitely have been his last one, there was no question about that."

Doctor Who Series 5 was broadcast in 2010 and starred Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor with Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill as Rory Wiliams. Moffat continued:

"My version of that series would be that the David Tennant Doctor would crash into the back garden about to regenerate and little Amelia would help him back to the TARDIS and he’d fly off. And the she’d meet him again when she grew up but he’d have no memory of that because we come to realise that was the Doctor from the future – we’d make our way through the series to the point where the Doctor gets back to that (I sort of used that idea again later).

So, that would have been the show and he thought very hard about it and he left me a message on my answerphone saying he’d thought very hard about it and, as I thought he would, he decided to move on.”

Steven also discusses casting the Eleventh Doctor, his first three years as Doctor Who showrunner and the 50th Anniversary Special, The Day of the Doctor. Watch the full interview in the player below.

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