(BBC)
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20 years. It’s been 20 years since the BBC resurrected Doctor Who, and the Doctor and their companions have been on countless historical and intergalactic adventures since. The current Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa’s Fifteenth, has brought the show into a new era of distribution and storytelling—that’s why his first season is sometimes called season 1 rather than season 14—but we can’t forget about the man who kick-started it all: Christopher Eccleston.
Though David Tennant’s Tenth and Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor are most commonly loved and praised, Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth was the one who revitalized Doctor Who for the NuWho era, and he did so with undeniable wit, charm, and humor. Before I started watching the 2005 series, I’d never seen an episode of Doctor Who, but Eccleston’s infectious enthusiasm on screen, both for his adventures and his new companion, Rose (Billie Piper), drew me in, and I haven’t been able to let go of the show since. Who can forget that enormous smile?
It was more than that, though—it was the fact that the Doctor’s eccentricities didn’t take over his whole personality. The Doctor is an alien, so some over-the-topness is expected. Eccleston’s version is also wonderfully grounded and human, however, because of his relationship with Rose and because of his undeniable grief, which hits harder and angrier in this series than any other. (I’m also still jealous of his faded leather jacket).
There are, of course, those who favor Eccleston’s Doctor over Tennant, Smith, Capaldi, Whittaker, or Gatwa—given how many Doctor Who fans there are in the world, it would be statistically impossible for that not to be the case—but I often feel like Eccleston’s Nine was underappreciated, both during his tenure and after. Whether this has to do with the fact that he was only the Doctor for one relatively short 13-episode season or because the rumors surrounding his exit and his fallout with the BBC skewed the general public’s perception of his character, I honestly don’t know.
Speaking to Radio Times in 2019, Eccleston revealed: “My relationship with my three immediate superiors—the showrunner, the producer, and co-producer—broke down irreparably during the first block of filming and it never recovered.” Before that, he’d claimed that he was “blacklisted” by the BBC and that what happened on the show “almost destroyed [his] career.”
Given their alleged history, I was surprised yet delighted to see Doctor Who’s former and current showrunner, Russell T Davies, recently praise Eccleston’s work on the show during an interview with Doctor Who Magazine.
“I mean, the man is a master,” he said. “You get to work with a genius—someone who’s still at the top of his game all these years later. That’s what we were lucky to get.” He went on to remember a particular moment that proved just how dedicated Eccleston was to the role, recalling:
“I remember walking on set one morning and Chris had discovered in some book or online that the Doctor was allergic to aspirin, which is something William Hartnell’s Doctor had said. So we had this great morning of working out whether we could get aspirin into a plot. I did have to tell Chris, ‘Things that were said in the ’60s aren’t necessarily lore—you don’t have to absolutely follow them’. But that tells you a lot about how he threw himself into it.”
(via RadioTimes.com)
Each actor who embodies the Doctor brings something new to the show, but Christopher Eccleston’s raw approach to the role allowed NuWho to flourish and become the global phenomenon it is today. “I hope he knows how well remembered he is, as a magnificent Doctor who broke the mould,” Davies told Doctor Who Magazine, and I can’t help but agree.
Doctor Who season 15/2 premieres on BBC One, BBC iPlayer, and Disney+ on April 12, 2025.
