10 Actors Who Won't Return To Doctor Who

10. Daphne Ashbrook

Despite only appearing in one TV story, the Eighth Doctor had an incredible afterlife, featuring in countless books, comics, and audio dramas, before returning to our screens in The Night of the Doctor and The Power of the Doctor.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of his first companion, Grace Holloway.

Sure, Grace declined the Doctor’s offer of a place in the TARDIS at the end of the TV Movie, but we still might've reasonably expected her to show up again at some point.

While Daphne Ashbrook has appeared in Big Finish audios as other characters, she's never appeared as Grace. As she recalled in 2022, this is because the TV Movie was an American co-production:

"I have done some Big Finish audios but essentially I was told 'you can’t be Grace', because someone finally found out that it was Universal that owned her, and unless they were willing to buy the rights, we could not legally bring her back."

If the character can’t even come back on audio, it’s safe to say that a TV return is also firmly off the table. It’s a sad state of affairs, which basically means that Grace’s story will never be concluded.