Doctor Who: 20 Things You Didn't Know About The Ninth Doctor

6. Eccleston Was Tricked Into A Ninth Doctor Reference

Post-Doctor Who, Eccleston played the role of Claude Rains in the popular sci-fi series Heroes, whose showrunners were big fans of the Whoniverse.

In his memoir I Love The Bones Of You: My Father And The Making Of Me, Eccleston states that the writers and executives of Heroes wanted him to dress in a similar way to Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor, requesting that he wear a scarf.

Not wanting to be so blatantly self-referential, Eccleston refused, but the writers did get him to make a nod to Doctor Who when they put the word "Fantastic!" in the script for one of his episodes, something that Eccleston failed to register:

"They inserted the line ‘Fantastic!’ into the script. I didn’t realise until too late that it was a trope from Doctor Who."

Those sneaky, sneaky showrunners.