10 Doctor Who Questions Not Even Fans Know The Answer To

3. What EXACTLY Happened To Make Eccleston Quit?

In most cases, the reason why each of the Doctors left Doctor Who is known. Even with Ncuti Gatwa, who definitely left earlier than intended, we were fed a clear line: "it was always the plan".

Christopher Eccleston is the only Doctor who has acknowledged that his exit wasn't actually amicable, without saying exactly why that was.

So what do we know? Well, there was the whole palaver of the BBC putting out a statement claiming that Eccleston had found the workload too much… which they then retracted when Eccleston pointed out it was defamatory.

But in terms of what actually went down on set, Eccleston has only said things to this effect:

"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."

Clearly there was something which, in his eyes, RTD and his fellow execs did wrong (or at the very least, turned a blind eye to).

One possible explanation is the much-mythologised burning sofa, an apparent scrapped stunt from Rose from the scene where Henrik's explodes, which broke health and safety regulations. Given that Rose was one of the first episodes shot, it would make sense for it to be something in those early filming blocks that soured Eccleston's experience.

Was Eccleston angry about this, or something similar, or a culmination of multiple incidents? How soon did he decide to walk away? Was there an actual bust-up?

We might find out one day, but for now we can only speculate.