10 Doctor Who Characters Who Almost Had Different Endings
8. Clara Was Originally Supposed To Die Of Old Age
In the realm of alternative endings, Jenna Coleman's Clara Oswald is a particularly unusual case. Not only was her character intended to leave the show in two different ways, but both of these alternate exits were actually written, filmed, and included in the finished versions of their episodes.
The first, original ending for Clara was at the conclusion of Series 8, in the episode Death In Heaven. Here, Clara literally tells the Twelfth Doctor that this is their goodbye, gives him a big, emotional hug, and walks away from the TARDIS, a sense of finality in the air.
However, then-showrunner Steven Moffat and leading man Peter Capaldi were both keen for Coleman to stay on a bit longer, but it wasn't until Series 8 was in the can - and they were actively promoting it - that they convinced her to stick around.
From here, Moffat devised a new ending for Clara, which came at the end of the 2014 Christmas special, Last Christmas. He intended to age her up significantly and kill her off as an old woman, and this was the exit that was inked into the script, right up until the episode's readthrough.
However, after the readthrough, Coleman once again decided that she wasn't ready to leave the show quite yet, and so, she continued to play Clara for another full series. And because there wasn't enough time to completely overhaul Last Christmas' ending, old Clara still made it into the episode!
Moffat talked about all of this during an interview with the Doctor Who Fan Show (10:35 in the video below), where he also revealed that the 2014 Christmas special nearly led to an alternate ending for a completely different character...