10 Doctor Who Characters Who Almost Had Different Endings

3. Ace's Original Ending Would've Taken Her To Gallifrey

Doctor Who Sarah Jane Smith
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At the end of 1989's Survival, the Seventh Doctor and Ace walk off into the distance, arm-in-arm, ready to embark on an exciting new adventure.

But skip ahead to the 1996 TV Movie, and Seven is all alone. He gets shot dead by a gang, regenerates into his Eighth incarnation, and the fate of Ace is never even mentioned.

While there was talk of giving Ace a role in the TV Movie, it was ultimately decided that the new Doctor should be given a new companion - Grace Holloway. This means that Ace never got a proper, televised ending, with Survival's ambiguous conclusion serving as her final onscreen appearance - weird charity specials aside.

However, this wasn't the original plan. If Doctor Who had continued past Season 26 (instead of being cancelled), Season 27 would've seen Ace attending university on Gallifrey and training to become a Time Lord, before being written out shortly after.

While this ending was never depicted onscreen, various expanded media stories have explored Ace's post-Survival exploits, revealing that she did indeed attend the Time Lord Academy on Gallifrey.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.