10 Doctor Who Real Life Alternate Timelines

10. What If Peter Davison Had Stayed After Caves Of Androzani?

Peter Davison left Doctor Who in 1984 after only three years in the role, for a variety of reasons. One: Patrick Troughton advised him to stay three years to avoid being typecast, advice he passed along to Sylvester McCoy (who eventually had no choice in the matter) and David Tennant (who did). And, in his words, the scripts were 'crap'. But then The Caves Of Androzani came along, and Davison felt a brief pang about leaving just as the scripts developed. So, what if Davison had reversed his decision and decided to stay for another year, or even two? Davison might have been disappointed - he wouldn't have enjoyed The Twin Dilemma nearly so much. It's also hard to imagine that the Season 22 scripts would've remained quite so violent with the Davison Doctor in the lead, either. Let's imagine, though, that the same scripts were on the table for the Fifth Doctor as for the Sixth. A proper meeting between the Fifth Doctor and Lytton would be interesting, though the outcome wouldn't be too different. Vengeance would be a very different story with Doctor Five, though, as would The Two Doctors. Having written a violent script with the Fifth Doctor in before, would Robert Holmes have really toned down the latter story that much? It's honestly hard to imagine those stories with Davison because the tone of those stories is so bleak and so dark - so very much a Colin Baker tone. Was the drop in ratings for the 22nd season less to do with the longer run-time and more to do with the increased violence, leading to the 18-month hiatus and the subsequent Trial of a Time Lord season? We're not blaming Colin Baker, mind you - tone comes down to script editor and producer, not the lead. But would any of these events have occurred if Davison had stayed on?