10 Notorious Doctor Who Urban Legends

6. The Show Was Nearly Cancelled After David Tennant Left

doctor who david tennant
BBC

Remember how we said that David Tennant almost stayed on for Series 5? Well, the only reason he didn't was because he chose to leave instead, a decision that nearly had disastrous ramifications for the entire show.

A lot of fans talk about the 1989 cancellation like it's the only time Doctor Who has been in danger, but this is false. You may have heard whispers about the show having a brush with death back in 2009/2010, when Tennant's time in the TARDIS was coming to an end - and these whispers are entirely accurate.

The Tenth Doctor era sent the popularity of the show skyrocketing, leading many fans to believe that it would fall apart without him. As it turns out, some of those fears were felt within the BBC itself, and the organisation even considered ending the show altogether when its leading man elected to depart.

But thanks to the intervention of outgoing showrunner Russell T Davies - who demanded that Doctor Who should continue on - a global crisis was averted, and the show is still alive and well today. Cheers RTD!

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!