10 Times Doctor Who Gave Fans EXACTLY What They Wanted (And They Hated It)

9. Sylvester McCoy Regenerating Into Paul McGann

Doctor Who Captain Jack Harkness Revolution of the Daleks
BBC Studios

Doctor Who fans are a funny old bunch. When RTD brought the show back in 2005, there was a portion of the fandom that wanted Paul McGann to either lead the show, or film a regeneration into Christopher Eccleston.

Back in 1996, this obsession with seeing the handover from one Doctor to another led to one of the biggest issues with Paul McGann's TV movie. Producer Philip Segal, like many Doctor Who fans at the time, was determined that Sylvester McCoy be given a proper send-off - but this decision hampered the show's chances with its prospective American audience.

Because what did they get when they tuned in? 20 minutes without the lead actor who featured in all the promotion, and a strange man who falls out of the sky, gets gunned down by a street gang, and then dies on the operating table.

For those American viewers unfamiliar with Doctor Who, they must've assumed this was a new hospital drama, led by Daphne Ashbrook's Doctor Grace Holloway. But who needs another hospital drama when you've got George Clooney in ER?

Rather than entice a new audience, the confusion over McCoy put them off, which didn't help the chances of a new series. It could've been worse though: certain higher-ups at the BBC wanted Tom Baker to hand the TARDIS key over to McGann instead.

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Citizen of the Universe, Film Programmer, Writer, Podcaster, Doctor Who fan and a gentleman to boot. As passionate about Chinese social-realist epics as I am about dumb popcorn movies.