20 Things Doctor Who Wants You To Forget

13. The Other Ninth Doctor

Doctor Who Forget
BBC

Following the unsuccessful 1996 relaunch (The TV movie) Doctor Who remained off our screens for another nine years, but that didn’t stop talented fans from creating new adventures and exploring new ways to continue the myth. Perhaps the boldest and riskiest of all was the flash animation, The Scream of the Shalka.

Officially released through the BBC’s flagship website, Paul Cornell’s fine script was written for a new Doctor – played by Richard E Grant. His stint in the TARDIS was limited to a single adventure (and as an unrelated Doctor in the comic relief sketch, The Curse of Fatal Death). When Shalka was released, advanced discussions for a television comeback were already taking place with Russell T Davies, and the poor old ‘Reg’ Doctor as fans affectionately came to know him, was quietly ditched from the counting system.

In theory the producers could have made Eccleston the Tenth Doctor, especially with Derek Jacobi playing the Master in both Shalka and Utopia, but instead Richard E Grant is completely stripped of his association with the character when Steven Moffat recasts him as the host for the Great Intelligence.

Contributor
Contributor

Paul Driscoll is a freelance writer and author across a range of subjects from Cult TV to religion and social policy. He is a passionate Doctor Who fan and January 2017 will see the publication of his first extended study of the series (based on Toby Whithouse's series six episode, The God Complex) in the critically acclaimed Black Archive range by Obverse Books. He is a regular writer for the fan site Doctor Who Worldwide and has contributed several essays to Watching Books' You and Who range. Recently he has branched out into fiction writing, with two short stories in the charity Doctor Who anthology Seasons of War (Chinbeard Books). Paul's work will also feature in the forthcoming Iris Wildthyme collection (A Clockwork Iris, Obverse Books) and Chinbeard Books' collection of drabbles, A Time Lord for Change.