Doctor Who: 10 Actors Who Could Or Should Have Been The Doctor

6. The Fifth/Eighth Doctors - Richard Griffiths

The late Richard Griffiths was considered as a potential Doctor on two occasions. The first was when Tom Baker was leaving the role. Whether or not producer John Nathan-Turner was particularly serious about casting him at the time isn€™t well known. Regardless, the lightning bolt idea of replacing Baker with Peter Davison, in every way the antithesis of Doctor #4, turned out to be the best decision Turner ever made. Griffiths€™s next connection with Doctor Who came during the 90s hiatus when Doctor Who Magazine published an article exploring what might have been had the show continued past Season 26. With Sylvester McCoy€™s Doctor expected to regenerate at the end of a hypothetical Season 27, Griffiths was put forward as a likely successor by script editor Andrew Cartmel. In this instance, Griffiths as the Eighth Doctor makes a certain amount of sense. He was physically bigger than McCoy and well versed at playing bombastic, overbearing characters, contrasting with the more subtle, manipulative Seventh Doctor. It€™s important to remember, however, that the article in question was based mostly on conjecture and guesswork than anything else. Griffiths is therefore one of the few British character actors of the last thirty years who never once featured on screen in Doctor Who in any capacity. His death in 2013 means that he will never join his Withnail and I co-stars Richard E Grant and Paul McGann as genuine or pseudo Doctors - but there was definitely something about him that suggested he easily could have.