Doctor Who: 13 Cool Details Russell T Davies Just Revealed About The Stolen Earth & Journey's End

8. Harriet Jones' Role Could've Been Filled By A Totally Different Character

Doctor Who The Stolen Earth Harriet Jones
BBC/Twitter: @russelldavies63

The Stolen Earth sees former Prime Minister Harriet Jones make her grand return to Doctor Who, after last being seen in the 2005 Christmas special, and before that, the Slitheen two-parter from Christopher Eccleston's first and only series.

In this particular episode, Harriet uses the subwave network to bring characters like Captain Jack and Martha Jones into contact with each other, allowing them to unite against the Dalek threat and ultimately save the day.

While Davies had this subplot planned long in advance, he wasn't always sure about which character to use in Harriet's role, and so, he toyed with several candidates.

At the front of the pack was Elton Pope from controversial episode Love & Monsters, but Davies also thought about including an old Doctor Who companion, such as Polly or Tegan. In addition, before Catherine Tate agreed to come back for Series 4, Davies even had Donna Noble in mind. That would've been... interesting.

Eventually though, Davies and his team settled on Harriet, determined to give her a redemption story after her unfortunate departure in The Christmas Invasion. Looking at how The Stolen Earth plays out, it's hard to imagine anybody else taking her place.

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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!