Doctor Who: 20 Things You Didn't Know About The Ninth Doctor

by Danny Meegan

1. The Alternate Ending To The Parting Of The Ways

Doctor Who The Parting of the Ways Billie Piper Bad Wolf
BBC Studios

While Russell T Davies obviously knew that Eccleston would be leaving after his first series, he wanted the Doctor's regeneration to be a surprise for the general public, and so, an alternate ending to The Parting of the Ways was devised.

Far from being merely conceptual, this alternate ending was actually written and filmed. In this version, the TARDIS scans Rose, and the message "LIFEFORM DYING" is displayed on the TARDIS scanner. The intent was to make people believe that Rose was about to die, not the Ninth Doctor.

This alternate ending was intended to be shown to the press during preview screenings, but when Eccleston's departure was prematurely unveiled by the BBC themselves, this plan was scrapped because the cat was already out the bag.

A surprise regeneration would certainly be a thrilling way to end a series, and who knows... maybe it's an idea RTD will revisit in the near future.

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Contributor
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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!