Doctor Who: What Happened To Each Doctor After They Left The Show?

The Time Lord retirement plan leads down many strange roads.

Tom Baker Doctor Who Little Britain
BBC

For most actors and actresses, Doctor Who will be the biggest thing they'll ever do, and if it somehow isn't the biggest, then it will easily be a top-three contender.

A fifty-year-old show that airs all over the world and features some of the most recognisable iconography in the pop-culture spectrum, with a fanbase spanning multiple different generations? It doesn't get much better than that.

Yet we often forget that the actors who play the Doctor have much more about them than those few years where they fought aliens with a magic screwdriver - fantastic though they may have been in the role. Because Doctor Who is so massive, many of its stars go on to do some amazing things in film and TV afterwards, playing other popular characters and stepping into other famous franchises and universes.

Admittedly, some do have a better post-Doctor Who livelihood than others, but they all remained active after they left the show, whether by jumping into worlds like Marvel, Dracula, and Sherlock Holmes, or even by returning to the TARDIS for one final adventure throughout space and time.

12. William Hartnell

Tom Baker Doctor Who Little Britain
BBC

Last Regular Episode: The Tenth Planet

After his deteriorating health (and clashes with the new production team) forced William Hartnell to depart Doctor Who in 1966, he did a small amount of additional acting before his death in 1975.

He had small roles in TV shows like No Hiding Place and Crime Of Passion - and also returned to Doctor Who in 1972 for the tenth anniversary story The Three Doctors, which was his final piece of work as an actor - but his stint as the Time Lord was by far the biggest thing he ever did in his career.

While Hartnell himself didn't assume the role, the First Doctor did return to our screens during the 1983 anniversary episode The Five Doctors, where Richard Hurndall played the character. The First Doctor was also played by David Bradley in 2013's An Adventure In Space And Time - a drama about the creation of Doctor Who - and 2017 Christmas special Twice Upon A Time.

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WhoCulture Channel Manager/Doctor Who Editor at WhatCulture. Can confirm that bow ties are cool.