Why Every Lead Actor Left Doctor Who

7. Sylvester McCoy

Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy
BBC Studios

Unlike most of his fellow Time Lords, Sylvester McCoy never technically "left" Doctor Who, nor was he fired. He was simply unlucky enough to be the Doctor in 1989, the year in which production of the show was suspended.

It's a shame too, because McCoy had settled into a solid groove towards the end of his era, with he and Sophie Aldred proving a winning combination. Unfortunately, public perception of Doctor Who was at an all-time low, and with viewership declining, the plug was pulled.

Regardless, McCoy was still the incumbent Doctor for the 1993 charity special Dimensions in Time, and the start of the 1996 TV movie. Writer Matthew Jacobs wished to link the movie directly to the classic series, and so it was decided to depict the Seventh Doctor's regeneration.

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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!