Posted in: Comics | Tagged: billie piper, christopher eccleston

Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary With Christopher Eccleston Still In It

What Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary looked like with Christopher Eccleston still in it... and when Billie Piper wasn't...

Published Tue, 02 Feb 2016 10:16:13 -0600

by Rich Johnston

Last updated Sun, 31 May 2026 10:22:51 -0500

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Article Summary

Steven Moffat originally planned Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor.
Andrew Wildman’s released storyboards reveal an early Day of the Doctor version built around three modern Doctors.
In that draft, Christopher Eccleston’s Ninth Doctor appears on Gallifrey, replacing the later War Doctor role.
The boards also show major story changes, including Clara’s setup, a different Moment, and shifted Doctor dynamics.

Doctor Who: The Day Of The Doctor is one of my favourite episodes of the TV show. The 50th Anniversary special of the show, it threw together The Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, brought in The War Doctor, gave us our first look at the Twelfth Doctor and a far, far future Curator Doctor who rather resembled the Fourth. It tied up so many dangling threads and made sense of much that seemed impossible, all while telling a relatively straightforward story of doing the impossible in an impossible situation, of life and death and some excellent time travel logic. And a good bit with Queen Elizabeth the first. Both of her. We know that originally, Steven Moffat approached Christopher Eccleston to be in the show, and he declined. We might not have realised how far along they were with the Ninth Doctor. Andrew Wildman, comic creator, animator, TV producer and storyboard creator, was one of the people who worked on the show, and has released a collection of storyboards that he sells at shows, for The Day Of The Doctor and Nightmare In Silver. I picked up a copy at the Geek Comic Con. In introduction to the former, he tells us:

My run on the show spanned three Christmas Specials and most of Matt 's final season including his 'regeneration'. That was me pretty much done other than the huge privilege of being asked to work – albeit in a small way – on the 50th Anniversary special. There were going to be three Doctors in this one. The current, 11th Doctor and the previous two. Ok, so it didn't quite work out that way in the end as we all know. Contracts are an odd thing and in the end show runner and writer supreme, Steven Moffat, had to come up with something… slightly different. At my time of working on the show however it was the three 'modern age' Doctors and the current assistant, Clara. Nip in and take a peek behind the curtain. You may be a little surprised at what you see.

And I was, as well as scenes we do remember, we also get aspects we don't.

Like Clara popping a wheelie on her run-up to the TARDIS. Then we see the barn on Gallifrey, but instead of the War Doctor played by John Hurt, we get The Ninth Doctor played by Christopher Eccleston. And instead of The Moment played by Billie Piper, we get a young girl…