Christopher Eccleston would return to Doctor Who “like a shot”… but under one condition.

Eccleston, who played the Ninth Doctor for Doctor Who Series 1 back in 2005, was asked about whether he’d come back at the C2E2 2026 expo in Chicago. And he replied:

“Here’s the thing: Doctor Who‘s written for boys. There has never been a female showrunner of Doctor Who. So my dream is this: there was a little girl who was, I don’t know — six, seven, eight — in 2005 when my series went out, and she gets the job, and she asked me back? I’d go back like a shot.”

Quite a nice request, and one that could very much happen. Indeed, something I’d like to see happen. As someone who was properly introduced to Doctor Who in 2005, it’d be lovely to see my generation spearheading the show; after all, a similar thing happened in the past, where fans who grew up with the series “inherited” it — that’s why we’ve had writers like Russell T Davies, Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat, and Paul Cornell working on it.

And speaking of Russell, Eccleston further explained a little of the politics behind Series 1:

“I love being associated [with the show], just don’t like being associated with those people [i.e. Davies, and other people involved in production, namely Jane Tranter, Phil Collinson, and Julie Gardner] and the politics that went on in the first series. The first series was a mess, and it wasn’t to do with me or Billie [Piper, who played Rose Tyler]; it was to do with the people who were supposed to make it, and it was a mess.”

Fair play to Eccleston for being honest, but still acknowledging how much he loves the character of the Doctor.

Aside from that, I’m not sure Doctor Who is written “for boys”; nonetheless, it does have a large male following. More female fans seemed to come into the fold when Rose Tyler debuted though, and the franchise certainly has to address gender imbalances.