Twelfth Doctor actor, Peter Capaldi, has implied that he had the option of staying on Doctor Who after then-showrunner, Steven Moffat, left and was replaced by Chris Chibnall.

However, he wasn’t sure its direction suited his incarnation — and of course, a lot of the people he’d been working with were also going.

He reflected:

“I just wasn’t sure that it was going to go in the direction that I… Everybody was leaving that I’d worked with. Everybody was leaving. Jenna [Coleman, aka Clara Oswald] had gone, and Steven [Moffat] was going, and Brian [Minchin], the producer, was going, and those are the people that make it work for you.

“We’d had some talks about the direction. I wasn’t sure that that was where I wanted to go with the show. And I also thought, I’m not sure I could come up with anything new.”

It’s a shame because the premise of Series 10 — with the Doctor as a university professor, guiding Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie) through her studies before also showing her all of time and space — worked brilliantly; Moffat has said elsewhere about how he wished that thread could’ve run for longer.

This is also the first real hint we’ve had that Capaldi’s departure was on his terms. As far as we’d heard otherwise, Chibnall had got the job of showrunner because he wanted to introduce the first female Doctor — who turned out to be played by Jodie Whittaker — but that doesn’t seem entirely the case. (It’s something I’ve personally doubted for a while, in truth.)

Capaldi was fantastic as the Doctor and we miss him. But his era is a great one to revisit; especially now, with the programme out for tender, waiting to be picked up by a new production team.