You can’t rewrite history – not one line. But you can erase it! Let’s take a look at some of the most famous Doctor Who deleted scenes…
The Ultimate Foe
The Season 23 finale had quite a lot of deleted scenes – a whole episode’s worth, in fact. These Doctor Who deleted scenes never went before the cameras due to a fallout between the producer John Nathan-Turner and the script editor Eric Saward.
Basically, the original ending to ‘The Ultimate Foe’ was planned by Robert Holmes, but he sadly passed away before he could deliver his script. Saward, therefore, took it upon himself to finish what Holmes started, but during the writing process John Nathan-Turner grew unhappy with the cliffhanger ending. This would have seen the Doctor and his evil alter-ego the Valeyard locked in a battle to the death, leaving his fate uncertain and delivering no definite conclusion to the trial arc.
Ultimately, Saward withdrew his script and quit the production team, making it impossible for this episode to be filmed. John Nathan-Turner, therefore, was forced to bring in writers Pip and Jane Baker to devise their own ending based on a few photographs and Holmes’ previous script.
The Parting of the Ways
The next of our (potential) Doctor Who deleted scenes comes from 2005 – the first series of the relaunched show. Christopher Eccleston was the incumbent Time Lord, but at some point during filming he decided that he wanted to leave after just 13 episodes.
His regeneration, therefore, came quite late in the day, but it’s unclear if he ever filmed an alternate ending to ‘The Parting of the Ways.’ Are there some Doctor Who deleted scenes, somewhere, that show the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler fleeing the Game Station and skipping merrily into the sunset? Or was Series 1 always going to end with Eccleston regenerating into David Tennant?
Tennant has confessed in subsequent interviews that he’s unsure if there was a back-up plan. From what he’s said, it sounds like the show would have ended with a regeneration regardless of whether the series was re-commissioned.
And given how Russell T Davies wrapped things up in 2025 (with Ncuti Gatwa mysteriously regenerating into Billie Piper while the future of the show was uncertain) it’s certainly possible. But there is also a chance that, somewhere, there are some Doctor Who deleted scenes which show the Ninth Doctor surviving the energy of the time vortex and continuing his travels with Rose.
Partners in Crime
The next of our Doctor Who deleted scenes come from the opening episode of Series Four, ‘Partners in Crime.’ Donna‘s father Geoff Noble (played by Howard Attfield) was originally slated to appear, and indeed he did film a number of scenes for the episode.
Sadly, the actor passed away before he could finish filming, and the decision was made to replace his character entirely; the production team felt that it would have been disrespectful to Attfield’s family to recast the character and make them watch an alternate Geoff Noble. Wilfred Mott (Donna’s grandfather) took his place, and Attfield’s absence was later explained by the fact that Geoff Noble had died.
This does mean, though, that there is an alternate version of ‘Partners in Crime’ in existence, featuring Howard Attfield with his telescope.
The Reality War
Our final collection of Doctor Who deleted scenes is the most mysterious of all, as it has never (officially) been confirmed to exist.
According to legend, there is a lengthy and completely different ending to the 2025 episode ‘The Reality War‘ in which the Fifteenth Doctor does not regenerate, and Susan Foreman (his granddaughter) appears. And whilst this may sound like the stuff of fan fiction, there is some compelling evidence that these Doctor Who deleted scenes do indeed exist.
Fans’ suspicions were first roused when Disney+ uploaded an image showing the Time Lord and Belinda partying in ‘The Reality War,’ but this scene wasn’t in the final episode. Were they celebrating their defeat of the Rani, and the restoration of reality?
And then there was Susan Foreman’s surprise (and very random) appearance in ‘The Interstellar Song Contest,’ and her subsequent interview in which she was wearing a very space-age looking costume, suggesting that she had filmed further scenes. There was an expectation that she would appear again in the finale, but the episode came and went with no mention of her.
For a while, these Doctor Who deleted scenes were just a rumour, but in a later interview Carole Ann Ford did admit that there were some significant changes to ‘The Reality War.’
Speaking at a convention in Sydney, she said: “You didn’t see the episode which was to sort of introduce my coming back, where I was holding hands with a… beautiful little tiny black child, three years old… And we were watching my newly-embodied grandfather… watching him have a wonderful time singing and dancing in a party in a shop opposite where we were. And obviously I, my character Susan, was longing to just go there and fling her arms around her grandfather and say, ‘Grandfather, how lovely to see you after all this time and how did you survive your floating about in space… and why have you changed?'”
“Anyway,” she added, “that was unfortunately not to be — for reasons I know and will not disclose.”
Colour us intrigued. Certainly, the rumours surrounding these Doctor Who deleted scenes suggest that there was some uncertainly around Disney’s future involvement, which may have necessitated some reshoots.
And just to add more fuel to the fire, the Doctor’s companion Mel, played by Bonnie Langford, said that the original ending was “quite different to how we had filmed it.” She added: “We’d filmed it the year before, and I had to pop back and do some extra filming, which I couldn’t do with everybody else, which I was really disappointed about…” She also noted that she didn’t have a clue about Billie Piper’s appearance.
It seems certain, then, that these Doctor Who deleted scenes are currently locked away in the Black Archive – but will we ever get to see them? The debate starts here.
In the meantime, tell us – can you think of any other Doctor Who deleted scenes that you would like to see? Let us know in the comments below.
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