Another month, one other storm within the Doctor Who fandom as really wild hypothesis in regards to the id of the subsequent Doctor takes maintain. This time, we’ve traded former Doctor himself David Tennant for British performing icon Hugh Grant, in a transfer that the actor himself has already flatly denied. But does it assist… that Hugh Grant can be a former Doctor?

Technically. Grant joined Rowan Atkinson, Richard E. Grant, Jim Broadbent, and Joanna Lumley to play the Doctor within the 1999 charity particular Doctor Who: The Curse of Fatal Death, a 20-minute skit the place, in true comedic model, the Doctor battles the Master (a gloriously camp flip by Jonathan Pryce) and manages to screw issues up so many occasions they find yourself regenerating 5 occasions within the house of that 20 minutes. Well, much more impressively, it’s within the house of half of that—the primary half of Curse is essentially given to Atkinson’s Doctor, as he investigates the Master’s plans on the planet Tersurus and makes lovey-dovey eyes at his companion, Emma, performed by Julia Sawalha.

Oh, and we should always most likely point out that sure, this was written by then-future showrunner, Steven Moffat. Arguably his biggest contribution to Doctor Who canon even earlier than he obtained his palms on the TARDIS full-time, given its foresight.

Grant’s Doctor—making his look about 16 minutes into the particular, and born from Broadbent’s Doctor managing to electrocute himself making an attempt to re-wire a superweapon gifted to the Daleks by the Master—is precisely what you’d anticipate out of a 1999-era Hugh Grant, a right away romantic hearthrob. His first and final act because the Time Lord is to flirt with Emma, solely to be promptly shot by the aforementioned superweapon, which is able to disrupting the Time Lord regeneration course of.

Yes, Grant’s Doctor is supposed to be the last Doctor—simply one other plot level Moffat would revisit two and a bit a long time later!—till the Doctor magically revives from Fatal Death, this time as the primary on-screen feminine Doctor, Joanna Lumley, and Fatal Death ends with the Doctor not eager for Emma, however flirting with the Master.

Alas, bizarre rumors or not, it’s most likely the one time we’re prone to get to see Grant try and be the Doctor, even for less than a couple of minute. But given the present silliness revolving across the very lengthy anticipate Doctor Who’s return—and its impending re-transformation beneath returning showrunner Russell T. Davies—it’s maybe a superb reminder to perhaps not take all issues pertaining to adventures in Time and Space fairly so severely.

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