I believe any actor who takes on the role takes on a promise to the fans to do at least two series. Any less that isn't beyond the actor's control is unfair. Eccleston punished the fans but whatever happened was not our fault.

'No, I don't bathe in the same river twice'

Interesting perspective you have there. Let us know how it works out for you in the real world.

Incidentally, I don't feel punished in the slightest.

Well, it's the responsibility of the production team to secure the talent for the long term with multi-year contracts. It's unreasonable to translate a one-year legal document into a two-year informal promise.

That's disrespectful???

See my previous post.

Nobody was punished. Your 'belief' is frankly ridiculous in the extreme. It wasn't unfair in any way, shape or form. He had a contract, he fulfilled it. He decided not to continue in the role. Simple as. (Not to mention the fact that at the time Chris did Series 1, they had no clue whether there'd even be a second series. Your idea of this 'promise' is total bollocks. Sorry, but it is. Please stop talking out of your backside.)

It is entering Annie Wilkes territory. I'm imagining Dalekbuster523 hobbling Christopher Eccleston and forcing him to perform his multi-Doctor script. They'll be joined by the rotting corpses of Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee (with voices provided by Dalekbuster523) and some clips of Tom Baker from Shada.

And a fireball.

Reckon that's how the fireball trailer came about. When Chris declined to do a second series, they sent fireballs after him cos they were super annoyed that he hadn't fulfilled this Dalekbuster Promise Clause In His Contract.

Of course, its an essential part of any contract as any student of Film and Television Production could tell you.

Hang on, though, why stop at two years? Two years still isn't really enough to get a real handle on a character, to really take it in and enjoy it. Reckon the promise should be a minimum of six years, two specials and a DVD trailer, plus seven minisodes and an appearance on two quiz shows. Yeah, that's much better. Anything less than that would be like a punishment for the fans.

Six years? Lifetime plus post-mortem holographic rights, with personalised birthday visits and individual dedications of Specials as well

I can well imagine Salfordian (and softened Salfordian at that, as CE himself pointed out at the time) is far too working class for the DM.

Woah! Are you guys really going to overlook convention attendance as an essential part of the promise to the fans?

Good call. Phew! That too.

Oh, and a promise to join Big Finish within 20 years of them leaving the role on TV.

Well, it was so obvious, I overlooked it -

What I also neglected to mention was the "Take a Doctor home" initiative, whereby past and present actors are looked after by adoring "proper" fans between filming and convention commitments, much in the same way the class gerbil is.
With the added advantage that if the actor pegs it, you just get a regenerated one and he doesn't even have to look the same.

You need a reality check. We were not punished in the slightest. It's just a television show man.

CE Fulfilled his contract, promoted the programme whilst pre and during transmission. He's completed his job.

At worst you can suggest he was naïve in thinking he could wash himself of the part many years later. He can't. Some fans have a problem with CE on this, and I guess at times CE has a problem with the baggage he carried around now too.

When I heard CE was leaving I was really disappointed as I was enjoying his Doctor. But the moment David Tennant uttered his first few lines I was won over and never looked back.

We're talking about the same poster who insisted that a video showing Christopher Eccleston being nice to fans must, in actual fact, show an imposter. He also insists that 10 seconds of footage Chris shot for an old trailer would be more than enough material to create a blockbuster 9th Doctor movie.

I'm not sure Reality and Dalekbuster523 are on speaking terms.

I think reality likes to play with me because whenever I try to predict reality, the opposite happens.