On 30 March, four days after the episode was originally broadcast in the UK, the BBC announced that another full series had been commissioned. On the same day, the BBC released a statement, apparently from Eccleston, saying that he would be leaving the role at Christmas, for fear of being typecast. The BBC later revealed this was not an official statement from Eccleston, whom they had failed to contact before responding to press questions after the story broke. Eccleston later said, "They handled it very badly, but they issued an apology and I dropped it" in a 2010 interview. After it was announced that Eccleston was leaving the BBC said that they were in talks with David Tennant to take over the role and he became the bookmakers' favourite, with odds at 1/10 and William Hill refusing to take any more bets on who would be cast as the new Doctor. A BBC spokesman said that they had "hoped, rather than expected" that Eccleston would continue in the role.