Farewell, Eleven. We hardly knew ye. After about three years on the job, Matt Smith will be hanging up the bowtie and fez and leave Doctor Who at the end of the year. A press release from Smith said that he would appear in the 50th Anniversary Special and make his final appearance at the helm of the TARDIS in the Christmas Special when The Doctor will regenerate into the Twelfth Doctor.

The BBC announced the news themselves on Saturday night in a press release. It had previously been rumoured in the British press that Smith would be leaving the show at Christmas though all parties involved said that Matt was committed to Season 8 of the show. Apparently, his definition of Season 8 and everyone else’s definition of Season 8 is different.

Smith took over the role of The Doctor in 2010 and lasted three seasons before leaving the iconic role. That’s actually a fairly common number of series for a Doctor to last. William Hartnell (1st), Patrick Troughton (2nd), Peter Davison (5th), Sylvester McCoy (7th) and David Tennant (10th) all lasted three seasons as The Doctor. Only Jon Pertwee (3rd) and Tom Baker (4th) lasted more than three seasons.

Smith’s tenure as The Doctor has been up and down. That’s really not his fault. He’s done a great job of what’s been asked of him over the last three years. The writing has been a mixed bag with some episodes being excellent and others being the type of episodes that you could skip without feeling like you missed anything. Still, at least Moffat’s time as executive producer didn’t turn the classic enemies into jokes like that other fellow’s time did.

What we do know about Doctor Who going forward is that executive producer Steven Moffat was recently re-signed to a contract extension. Jenna-Louise Coleman has confirmed that she’ll be back for next season.