SPOILERS WARNING
In the 50th special, we see Tom Baker as the curator of the museum, having an odd conversation with Matt Smith at the end, where Baker’s similarity to the Doctor’s earlier incarnation is heavily alluded to.
It’s odd, and I had chalked it up to bad writing for the sake of making some jokes. It didn’t make sense that he would be visiting himself in Baker’s incarnation as an old man, as he never got that old to my knowledge.
But one thing the Curator says is that in the future, the Doctor will be seeing some old, familiar faces.
Then, in Deep Breath, Peter Capaldi implies that he gets his new faces from somewhere. In one sense, it’s to explain the fact that Peter Capaldi has been in Doctor Who before (as well as Torchwood).
But what if it is a way of getting former Doctors to make cameos? If every regeneration gets the appearance from a real, other person, then all the actors portraying the Doctor can come back as that original person, just aged.
Just thinkin’.
Let’s hope so. Moffat has been surprisingly clever with his foreshadowing. One could argue the crack in Amy’s wall is an allusion to the “lines” Clara refers to so many times.
My only complaint is the lack of whimsy with the new Doctor. Eccleston wore it like he wore his leather coat in the relaunch and everyone since has kept it like a Jelly Baby in their pocket, to pull out and throw to the audience as a way to say “it really is just a fun ride” I think that more than anything has kept my kids coming back season after season. Even when it was serious, the Doctor always had a smile on his face and the kids knew that while everything wasn’t going to be alright, at least the sun would come up in the end. You and I can appreciate what they’re trying to do with Doctor in bringing a little more darkness into the character but I hope they don’t lose the newly minted fans in the process.
I wasn’t really sold on the whole first episode until Clara’s phone call at the end, a much better torch passing than we received from Matt in the finale and a much more solid sense of hope than we got out of Peter all episode. Let’s hope the writers really are that good and we have a wild and wonderful ride ahead of us this season.