Tom Baker To Don The Scarf Once More?
If this is true, the hearts of well over a million Doctor Who fans worldwide are about to beat just a little bit faster.
According to Slice of Scifi, Tom Baker will once again put on his mile-long multicolored scarf to reprise his role as the fourth Doctor in a 50th anniversary episode of the show, teaming up with eleventh Doctor Matt Smith. This is according to “a source close to the show.” Hmmm…
When Baker left the show back in 1981 as the series’ longest-running lead (a record held to this day), he said he wanted to put the part behind him. He was the only living Doctor who didn’t return for the 20th anniversary story, The Five Doctors. However, recently Baker came back to the role in a number of original full-cast audio adventures produced both by the BBC and by Big Finish Audio. The BBC episodes were set in contemporary time, and all co-starred other Doctor Who actors who had worked with Baker.
Is this the truth or is some well-placed hoser just jerking us around? Personally, I wouldn’t put the latter past show runner Steven Moffat – that seems to fit his whimsical public personna. But doing so would pretty much ruin the chances of Baker’s return to celebrate the 50th anniversary, and the BBC has confirmed they, and Steven, have “big plans.”
I hate to say it, but… only time will tell.
Unfortunately, one of the biggest problems of playing THE Time Lord is that the actor ages. While it was interesting to see Peter Davison reprise the Doctor in the “Time Crash” special, it was also a bit painful as Davison showed his age (when the bit was filmed in 2007, Davison was in his mid 50s; when he ended his original run as the Doctor, he was in his early 30s). Now, without (likely) breaking the show’s budget, the show can’t de-age him via CGI. When he left the show, he was in his late 40s and now, he’s in his late 70s. (Perhaps having him appear as some sort of hologram–which could be a CGI effect anyway–might work, but I doubt Baker would be as interested in making an appearance like that.)
Now, I wouldn’t have any problem with him in a guest role, playing someone other than the Doctor (maybe even someone who knew the Doctor from the Tom Baker years) but it’s really been too long for Baker to reprise his Doctor–at least in front of the camera.
Perhaps. But he has said that he would be interested in playing The Fourth Doctor again, but it’d depend on what he’d have to do. He said he’d have to take a look at the script and consider it based on that. And Davison even said that it wasn’t so much the actors being stopped by their age, but rather the producers being stopped of asking the actors. Most of the classic Doctors (Baker, Davison, McCoy, and McGaan.) have said they would very likely return.
Plus, I think you’ll find that Who fans are loyal enough to not care about how much they’ve aged. Plus, they could just find some sort of plot device to explain why they’ve aged. Maybe The Master could return and he uses the Lazarus Screwdriver thing from ‘Sound of Drums’ on some of the Doctors.
There was (if you didn’t blink and miss it) an explanation for Davidson’s age in “Time Crash” – it was an artifact of the TARDIS interacting with itself.
Hey, here’s a clever thought–why not write a story that incorporates Tom’s age instead of ignoring it? Perhaps a story where some strange fluctuation in the Vortex is aging the Doctor and it connects to his past selves–easy CGI to transition 80s Tom Baker Doctor into current Tom Baker age–why is it happening, what can be done, and how do we stop it aging the Eleventh Doctor too?
There was in fact, i am told, a story during Baker’s run as the Fourth Doctor in which he found himself artificially aged.
It has been suggested that any return by Baker to the role be tied to that story – rather like “Trials and Tribble-ations” on DS9.
(Hmmm. Apparently they did a similar shtick on Star Trek: The Three-Hour cruise., but i didn’t know because i didn’t watch that.)