Tom Baker = The TARDIS
On the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who fans got a treat – a short but
meaningful appearance by the all-time favorite Tom Baker. I tend to
believe there’s no “right” answer to who or what the Curator was but my
personal theory is he was the Moment, or should I say, the TARDIS. Let
me explain…
The Moment guided the Doctor from the very beginning of their
encounter. It showed him his own future, tried to cheer him up, broke
the Time Lock on Gallifrey, appeared as the companion who always made
him better and cleverly made sure the current companion, the one who
knows the Doctor best and was born to save him, is around to help him
make the right choice and save him one more time.
The
Moment also gave him hope. Rose/the Moment was glad to see he finally
understood her intentions and found a way to save Gallifrey. And after
completing her quest to save Gallifrey and the Doctor she returned
once
more time as the Curator to tell him he succeeded.The Moment didn’t need to appear as Rose anymore because at this
point the Doctor was already better, already a proper good man. She
mixed up past and future again as she did by showing Hurt’s Doctor the
companion he didn’t met yet, this time showing the Doctor himself, but
the wrong incarnation in the wrong time line. She showed him his dream
can come true: retire, be a curator or anything else he’d like, now he
doesn’t have the responsibility he took as the last Time Lord in
existence. Settling down, be the old man that he is, telling him one day
he’ll stop running and find a home, just what he dreams about.
Again, the Moment had the handy Clara around to assist him, this time
telling her he’s looking for the Doctor, making sure it had a moment
alone (see what I did there?) with him.
But what was the Moment?
Didn’t
Rose remind you of a certain someone, say, Idris? The TARDIS
consciousness trapped inside a human body (Series 6, “The Doctor’s
Wife”). Only this time she wasn’t trapped, she was a projection, maybe
using the Moment’s ancient powers to do it.
Sure, maybe all Time Lord artificial consciousness are as sassy, take
forms of a certain Time Lord’s companions and are DESPERATE to save
him. Or maybe it’s just the same one.
Was it simply the interface of an ancient weapon knowing the Doctor
so well with the help of ancient Time Lord technology, or could it be
the TARDIS, being the one who really knows him, all his lives, the one
who is really inside his head? This wouldn’t be the first time she saved
him pretending to be one of his closest companions. She did it at Let’s
Kill Hitler. Could it be possible that this was, again, the work of the
TARDIS saving her Doctor from his darkest hour?