15 Shocking Doctor Who Plot Twists That Nobody Saw Coming

3. Meeting The Curator

Many Doctor Who fans were somewhat perturbed - to put it lightly - when it transpired that no classic Doctors would be included in the show's 50th anniversary special. Even the Classic Doctors themselves were peeved off and they responded by getting together to launch The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot (which is fantastic, by the way, if you haven't seen it). As it turns out, though, Steven Moffat had an almighty trick up his sleeve (when doesn't he?) when Tom Baker made an unannounced return to our screens at the end of the landmark feature-length episode The Day of the Doctor. He wasn't back as the Fourth Doctor, of course, which would have been pushing the realms of timey-wimey to the extreme even by the Grand Moff's outlandish standards. In fact, he found an original way of including the iconic incarnation - arguably the most iconic - in the festivities by introducing him as the Curator of the National Gallery. To cut a long story short (though it was purposefully not fully explained anyway), it was generally suggested that the Doctor will one day retire from his role as the universe's chief defender in order to revisit some of his old favourite faces as he protects the 'Gallifrey Falls No More' painting which is actually the Doctor's home planet in a pocket universe. Only in Doctor Who, eh? It was a heartwarming moment and one that took every Doctor Who fan across the land by surprise - not only the new generation of them for whom it was the first time they were seeing Tom Baker on screen, but for the legion of his devoted followers who had grown up during his spectacular and celebrated TARDIS tenure. A special moment indeed.