Doctor Who: Is Peter Capaldi Playing The First Doctor?

2. The Curator

So far you may be saying that this is just one fanboy reading too much into things, and you'd be right. But the words of the Curator during the 50th anniversary special is what inspired this theory and gives it some real potential foreshadowing. Eleven looks at him with clear recognition, saying he never forgets a face. The Curator tells him that "in the years to come, you might find yourself revisiting a few." You may wonder if Tom Baker wasn't just wheeled onto set for an afternoon of murmuring obscure lines at Matt Smith that nobody (least of all Moffat) knew the meaning of, and that may be true. But if anyone can use something to retroactively shoehorn in a plot element that wasn't its original intention, it's Steven Moffat. Perhaps the Curator was (or, more accurately, will be) the Doctor's fifteenth incarnation - the fourth of this new regeneration cycle - who lived much longer than his counterpart in the original set and aged accordingly. After he delivers this message to his younger self and saunters off, perhaps he's going back to his TARDIS to regenerate into a fresh-faced Peter Davison. Who knows?