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The Daily Express is reporting that a BBC mole has told them that Tom Baker will be returning to the series after over twenty-eight years to appear alongside the 11th Doctor Matt Smith.

Tom Baker played the fourth Doctor, from 1974-1981, and is widely considered to be the most popular and iconic of the classic series Doctors, only surpassed in worldwide popularity by David Tennant in recent years.

The BBC has not officially announced this, and even if it’s true are not likely to announce it anytime soon since Smith won’t be taking over the role until 2010.

The reported BBC insiders have said that Baker’s appearance may just be a cameo, possibly alongside former companion Sarah Jane Smith (Liz Sladen), and said that “as it’s Doctor Who, his return all these years on could be explained in all manner of ways.”

Baker has for many years distanced himself from the show through fear of typecasting. He turned down the opportunity to return in 20th anniversary episode The Five Doctors, as well as repeated invitations by Big Finish Productions to appear in their ongoing (and excellent) series of audios featuring new adventures of past Doctors and companions.

However, he recently has said that he would like to appear in the modern Doctor Who series, although not necessarily as the Doctor. In fact, his suggestion was that he should be cast as the Master.

Certainly there are millions of fans who would love to see his return to the show. Personally, the fourth Doctor was my first Doctor. His portrayal of the character was part of the magic that got me completely hooked on Doctor Who by the end of the first episode (part one of his second story, Ark in Space).

While it probably wouldn’t be quite the same considering he’s seventy-five now, it still could be awesome to see him on Doctor Who again, even if only as a cameo, or playing a different part.

If this does happen, it would be interesting if they did some kind of adaptation of the concept from The Dark Dimension — the proposed 30th anniversary special that was never made. In the feature-length story, history would have been changed, creating an alternate timeline where the fourth Doctor had never regenerated and was much older.

As memory serves, it would have ended up with the seventh Doctor (who was the current Doctor at the time) restored as the correct incarnation of the Doctor.  Substitute the eleventh Doctor for the seventh, and the concept could potentially work. One way would be to do this in one of the yearly “Doctor Lite” episodes, like Blink or Turn Left, both of which featured very little of David Tennant. This way, they could feature the fourth Doctor without getting in the way of Matt Smith as the Doctor in his first series.

Guess we’ll have to wait and see.

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