Who is the Curator in ‘Doctor Who’ and was he just secretly introduced in the 60th anniversary specials?

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Doctor Who: “The Giggle.”

The third and final Doctor Who 60th-anniversary series of special, “The Giggle,” has come and gone, and boy, did it give us Whovians a lot to think about: David Tennant, returning as the fourteenth Doctor didn’t regenerate into Ncuti Gatwa, or Doctor fifteen, at all — Tennant “bi-generated” instead.

Yes, that means as far as we know at this point, there are two Doctors — the Tennant-timeline Doctor, who is seemingly in retirement, and Gatwa’s fifteen, who will keep adventuring, based on the trailer for “The Church on Ruby Road” episode, set to premiere on Christmas Day, 2023.

However, could Russel T. Davies, the returning showrunner, have had something else in mind with the bi-generation twist?

According to a post on Reddit, he did, and it all ties back to the last Doctor Who birthday celebration, the 50th anniversary in 2013, and a mysterious “familiar face” at the end.

Who is the Curator in ‘Doctor Who’?

As Whovians remember, at the end of the show’s 50th-anniversary installment with Matt Smith as the Doctor, he met someone identifying himself as the Curator, played by the beloved fourth-Doctor actor, Tom Baker.

Little else was explained about the character other than he was some far-future version of the Doctor, who had retired. Rather than regenerate into a new body and face, as usual, in the future, the Doctor would revisit, referring to his appearance, “just the old favorites,” the Curator said.

Since the 50th, there’s been no mention of the Curator on the TV show. Meanwhile, he’s shown up elsewhere in audiobooks and the like, but his origins have never fully been explained.

Did Tennant become the Curator?

With the fourteenth and fifteenth Doctor’s timelines now seemingly split and the Tennant-timeline Doctor apparently in retirement, did we witness the genesis of the Curator arc? According to a Reddit post after “The Giggle” aired, the answer’s yes.

The post said, ” … [I]n the Giggle we see that 14 bi-generates. At the end of the episode he’s basically in retirement. And so a thought occurred to me. I thought back to the Curator at the end of the 50th. He has that exchange with Eleven 11: I never forget a face. Curator: I know you don’t, and in the days to come you might find yourself revisting a few, but just the old favorites eh?”

According to the Reddit post, Tennant, the fourteenth Doctor, will eventually regenerate into the Curator and meet the Eleventh at the end of the 50th.

“He’d have all the knowledge of the future to say that with certainty and the knowledge that Gallifrey was truly saved,” the post said.

Could the TARDIS be proof?

It’s too soon to know if Davies intended to show us the origins of the Curator, but as for us, we like the idea, as others did on Reddit.

Some, however, said that the rules of bi-generation were unclear, so a line from Tennant’s fourteenth Doctor to the Curator could not be drawn just yet.

However, we did find one piece of evidence that David Tennant’s “retired” Doctor might become the Curator.

At the end of “The Giggle,” Gatwa replicates the TARDIS so both he and fourteen can have one. In the 2020 Doctor Who audio story, “Lost Property,” the Curator mentions he has a TARDIS, too, and it’s a blue police box, just like the one Tennant keeps in the third 2023 anniversary episode.