David Tennant's return to the role of the Doctor for Doctor Who's 60th anniversary draws some interesting comparisons with one of his predecessors - Tom Baker. Both Tom Baker and David Tennant are the most popular and iconic Doctors of their respective eras. After playing the role for seven years between 1974 and 1981, Tom Baker's portrayal became indelibly linked with Doctor Who for decades. Baker's popularity and easily recognizable silhouette meant that during the wilderness period of the show in the 1990s, there were several attempts to bring back both Doctor Who and Tom Baker.
Unlike David Tennant, Tom Baker took a long time to finally return to the show after the Fourth Doctor regenerated in 1981. Tom had appeared as the Doctor in audio dramas for the BBC and Big Finish during the early 2000s, but there was a long gap between his on-screen appearances. Aside from a charity sketch in 1993, Baker didn't return to the show proper until the 50th anniversary in 2013, when he played the Curator, a future incarnation of the Doctor. And yet, between 1981 and 2013, there were multiple attempts to bring back Tom Baker as the Doctor, here's every time it was attempted.
The Five Doctors (1983)
The first attempt to bring back Tom Baker was 1983's feature-length 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors which was set to unite all the surviving Doctors. Tellingly, one of the original drafts for the script put Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor at the center of the plot, traveling to Gallifrey's citadel to unmask his former teacher Borusa as the villain. Meanwhile, the Fifth Doctor and Tegan faced off against the Cybermen and the Master in the Death Zone. It was a strange move to have the incumbent Doctor reduced to being a ing character to Baker's Doctor, but this wouldn't be the last time that an anniversary special attempted to upstage the other Doctors.
Tom Baker had only left the role two years previously, after a final season defined by the enmity between Baker and producer John Nathan-Turner. With JN-T still in the role for the 20th anniversary, it was unlikely that Baker would want to return to that environment so soon after he left. Tom Baker stated that it was too soon for him to return to the role of the Doctor, and declined the opportunity to star in The Five Doctors. The Fourth Doctor was represented in The Five Doctors by footage from the unbroadcast serial Shada and Tom Baker was represented at the special's promotional photo shoot by his waxwork.
The Dark Dimension (1993)
A decade later, and the high-profile celebrations of Doctor Who's 20th anniversary felt like a distant memory. The show had been canceled four years earlier, and the prospect of future Doctor Who episodes was very slim going into the 30th anniversary. BBC Enterprises had learned that Tom Baker was keen to return to the role of the Doctor and began mounting a straight-to-video anniversary movie that would bring the Fourth Doctor back. As with The Five Doctors, the plan was to bring back all five surviving Doctors, but Tom Baker's incarnation took up the majority of the screen time in the draft script, rather than incumbent Doctor, Sylvester McCoy.
The Third Doctor Jon Pertwee and Sixth Doctor Colin Baker voiced their objections to the unfair focus on Tom's Fourth Doctor and this, combined with budgetary issues led to the project eventually folding. After being promised a feature-length multi-Doctor movie, fans had to make do with a charity sketch where the Doctors interacted with the cast of the UK soap opera Eastenders. Tom made a brief appearance at the start, in character as the Fourth Doctor, sending a warning message to his future selves, before gracefully bowing out of the derided story.
The TV Movie (1996)
In 1996, a transatlantic co-production attempted to revive Doctor Who for a 90s audience, introducing the Eighth Doctor in the form of Paul McGann. The original outline for the new series had some very controversial additions to Doctor Who canon, such as the Doctor and Master being brothers and the Doctor's half-human biology. The Doctor's human mother was the only element retained in Matthew Jacobs' script, which he wanted to act as a continuation of the show, rather than a hard reboot. This included the addition of Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor, who would regenerate into the Eighth Doctor in the movie's opening moments.
However, executive producer Jo Wright wanted Tom Baker's Doctor to be the one who handed over the TARDIS keys to the new incarnation. This makes sense given Tom Baker's popularity with American audiences thanks to his Doctor Who era screening on PBS in the 1970s and 80s. Sylvester McCoy had already been offered the chance to return, and executive producer Philip Segal was intent that the McGann movie follow on from the classic series, rather than change Doctor Who canon with the return of Tom Baker
The 2005 Revival
Far from being left to fade into obscurity, there were multiple attempts to bring Doctor Who back to screens in the 1990s. Tom Baker appeared in documentaries about the show and hosted a special night on UK channel BBC2 which celebrated the show. As plans to finally bring the show back were reaching fruition, showrunner Russell T Davies says he was present at a meeting where the concept of bringing back Tom Baker was seriously mentioned. Not wanting to rock the boat, RTD just nodded along with the suggestion, knowing full well that the show had to move forward from its past to be successful once again. It's Davies' forward-thinking and creativity that suggests Doctor Who isn't all that it appears.
The Power Of The Doctor (2022)
At the end of The Power of the Doctor, the BBC finally got their wish to bring back a hugely popular Doctor as the show's lead. However, before Jodie Whittaker's surprise regeneration into David Tennant, audiences were treated to the returns of every surviving classic Doctor bar one - Tom Baker. When Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor was forced to regenerate into the Master, she came face to face with the guardians of the edge, portrayed by Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy, Colin Baker and David Bradley.
The reason that Baker didn't cameo in Power of the Doctor was, according to Chris Chibnall because he was unavailable. This is certainly a very good reason not to take part in filming, but doesn't really answer the question. Over the years, Baker hasn't always been keen to share the limelight with his fellow Doctors, although he was very complimentary of Matt Smith during their time filming Day of the Doctor in 2013. Apparently, it was working with Smith that made Baker's impatience at the lengthy process of filming with 3D cameras more tolerable. Perhaps at the age of 88, and following his experiences on Day of the Doctor, Tom Baker didn't feel like returning to Doctor Who for one more brief outing.