THE SIXTH DOCTOR

The 1980's was an interesting time for Doctor Who. By 1984, the Television series had been on the air in Great Britain (BBC Television) since November 23rd, 1963. Colin Baker was picked to be The Sixth incarnation of The Time Lord in 1984. Changing the lead was not something that happened often at the time. What I mean by that is most genres may allow you to change characters but not keep the same character played by such a different actor. The character is at the root is basically the same, but the setup begs for everything else to change radically. The show was becoming more violent at this point too. The body count was huge from story to story.Characters were written to be killed off. This tactic served to play with audiences emotions as longer stories and episodes allowed more development. Topics included Child Kidnapping; Body Mutilation; Torture; Assault; Cannibalism; Mutations; Disfigurements; Massive Violence; Intense Scenes of Murder and Body Horror. All this in the first seventeen episodes of The Colin Baker Era. Strangest part is how The Doctor was now resorting to violence instead of trying to find non violent solutions as to reflect his skill; talents and intelligence.

As for The 6th Doctor. He is eccentric and overly maniac. Completely unpredictable. Prone to random acts of kindness to swing into brutal violence stacked with sarcasm. Grieving the loss of a life then making rude jokes about limbs blowing off. Unstable is an understatement.The costume is hard to look at. Producer at the time, John Nathan-Turner, wanted the audience to being to look right at number six and see that he was a stitched together mess. Nothing matches. The costume designer tried desperately to make the outfit at least mesh together with multiple attempts. The one you see was the one she thought would be turned down as an extreme and thus a earlier design be chosen. That did not happened.

Baker would do a total of thirty one television episodes over three seasons. Story wise we are looking at eleven stories broken into multi-parts. Trial of a Time Lord was a fourteen part long story chopped into four chunks. He took over the role from Peter Davison at the tail end of Season 21 aired in 1984.

Season 22 would change from half hour to forty five minute episodes playing once a week instead of twice weekly as previously. Most seasons were somewhere between twenty six to twenty eight episodes. That was halved in season 22 with thirteen being produced. After an eighteen month cancellation, the show came back in 1986, still on Saturdays but back to a half hour slot with now fourteen episodes.

Ratings had become poor due to violence; low production quality; being off air for so long and season 23 appearing to be disjointed. Remeber, season 22 was still okay, but not breaking records. Staying roughly in the six million for each episode which was, again, okay. Season 23, we stated to see 5 million and lower for the rest of the shows run until it ended in 1989. Would return in 2005 and stayed alive in other media in that sixteen year gap.

23rd season did improve with more comedy and less violence but the wounds were there. Sadly, the BBC fired Colin Baker before the 1987 season. Baker was played by Sylvester McCoy, 7th Doctor, for the regeneration as Baker refused to return to film a hand over.

You will notice the list has twelve stories. Trust me when I say there is a great reason for that. The twelfth story on list is 'Real Time'. It was a web animated story shown online in 2002. Canonically takes place after Colin Baker's Television run. Costume was now blue with a different companion. The Audio production studio, 'Big Finish', created this story which shows that stories for each Doctor could be made to fill in gaps and continue story lines left behind by the show.

Speaking 'Big Finish', Baker would get a justified full run of stories as The Sixth Doctor'. We would see him grown into a kinder character still prone to acts of oddity but not maniac as before. As an audio story, the audience would also see Baker get a 'Final' story to lead into The Seventh Doctor era.Colin Baker would return many times for charity events and audio stories where his popularity has grown. I personally liked Colin Baker as Doctor Who. In spite of the eccentricity to the tenth power Baker showed true charisma in my opinion. A bit cartoonish at times with a sense of urgency. Loved his voice and that smile which shows he is The Doctor. So much enthusiasm no matter what ridiculous lines he may have to say.  The costume did him no good.

1. Twin Dilemma (1984: Season 21: episodes 23-26: 22 minutes: 4-parter)

2. Attack of the Cybermen: (1985: Season 22: episodes 1-2: 45 minutes: 2-parter)

3. Vengeance on Varos (1985: Season 22: episodes 3-4: 45 minutes: 2-parter)

4. Mark of the Rani (1985: Season 22: episodes 5-6: 45 minutes: 2-parter)5. The Two Doctors (1985: Season 22: episodes 7-9: 45 minutes: 3-parter)

6. Timelash (1985: Season 22: episodes 10-11: 45 minutes: 2-parter)7. Revelation of the Daleks (1985: Season 22: episodes 12-13: 45 minutes: 2-parter)

8. Trial of A Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet (1986: Season 23: episodes 1-4: 22 minutes: 4 parter)

9. Trial of A Time Lord: Mindwarp (1986: Season 23: episodes 5-8: 22 minutes: 4-parter)

10. Trial of A Time Lord: Terror of the Vervoids (1986: Season 23: episodes 9-12: 45 minutes: 2-parter)

11. Trial of A Time Lord: Ultimate Foe (1986: Season 23: episode 13-14: 2-parter)

12. Real Time (2002: Web series: Approximately 22 minutes: 6-parter)