The sixth doctor debate

[starsuperion]

Okay fellow brilliant Whovians and Trekkers.. I am just watching for the first time, the Twin dilema.. and I must say, adulation and memories of adolescent drooling over Peri aside, who is to blame for his costume choice? I mean really, it seems as if the director or producer had it in for him from the start. I mean it is almost like they were trying to create a comic book like character akin to the 1960s Batman serials with Adam West.. I mean honestly what a horrible choice of outfit. I just had to stop watching to vent a little.. I mean whats the significance of the cat pin on the lapel? the Broccoli has a history, but the cat pin? And the polka dotted tie with that horrible mismatched jacket?? I mean come on...

And what is with the writers always making him bombastic and lude..near arrogant and tetchy..I always thought colin baker had a sort of regal and yet Tom baker quality about him, like in the Invasion of time, and a bit of the 3rd doctor as well.. But now that I am going down the rabbit hole of the 6th Doctor, I am mortified by the costume choice..It is like a subconscious barrier that makes me somehow shy away from revisiting these episodes.. I am aware there are some stories which are monumental in their implications on the canon of the whoniverse. Like a few and I mean just a few of the 7th doctor serials are worthy in my estimation, but the bombastic and loud off hand mismatched persona of the 6th doctor is off putting and doesn't come across as eccentric, it comes across as bipolar..

Is this Colin's doing, or the forces that were out to get him, or steal his wife.. which was a full on tragedy and just plain wrong.. although it does take two...

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Most of your answers you can find here.
http://sfdebris.com/videos/doctorwho/s21e07.php
SfDebris did a review of Twin Dilemma in 2013

 

[kirk55555]

I've come to realize that I really, really like the 6th Doctor. I like his different personality compared to the other Doctors, and I've even come to accept the costume as a part of his character. He had a rough time when it came to the quality of his stories, and taken on a story by story basis he probably had more bombs than classics, but I would have watched many, many more adventures with him.

As for who was responsible for the way the 6th Doctor acted, I'm betting it wasn't really Colin Baker. I'm sure he could have played a different kind of Doctor, and done it well, but he worked with what he got (including the coat). Then again, outside of him strangling Peri I actually thought The Twin Dilemma was ok, so I'm probably too big a fan of the 6th to be objective. Still, I think he would have done well with better writers, at least with his individual stories. Personality wise I like him, and even his coat just makes him more distinctive/unique, so I don't see any need for those to be changed.

On a related note, can a coat induce Stockholm syndrome? Before I watched the 6th Doctor, and had only seen pics of him, I never thought I'd come to not just tolerate but actually kind of like the coat (that's probably not a correct use of the term Sotckholm syndrome, but I don't care). At this point, I think I'd just be weirded out if I saw the 6th without it.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

Yeah the 6th Doctor is not serviced with many good stories. Most of his stories are horrible.
The only ones I enjoy are:
Ultimate Foe
Terror of the Vervoids
Mindwarp (Brian Blessed is hilarious in this episode)
Attack of the Cybermen
Revelation of the Daleks

Vengeance on Varos i find boring and stale.
The rest of his lot are miserable drek.

 

[Captaindemotion]

I remember liking the 5th Doctor and hoping that he would stay in the role for a long time, that he would be 'my Doctor', as while I was aware of Four, I hadn't seen that much of him. So I was annoyed to hear that he was leaving after a few years and I'm afraid it was hate at first sight when I first saw the official photo release for Six. The costume, the hair...it was awful.

Biased as I may've been, I've tried over the years to get over that initial reaction but I just can't like Six. I don't like how he's written and I don't like how he's played. A better actor may've been able to play an abrasive and obnoxious Doctor and get me to engage with him but I don't think Colin, who seems to be a lovely man, was good enough to do it. I find him hammy and unlikeable in the role and a bad imitation of what went before.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

The sixth Doctor is brilliant on audio. Better written, and allowing Colin Baker to play the part how he would have really wanted. And you don't have to look at the costume. The absolutely greatest triumph of Big Finish is the rehabilitation of the sixth Doctor.

The sixth Doctor comic strips were great too. He may be the only Doctor where the spin-off material is consistently better than the tv version.

 

[Starkers]

I remember liking the 5th Doctor and hoping that he would stay in the role for a long time, that he would be 'my Doctor', as while I was aware of Four, I hadn't seen that much of him. So I was annoyed to hear that he was leaving after a few years and I'm afraid it was hate at first sight when I first saw the official photo release for Six. The costume, the hair...it was awful.

Biased as I may've been, I've tried over the years to get over that initial reaction but I just can't like Six. I don't like how he's written and I don't like how he's played. A better actor may've been able to play an abrasive and obnoxious Doctor and get me to engage with him but I don't think Colin, who seems to be a lovely man, was good enough to do it. I find him hammy and unlikeable in the role and a bad imitation of what went before.

That pretty much sums up how I feel as well, he clearly is the Doctor, but it's like he had all the negative elements of the Doctor turned up to 11. Like you say another actor might(probably would have) been able to pull it off, you only have to look at Paul Darrow who turned a cold, sarcastic, arrogant character into one of the greatest sci-fi characters ever in Blakes 7.

My view of him has softened somewhat in recent years, but he's still in the bottom few of Doctors for me.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

The sixth Doctor is brilliant on audio. Better written, and allowing Colin Baker to play the part how he would have really wanted. And you don't have to look at the costume. The absolutely greatest triumph of Big Finish is the rehabilitation of the sixth Doctor.

I dunno, I think they expanded on the Fifth Doctor, too. But yeah, Sixth comes first in terms of how much better he was realized with them.

 

[Pindar]

Can't say the outfit bothers me, I love the 6th doctor.

The BF audios though are really where he shines.

 

[starsuperion]

Well I think that the most brilliant adventure besides the obvious ones was definitely the two doctors..there was something decidedly different about Colin's acting there, which had a more modern feel to his attitude. Tho killing an enemy did shock me..what I find interesting is the clues spread throughout the series beginning with the three doctors, then the five doctors and on to the two doctors, as to how Patrick troughtons doctor could keep showing up, and usually out of time at the behest of the time lords..

I was intrigued to see him with the sixth, which confirmed my suspicions that the second doctor was secretly being used by the cia for a time..remember him saying to the brigadier in the five doctors, that he wasn't exactly breaking the laws of time but bending them, and then in the two doctors he's on a secret mission with Jaime to halt the time travel experiments on that space station.. that two doctors story is very significant in my view, and also we get to see Colin without that jacket.

Thanks to that episode, it really puts Patrick troughton's doctor as the one who has had the most interactions with his later selves then any of the others..

 

[starsuperion]

Most of your answers you can find here.
http://sfdebris.com/videos/doctorwho/s21e07.php
SfDebris did a review of Twin Dilemma in 2013

thanks for the link on this All star, I will definitely check it out.

 

[The Wormhole]

The Sixth Doctor really is underrated. Colin Baker delivers a great performance, and is one of the better Doctors. Unfortunately, he's saddled with a lot of stories which are, to be honest, crap. I think Trial of a Time Lord and The Two Doctors are the only ones which don't completely suck, IMO. And even then, it's my understanding that I'm one of five people who actually likes The Two Doctors.

As for his infamous costume, the style itself isn't actually bad. I might even go so far as saying it's kind of good. It's the whole multi-colour thing which ruins it.

 

[kirk55555]

Just for the heck of it, I decided to list the 6th Doctor stories I liked.

The Twin Dilemma (it has a lot of problems, but I still think its ok)
Attack of the Cybermen (easily my favorite 6th Doctor story)
The Mark of the Rani
The Two Doctors
The Mysterious Planet
The Ultimate Foe

I didn't like Vengeance on Varos, Timelash, Revelation of the Daleks, Mindwarp or Terror of the Vervoids.

So, of his stories, I like six of them and dislike 5. But, even in the ones I don't like, the Doctor was still enjoyable. I can get not liking him, but personally I think that he's close to being my favorite classic Doctor. I think the 2nd has the potential to match or beat him for that honor, but I need to see more 2nd Doctor stuff first to make that decision.

 

[Nightowl1701]

It was the 80's. Six was just keeping right up with the times.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Yeah, I think there is something to be said for the 1980s point and his attitude was probably reflective of the times too.

 

[Saga]

The sixth Doctor is brilliant on audio. Better written, and allowing Colin Baker to play the part how he would have really wanted. And you don't have to look at the costume. The absolutely greatest triumph of Big Finish is the rehabilitation of the sixth Doctor.

The sixth Doctor comic strips were great too. He may be the only Doctor where the spin-off material is consistently better than the tv version.

agreed. The Sixth is my least favorite tv Doctor. the audios really redeemed him in my eyes though. i've listened to more Sixth Doctor audio adventures than any of the others.

 

[Mr Awe]

I was intrigued to see him with the sixth, which confirmed my suspicions that the second doctor was secretly being used by the cia for a time.

You and a boatload of others had the same suspicion. Hint: Google Season 7b.

Mr Awe

 

[Mr Awe]

I remember watching back in the day when Davison regenerated into Colin Baker. I had no idea that the series was about to tank. I quickly grew to despise the 6th Doctor, and the mostly lousy scripts.

I recently rewatched all of Colin Baker's stories and I have a bit more favorable view. Middling. Not great, but definitely not horrible. The scripts are often still bad. I also noticed that Colin really isn't that great of an actor, which hampered his ability to portray a more nuanced role. Hence, it came off as overly bombastic.

Colin seems like a very nice person, so I definitely give him kudos for that. I haven't heard his BF stories but I'm glad to hear that they've given him a second chance!

Mr Awe

 

[diankra]

FWIW, I think the killer blow was introducing the new Doctor at the season end. It let the writers see it, not realizing he was supposed to be post-regen crazy, so he ended up odd and nasty far longer than planned.
Plus the viewers had nine months of thinking that the new Doctor was always a violent git, unless they remembered the final scenes of Twin, where Colin got to play his Doctor, settled in.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

The Colin Baker DW stories I enjoyed for sure were Attack of the Cybermen, Vengeance on Varos, The Two Doctors (though thats largely because of the crossover aspect of it, not the story itself), The Mysterious Planet and Mindwarp. And generally speaking, I think he's always been on-the-ball, like all Doctors before and after him - very often better than the material he's perfoming it.

Sad thing is, the ratio was higher against him, certainly more in comparison to the rest of the Doctors. TV-wise, of course. And it doesn't help that The Twin Dilemma is one of the absolute worst stories out there, only beaten by Time and the Rani as the worst regeneration story by a smidge.