Sixth Doctor
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| The Doctor | |
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| The Sixth Doctor | |
| Portrayed by | Colin Baker |
| Tenure | 1984–1986 |
| First appearance | The Caves of Androzani |
| Last appearance | The Trial of a Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe Time and the Rani (played by Sylvester McCoy) |
| Number of series | 3 |
| Appearances | 11 stories (31 episodes) |
| Companions | on television: Peri Brown and Melanie Bush in spin-offs: Angela Jennings, Grant Markham, Frobisher and Evelyn Smythe |
| Related Articles | |
| Preceding | Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) |
| Succeeding | Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) |
| Series | Seasons 21 to 23 |
The Sixth Doctor is the name given to the sixth incarnation of the Doctor seen on screen in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by actor Colin Baker, and briefly by Sylvester McCoy during the Sixth Doctor's regeneration into the Seventh.
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[edit] Overview
The Sixth's Doctor's brightly coloured, mismatched clothes and brash personality set him apart from all his previous incarnations. The Sixth Doctor appeared in three seasons; however, in Season 21 he appeared only in the final episode of The Caves of Androzani which featured the regeneration from the Fifth Doctor and thereafter in the following serial The Twin Dilemma to end that season. The Sixth Doctor's era is noted for the decision of BBC controller Michael Grade to put the series on an 18-month hiatus.
He also appeared in the special Dimensions in Time. There are also novels and audio plays featuring the Sixth Doctor.
[edit] Biography
The Sixth Doctor's regeneration was initially unstable, and he nearly strangled Peri before he came to his senses. He encountered many old foes including the Master, Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarans, and even shared an adventure with his own second incarnation. Later, the Doctor was put on trial for the second time by his own race, the Time Lords. The prosecutor at that trial, the Valeyard, turned out to be a possible future, and evil, incarnation of the Doctor himself. The events of the trial tangled the Doctor's timeline slightly, as he left in the company of Mel, whom he technically had not yet met.
When the TARDIS was attacked by his old enemy the Rani, the Sixth Doctor was somehow injured and regenerated into the Seventh Doctor; the exact cause of the regeneration, however, has never been revealed on-screen.
The Sixth Doctor is the first incarnation of the Doctor for which a canonically-supported estimate can be made as to the length of his tenure. In Revelation of the Daleks, he states that he is 900 years old; in Time and the Rani, the Seventh Doctor, having regenerated from the Sixth only hours earlier, states that his exact age is 953, indicating (presuming the Sixth Doctor gave his real age earlier) that 53 years had passed (for the Doctor) between Revelation of the Daleks and his regeneration (the exact length of time between The Twin Dilemma and Revelation of the Daleks, however, is not indicated in canon). Given the convoluted circumstances surrounding Trial of a Time-Lord, a suitable gap does exist for this. When the series returned in 2005, however, the Ninth Doctor also claimed an age of 900 years, seemingly contradicting the earlier claim by the Seventh Doctor.
[edit] Personality
The Sixth Doctor was an unpredictable egotist, whose garish, multicoloured attire reflected his volatile personality. However, not only did his melodramatic arrogance and caustic wit eventually subside, it actually hid the fact that he had a strong moral sense and a heart of gold (glimpsed in Revelation of the Daleks, in which he shows great compassion to a dying mutant).
While the Sixth Doctor's use of violence and his abrasive relationship with Peri were both often criticised by fans, the violence was largely in self-defence, and his relationship with Peri had mellowed when the programme returned from hiatus for Season 23's The Trial of a Time Lord.
The events surrounding the production of Doctor Who in the mid-1980s caused the Sixth Doctor's tenure to be cut short, and for a long time Colin Baker bore the brunt of the blame as the "unlikeable" Doctor. However, the Sixth Doctor's return in the Big Finish Productions audio plays, voiced by Baker, have gone some way to changing this impression, with the Sixth Doctor appearing to be a somewhat calmer, wittier and altogether happier character (attributed in-story to the influence of companion Evelyn Smythe). In a 2001 poll in Doctor Who Magazine, Baker was voted the "greatest Doctor" of the audio plays.
[edit] Story style
Season 22 attracted some criticism for violent content. Ironically, torture for entertainment was explored as a theme in the story Vengeance on Varos. After the 18-month hiatus, Season 23 featured a reduction of episodes produced, and the 14 episode long serial The Trial of a Time Lord was felt by some fans to reflect the fact that the series itself was "on trial" at this time. (See History of Doctor Who for more details).
[edit] Other appearances
- A Fix with Sontarans (A segment of the children's television programme Jim'll Fix It)
- Dimensions in Time
- videoGaiden
[edit] Novels
[edit] Target Books Missing Episodes
- The Nightmare Fair by Graham Williams
- The Ultimate Evil by Wally K. Daly
- Mission to Magnus by Philip Martin
[edit] Virgin Missing Adventures
- State of Change by Christopher Bulis
- Time of Your Life by Steve Lyons
- Millennial Rites by Craig Hinton
- Killing Ground by Steve Lyons
- Burning Heart by Dave Stone
[edit] Past Doctor Adventures
- Business Unusual by Gary Russell
- Mission: Impractical by David A. McIntee
- Players by Terrance Dicks
- Grave Matter by Justin Richards
- The Quantum Archangel by Craig Hinton
- The Shadow in the Glass by Justin Richards and Stephen Cole
- Instruments of Darkness by Gary Russell
- Palace of the Red Sun by Christopher Bulis
- Blue Box by Kate Orman
- Synthespians™ by Craig Hinton
- Spiral Scratch by Gary Russell
[edit] Eighth Doctor Adventures
- The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks
[edit] Telos Doctor Who novellas
[edit] Comics
[edit] Doctor Who Magazine
- The Shape-Shifter
- Voyager
- Polly the Glot
- Once upon a Time Lord
- War-Game
- Fun-House
- Kane's Story / Abel's Story / Warriors' Story / Frobisher's Story
- Exodus / Revelation / Genesis
- Nature of the Beast
- Time Bomb
- Salad Daze
- Changes
- Profit of Doom
- The Gift
- World Shapers
- Emperor of the Daleks
- Up Above the Gods
[edit] Classic Comic Special
- The Age of Chaos
[edit] Audio dramas
[edit] Note
↑ According to the BBC Books Past Doctor Adventures novel Spiral Scratch by Gary Russell, the Sixth Doctor was already dying and/or on the verge of regenerating before the Rani captured the TARDIS. The canonicity of the Doctor Who novels is uncertain.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Sixth Doctor on the BBC's Doctor Who website
- Sixth Doctor's first season theme music
- Trial of a Time Lord theme music
- Sixth Doctor first title sequence
- Sixth Doctor second title sequence
- Alan Kistler's Profile on the Sixth Doctor
- Sixth Doctor and Colin Baker fansite
| The Doctors |
|---|
| First Doctor (William Hartnell) | Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) |
| Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) | Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) |
| Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) | Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) |
| Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) | Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann) |
| Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) | Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) |
| Other Doctors |
| Cushing Doctor (Peter Cushing) | Shalka Doctor (Richard E. Grant) |
| Companions of the Sixth Doctor | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ←Season 21 | Season 22 | Season 23 | ||||||||
| 137 | 138 | 139 | 140 | 141 | 142 | 143 | 144 | 145 | 146 | 147 |
| ←Peri | Melanie→ | |||||||||
