In this special we’ve been looking at either the actor or a show connected to the other Doctors. If we take a moment to look at each of those other Doctor’s from the original series we can see that each was successful and managed to send the show off in a new, revitalising direction.

And then there was Colin Baker. Yes…

Had the actor known the minefield he was walking into when he agreed to take on the part it’s possible that he may have baulked at the risk and decided against it. Knowing a little of what makes Colin Baker tick from seeing interviews with him and meeting the man personally at conventions, I somehow doubt that he would have decided not to give it a go. Considering what happened during his time as the Doctor you would certainly forgive him for not wanting to be associated too closely with it and yet he is without doubt one of its most ardent supporters who doesn’t regret taking the role at all. His one regret is that he wasn’t left to get on with the job in hand and continue the good work of his predecessors. He remarked once that he would’ve like to have beaten Tom Baker’s epic stint; commitment if any was needed. He did his own stunts; ditto. He had a long-term plan to start his Doctor off abrasively and mellow over time, allowing other traits to emerge and constantly evolve his character and surprise the audience; double ditto. And even long after the series was finished he wrote an entire comic book for Marvel Comics featuring his Doctor; if that had happened during his time he may even have written a full script for the series. How much more committed to a role can an actor be?

So, what went wrong? If Colin himself was that committed to the series, where else did the fault lie? Well, if truth be told it is really with four people and four alone, two inside the series and two without. Who was the greatest villain? Well, that depends on how you look at it, but here’s this author’s interpretation of who was the biggest enemy of the sixth Doctor – with no Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans or Time Lords in sight…

First, a short potted history of the sixth Doctor’s adventures – well, as short as possible. He gets off to an unstable part, alienating himself from his companion Peri and the audience in his debut, “The Twin Dilemma” where he foils the plans of the Gastropod leader Mestor to spread his race throughout a star system using the mathematical genius of two kidnapped boys. Recovering by “Attack Of The Cybermen” the Doctor comes face to face with his old enemy the Cyber Controller and the Dalek’s ex-mercenary Lytton. The Cybermen plan to destroy Earth using the returning Haley’s Comet before Earth destroys their original wandering planet of Mondas, due to return shortly to the solar system and the scene of the last adventure for the original Doctor. The Doctor and Peri have aid from the sub-zero living Cryons as well as the reformed Lytton, who is a double agent, but he does not survive and the Doctor is left to wonder how badly he misjudged the man.

In “Vengeance On Varos” the TARDIS forced to travel to the aforementioned planet where the inhabitants are downtrodden miners, living in domes and being force-fed on a diet of video entertainment reminiscent of Big Brother. During this adventure the Doctor faces death by both illusion and sabotage and Peri is nearly transformed into a bird woman. It is only when the Doctor is able to show the miners and their Governor new prosperity through the mineral that he has come in search of for the TARDIS’ systems and outwits the trading representative, the repelant slug-like Sil that he and Peri are able to depart. By way of recompense for her suffering, the Doctor offers to take Peri on a tour of the Great Exhibition, but in “The Mark Of The Rani” they are diverted off-course by the Doctor’s Time Lord nemesis, the Master into the middle of the Luddite riots and a meeting with engineer George Stephenson. However, they are not the only Time Lords on the planet, the Luddite riots being a convenient cover for the exiled biochemist Time Lady, the evil Rani, to experiment on human subjects as a way of finding a way of controlling the populace under her dictatorship on the planet Miasmia Goria. The Doctor proves more than a match for the two of them on this occasion and the two evil time travellers are last seen heading out of control into the future aboard the Rani’s sabotaged TARDIS.

Peri finally gets a chance to relax at the start of the next story, “The Two Doctors”, as the Doctor indulges in a spot of fishing for gumblejack, but it isn’t long before they become involved in a sinister plot by the Sontarans to gain the ability of time-travel – through the second Doctor! They are forced to return to the scene of the crime and find out what has become of him, also finding the second Doctor’s companion Jamie in the process. With the threesome tracking the second Doctor, the Sontarans and the evil alien servitors Shockeye and Chessene to Seville, they only just manage to save the older Doctor from being turned into an Androgum, the same cannibalistic race that Shockeye and Chessene come from. The two pairs of time travellers depart along their own time streams, with the Sixth Doctor and Peri getting caught up in a kontron tunnel, a type of time corridor operating from the planet Karfel and known to its inhabitants as the “Timelash”, the title of the story. Their leader, the borad is provoking a war between them and the Bandrils for no good reason it seems, but any opposition is mercilessly ejected down the Timelash. One such is Vena, but she manages to snatch an important amulet before she is pulled into it. She passes through the TARDIS as the Doctor fights to escape the tunnel and when the TARDIS rematerialises on Karfel it isn’t long before the Doctor is blackmailed into travelling back along the Timelash in the ship to locate her as Peri is kept prisoner. He does so, meeting a young H.G. Wells who is sheltering Vena and they all return to Karfel to find the Borad is not what he appears to be, but an accidentally mutated scientist known to the Doctor from an earlier visit. The Borad’s power is turned against him by the Doctor when he tries to kill him and the Time Lord is also able to avert the war by destroying a Bandril missile with the aid of the TARDIS.

With the rescued Peri, he leaves to pay his last respects to an old friend reportedly interned on the planet of Necros. In “Revelation of the Daleks” it turns out that the scientist’s ‘death’ is not what it seems and was a ruse to ensnare the Doctor and kill him. He survives the attempt, and discovers that the Daleks’ creator, Davros, under the guise of the ‘Great Healer’ is actually using the preserved corpses of the rich and famous interred there as surrogates for a new breed of Daleks. Stengos himself is not dead, but is mutating into a Dalek as discovered on a raid by his daughter. An assassination attempt on Davros is foiled by the scientist, but even with the Doctor on hand, it is actually the Daleks themselves that stop him; Daleks no longer loyal to Davros and a faction which would fight against him in the future.

When the whole of the Tranquil Repose complex is destroyed, the Doctor offers to take Peri away for a ‘proper’ relaxing holiday and it seems is about to say Blackpool – but when we next meet them things have gone off-track. For one, the TARDIS has been taken out of time and space and the Doctor is alone and confused. He emerges into a court populated by high-ranking Time Lords and learns that having renaged on the Presidency he is now on trial for conduct “unbecoming of a Time Lord”. The judge, known as the Inquisitor, instructs the court prosecutor, a black-robed sinister individual known as the Valeyard, to present his evidence, and it is here that we see the adventure of “The Mysterious Planet” (this title is now used for this section of the trial). As events unfold we meet galactic con-men Glitz and Dibber, who have come to the planet of Ravalox looking for some special secrets. The Doctor and Peri are also there, the Doctor’s curiosity having been raised by the fact that the Time Lord’s files indicated that the planet – shown as a forested area – was ravaged by a fireball, clearly not the case. When they come upon the fact that Ravalox is actually a displaced Earth, after finding the remains of Marble Arch tube station, and the underground dwellers of said station along with their protector the robot Drathro, and the pair along with Glitz and Dibber also come to the attention of the Tribe of the Free above ground, necessitating an attack on the underground complex, it seems that things will never be the same again. What is also clear is that from the evidence is that TARDIS has been bugged without the Doctor’s knowledge, that Glitz and Dibber know things they shouldn’t know about Time Lord secrets and that much of the evidence, while damning of the Doctor in part, is also at variance with his own memory of events. He begins to wonder at the real purpose of his trial, a trial where the stakes are upped and he is now fighting for his life.

In the next adventure, know now as “Mindwarp”, things get even more confusing for the Doctor. Events immediately prior to his being taken out of time for the trial are shown, where the Doctor and Peri have travelled to the home planet of Sil, Thoros-Beta, and are captured. The Doctor is subjected to a process for affecting minds by a scientist, Crozier, who is working on a way of transferring the mind of the Mentor’s leader, Kiv, into a new body. The Time Lord becomes much more self-serving, manic and unstable, putting Peri, the warrior king Ycarnos and others in grave danger. It would seem that he is trying to overthrow Sil’s race in favour of the resistance movement, but his actions including interrogating Peri are again at variance with his memory and show the Doctor to have a callous disregard for his companion and other life forms. When she is finally taken to Crozier, the Doctor would seem to have recovered and is on his way to free her when the TARDIS materialises and he is kidnapped by it – or as we have seen the Time Lord’s court. By stopping his rescue attempt, the Time Lords allow the ‘mind swap’ of Kiv and Peri to take place, and after deciding that this cannot be allowed to happen, destroy Kiv – who now inhabits Peri’s body. Her mind is already gone and the Doctor is left numb, but angry. He would have been able to save her had the Time Lords not interfered when they did and is sure the evidence is being manipulated.

He now has the opportunity to present evidence in his defence, culled from the Time Lord’s records as was the Valeyard’s. His submission comes from his own future, with his defence that he improves with age. However, all is not well with the Doctor’s submission depicting the “Terror Of The Vervoids” as it is now known. Essentially the Doctor and new companion Mel are caught up in a ‘whodunnit’ aboard the space liner Hyperion 3, after being summoned there by an investigator known to the Doctor. He supposedly disappears before they arrive, but is masquerading as another passenger. However, the main problem the Doctor and Mel encounter aboard the ship are the plant lifeforms, the Vervoids. Being transported to Earth, they are supposedly a cheap labour force engineered by thremmatologist Professor Lasky and her colleagues. However, the Vervoids have other ideas, and intend to destroy all animal life on Earth. The Doctor is able to destroy them and save the ship, after being directly asked for help by the ship’s commander and in this instance he clearly shows that he was not interferring. However, not all the evidence supports him, and even that which he reviewed before submitting it is being distorted for the court. When he presents the final part of his evidence and is forced to admit that the entire Vervoid race is now no more because of his actions, the Valeyard ups the ante still further and the Doctor now faces the charge of genocide.

The Doctor accuses the Valeyard of distorting the evidence, something which the Keeper of the Matrix, the Time Lord’s databank refutes. In this climax to the “Trial Of A Time Lord” season, now known as “The Ultimate Foe”, things are further confused by the arrival of two ‘expert witnesses’, Glitz and Mel, especially as they have been called to give evidence in favour of the Doctor by his arch-enemy – the Master! What is more, the Master has gained access to the Matrix itself in order to stop a rival from destroying the Doctor. That rival is the Valeyard – or as the Master reveals, the Doctor! Apparently an inbetween incarnation caused during the Doctor’s final regeneration in the future, the Valeyard had struck a deal with the High Council to be given the Doctor’s remaining regenerations on his execution after the trial, a reward for covering their tracks in the barbarity of destroying Earth and shifting it across space to avoid their secrets being rediscovered, secrets which Glitz and Dibber were there to locate. The Valeyard escapes the court, and rushes into the Matrix, and the Doctor heads off in pursuit with Glitz. However, Glitz is actually working with the Master and the pair of them hatch a plot to make off with the missing secrets, the Master wanting to use them to seize control of Gallifrey. They are marooned inside the Master’s TARDIS, present in the Matrix, when the secrets are found to be booby-trapped. The Doctor finally confronts his alter-ego, who has linked a particle disseminator to the screen in the courtroom with the intent of wiping them all out. Mel, who has followed the Doctor into the Matrix, is dispatched by him to get the court cleared while he tries to shut the machinery down. The Doctor manages to reverse the effect, causing an implosion into the Matrix and struggles to escape, doing so in the nick of time. The Inquisitor is able to reveal to him that Peri was not in fact killed; this was one part of the evidence that was fictitious, and she went on to become wife and warrior queen to King Ycarnos. With the trial over and all charges dropped against the Doctor, he and Mel depart in the TARDIS, although he is uncertain about the diet plans she has for him.

The next time we see Mel and the Doctor is when the TARDIS is hijacked by the Rani to the planet Lakertya, but this triggers his next regeneration and as she enters the TARDIS, the sixth Doctor fades away to be replaced by a new, seventh Doctor...

And so to the Gang of Four. In reverse order, and way below the other three in terms of amount of blame we start with the show’s producer, the late John Nathan-Turner. I hesitate to blame him at all because of all the good work he did for the show both before and after, but it was clear by the time he came to casting Colin Baker that his heart was no longer totally in the show. He had been with the series full-time since 1978, firstly as Production Unit Manager and then Producer since 1980. He had seen out Tom Baker, cast Peter Davison as a successful replacement and had four successful seasons under his belt in that capacity, but he felt it was time to move on to other projects; only one previous producer, Barry Letts, had stayed with the show for a longer time at this point and even he had tried to move on after three years. He had raised the public and commercial profile of the series immensely, being responsible for much of the upsurge in overseas sales and especially in America, and had steered the programme out of the doldrums of the latter Tom Baker years through to a popular high once again.

By 1983, when it was clear that a sixth Doctor would be needed, Nathan-Turner had hoped that he would be allowed to move on to other work, even if it meant he would still do the initial casting of the new Doctor as again his predecessor had done with Tom Baker. Colin Baker had impressed him, both in his guest role in the series as Commander Maxil in an earlier Peter Davison story, "Arc Of Infinity", and also with his good humour, wit and intelligence during a party given by one of the show’s staff. The Head of Drama, David Reid, was similarly impressed with the actor when Baker and Nathan-Turner went to see him (especially the former’s cricketing knowledge as he and Reid liked the game a lot). It seemed that the producer would be able to lay the groundwork and move on, comfortable in the knowledge that the show was secure.

However, although it was decided by Nathan-Turner that Baker would be introduced in the last story of the current Peter Davison season and thus have a full story under his belt before it ended, therefore having a new Doctor installed before he went, his plan came to nought as he was asked to stay on. The project on which he was working, an update of the soap opera Compact under the working title of Impact with the original creators Hazel Adair and Peter Ling, was shelved and he was contracted as producer for the first proper season with Baker as the Doctor.

This was not to say that he did not put his all into the series from this point on; Nathan-Turner was as professional as ever and maintained his support right through until the end and produced an good first season for Colin, but it was clear that it could have been a happier time for him at this point with problems besetting him from within and without, mostly from the three people named here with him.

Next up is Jonathan Powell, the replacement for Head of Drama David Reid. As is so often typical of the way things work, especially at the BBC, it was a case of ‘out with the old and in with the new.’ In Powell’s case, it wasn’t so much that he didn’t think the show was still worth making, or even that Baker’s Doctor didn’t measure up to the others. In fact, it was largely his decision that the show returned from its midweek twice-weekly slot under Davison’s tenure to Saturday evenings where it had always been before, something which had to be seen as a vote of confidence.

However, there were strings attached. It would only return in a change of format, extended to forty-five minute episodes – this was mooted by BBC1 Controller, Alan Hart - and therefore cutting the series from 26 to 13 episodes in length. This actually lost the series two full episodes duration (i.e. 50 minutes) over the season and necessitated a change to story structure, which just did not suit the show; only one cliffhanger in this era can be truly said to work and work well. It also lost the programme some much needed budget; it had always been working on a shoestring, but with most BBC programmes having a 5% cut in funding that year, the two episode reduction in funds did not help.

Unlike Reid, Powell also said little about what was being prepared by way of scripts etc. In the past, Reid would give the production office pretty detailed feedback on the current scripts and as head of department could veto anything that was felt to be wrong i.e. too much violence etc. Powell, on the other hand, would still receive them in the same manner, but would often pass them with little or no comment – until the finished article was seen and then he would voice his disapproval, distancing himself from scripts he had already passed and could have vetoed if they were in any way lacking. This was by no way helpful to the production team charged with getting the show on the road.

At the number two spot we have Michael Grade, at that time newly appointed Controller of BBC1.Whereas Powell wasn’t particularly keen on science fiction in general, Grade hated both it and Doctor Who and has gone on record – after leaving the post naturally! – as saying so. He felt science fiction was too expensive to produce for television in competition with the American imports – although at this point in time there was little American imported science fiction to be had, with only V by way of note; most other American shows were in the Knight Rider mould of ‘action adventure with super vehicle’. He also couldn’t understand why the series was still being made at all, feeling that it had had its day years previously.

This antipathy combined with wanting to save money in order to produce Eastenders, the BBC’s first major soap opera for many years – and a major expense - meant that any excuse to drop the show, whether it be because of a lack of warmth for Baker’s initial portrayal of the Doctor, a dip in viewing figures or whatever, would be taken by him as ultimately it was when he cancelled the 1984/5 season in order to help launch Albert Square on an unsuspecting world. If it had not been for press attacks keeping the ‘rested’ series in the public eye – some of which actually orchestrated from without by Nathan-Turner! - and the embarrassment that this no doubt caused people further up the chain of command such as Managing Director Bill Cotton, it is possible that Grade could have kept it off for good as ultimately with other programmes such as Pop Quiz, Ask The Family, Crackerjack and The Hot Shoe Show he did.

But without doubt the biggest villain of the Colin Baker era was script editor Eric Saward. Some of it no doubt was by accident, some was definitely by design and a lot of the problems that Nathan-Turner had were instigated by Saward.

One of the features that the producer has brought in was the policy of inviting ‘names’ to guest in roles in the series. It heightened the profile of the series because of the extra publicity they would attract and in the main most of the casting decisions paid off. There were some that could have been better, but that could have been the same had relative unknowns been used. As early as Saward’s first season as script editor, and in a story written by him (“Earthshock” featuring the return of the Cybermen after some years opposite Peter Davison’s Doctor), comedienne Beryl Reid was cast as a freighter captain. While it does not take much to see that this wasn’t perhaps the best piece of casting in the world, she produces a reasonable performance in something in which she is really out of her depth. However, these sort of casting decisions – which ultimately could be vetoed by Nathan-Turner as producer or David Reid or Jonathan Powell as head of department – were often left unchecked and left to the director and his production staff. Saward felt the use of ‘names’ in the series was a bad move, and obviously objected to the use of at least some of them in stories he’d written himself if not others. This was also true to a degree of both Peter Davison and Colin Baker as the Doctor. While he voiced his disapproval, as script editor casting was not his responsibility.

It was also not his responsibility to promote the show, as that was up to the producer and the actors in the lead roles. Because of the rise in publicity in America, Nathan-Turner would often be over there promoting the series either to stations or at conventions with one or more of his stars Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant there as well. Saward felt that too much time was taken up with promotion and not enough with production, but promotion was part of Nathan-Turner’s job which he did well. Production, once scripts had been commissioned and delivered, was down to the rest of the production team to get ready under the assigned director for each story. If the scripts weren’t ready, it was up to Saward to get them sorted with the writer after discussions with the producer, and while Nathan-Turner was away a fair amount of time he should have been able to do what was necessary. In fact, he has since admitted that a large amount of material was re-written by him during this time, so arguably much of the Colin Baker era, if it wasn’t up to scratch on the writing front, is his fault and his alone.

Because of this rewriting, Saward was also responsible for the increase in violence in the series, and while this wasn’t a problem for Nathan-Turner as such, it did cause him headaches both in the perception of the programme with the public and with bosses Powell and Grade. The programme had always had a varying degree of violence attached to it, but a lot of what Saward was introducing and encouraging was gratuitous – that is not to say perceived gratuitous violence had not featured before because it had. This increase was mainly after what Saward had been able to introduce in his own Dalek story (“Resurrection Of The Daleks” with Peter Davison) and in Davison’s final story (“The Caves Of Androzani”) written by veteran writer Robert Holmes. Although this violence was introduced during Davison’s later stories, it was the Colin Baker era, and therefore Colin Baker per se who came in for the roasting about it.

The script editor had also become great friends with Robert Holmes, admiring the writer for his work and with good reason. Unfortunately, when Robert Holmes fell very ill during writing on the second and ultimately final Baker season, Saward took it personally feeling that possible overwork on his scripts for what would be the writer’s last full story to be made (“The Mysterious Planet”) and the concluding story of the season had affected Holmes’ health. Holmes ultimately was unable to complete the final story and died shortly after submitting the first episode of “The Ultimate Foe”. It was at this point that Saward decided not to continue with the series as his contract was up for renewal and seemed to blame Nathan-Turner for all that was wrong or he perceived as wrong with the series, even going as far to public vilify the producer in an interview with Starburst magazine. This, of course was untrue, as a great deal could be laid at his own door, but with all that had gone on – his disillusionment with decisions he couldn’t control, manipulations from Powell and Grade, and the final blow of losing a dear friend and colleague in Holmes – it is understandable why he left so acrimoniously.

So there you have it, this author’s own assessment of the jury members for the sixth Doctor’s real trial. With these four people therefore governing the series’ future, for good or ill, there was little that Colin Baker would be able to do in order to bring things back on course. If it were a different time and place, and Colin had been in the job for the length of time that Tom Baker had been, he may have been able to impose his views and got a more coherent consensus from all concerned. And then again perhaps not. Actors, in this country, have rarely had that sort of power unlike in America. But in the final analysis, if Colin Baker had been allowed to get on with the job he was hired to do, and mould his Doctor through time, as all the others were allowed to do, maybe – just maybe – the sixth Doctor would be remembered more fondly by the viewing public. Or in many cases, just remembered.

this article copyright PPS / M.Hearn 2003