Colin Baker Wants to “Rise above” Sixth Doctor Criticism

Christian Cawley is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

As you may have seen, the new Doctor Who Magazine #489 features an interview with sixth incarnation actor Colin Baker, in which he praises Peter Capaldi and bemoans the lack of respect his Doctor receives.

Baker – who we spoke to on the podKast back in 2013 – knows that he has fans. However it is those that (still!) criticise Colin Baker’s time on the show that upset him.

“I know there are some people who rate my Doctor quite highly. It’s just there’s an even greater number of people who don’t rate him at all. And it wounds me. I should be able to rise above it, and pretend I don’t care, but I actually do care.”

I don’t know about you, but having grown up with the Sixth Doctor looming large every Saturday night, his coat of many colours and his collection of interesting spin-off merchandise (from video games to Choose Your Own Adventure-style books) I can’t really get my head around any criticism of Colin. He never put in a bad performance, and had the character – as it was conceived – from the very beginning. Sure, he was a bit grumpy, but the same can be said of all of the Doctors from time to time.

Speaking of which…

“It was drawn to my attention before I noticed it myself, but a lot of people said, ‘Peter Capaldi is just like your Doctor’. I don’t mean to diminish his performance, because I think he’s superb, and he might be appalled to think he was anything like me, and I would quite respect that. But there are certainly similarities of attitude.”

“I wish people could have understood it in the 1980s as much as they do now. [Capaldi’s Doctor] is grumpy and curmudgeonly and intolerant, and gosh – I should be playing it now. I wasn’t old enough when I did it. I can do intolerant!”

Of course, talk had to turn to the satorial differences between the Sixth and the Twelfth Doctors… “[Capaldi’s] costume is less annoying! I love his style, and I love his character – and it’s kind of like mine. Every six, they get it right!”

Read the full interview and much more besides in the superb new issue of Doctor Who Magazine, out now!

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