A Doctor a Day, Day Six
Colin Baker
1984-1986
The mid-eighties (as I’m given to understand) was a particularly bleak time in England. The paranoid, doomsday insanity of the Thatcher era led to the creation of Vertigo-style comics and a general sense of nihilism. That kind of self-loathing is the perfect environment for the sixth Doctor, the strange love-child of nerd and punk; i.e. he doesn’t give a damn what you think, so he’s going to wear that jacket; and he’s going to wear that jacket, so you can’t not pay attention to him. If any Doctor would kick you in the nuts (provided you have nuts) while your back was turned, it’s this guy.
I’ve always had a place in my heart for the misfit Doctor, mostly because I tend to side with the unpopular on principle (Don’t be hatin’ on Timothy Dalton, either). And Colin Baker’s tenure is extremely unpopular. The sixth Doctor was disliked more than any other - not just by fans, either. His enemies tried more viciously than ever to destroy him. His own family, the Time Lords, conspired to have him executed. In the Virgin New Adventures novel series published during the dark void of the nineties, he was often used to personify the Doctor’s evil side (it’s even implied that he committed suicide because his good side couldn’t handle him), which I think is a little unnecessary, given that the Doctor already has a physical manifestation of evil (his older self, the Valeyard). And to bring it home, Colin Baker’s the only Doctor who was ever fired. Wouldn’t you be perpetually pissed off? I just wanted to give him a big hug.
As a person, the Doctor was essentially a thirteen-year-old boy: moody, arrogant, violent, awkward, completely unlikeable, overly serious, and fascinated by boobs but repelled by actual sexiness. For all the good he had done and had been continuing to do, it seems to him that the universe has only been getting worse, and he didn’t even know if it was his fault. He needed to do something about it, but didn’t know what. This aimlessness and confusion became frustration in this body, coming across as a kind of bender. Like every other kind of bender, he needed to hit bottom before he could grow up.