Peri. Peri. Peri. Peri |
| The Colin Baker Years 1984 - 1986 |
| The Colin Baker era lasted just two years, and was a much troubled time for the programme with dipping ratings, an 18-month suspension, and eventually a sacked Doctor. The initial ideas for Colin Baker's Doctor were actually quite interesting - after three years of Davison's heroism, the producer decided that he wanted to make the character unpredictable and dangerous again, harking back to the very early days of the programme with Hartnell. Sadly though, this didn't really work and the Sixth Doctor came across more like a brash, arrogant, unlikeable twat. The show actually became a little unpleasant for a while, with Colin Baker's occasionally nasty Doctor encountering cannibals, planets of torture, hands getting blown off and macabre hangings. Whatever happened to the Fish People, eh? Michael Grade, the controller of BBC1, quickly cottoned on to the fact that the show was going down the pan and suspended it for 18 months, hoping that a firebrand new production team might revitalise the show after a long absence. Trouble is, Grade was a bit of a tosser, and simply re-hired the old production team when the show finally did come back, resulting in another lame and unpleasant year, the introduction of Bonnie Bloody Langford and the abrupt but inevitable end for Colin Baker. |
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| Colin's Dolly Birds |
| Monsters And Villains |
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The monsters started to get a bit dodgy during the Colin Baker era. I mean, look at this fucking thing. Look at it! Jesus Christ. We were also introduced to Doctor Who's first villainous Time-Lady, The Rani, but more on her later when we finally run out of pictures of Peri. Finally, there was The Valeyard, originally envisaged to be the Doctor's 13th and final incarnation who had gone over to the dark side. That would have been a brave and innovative move,but they chickened out a bit at the last minute and instead The Valeyard ended up as a very vague "between-regenerations amalgamation of The Doctor's darker side" which was all a bit confusing and lame, especially considering that this revelation was the climax of a story that had dragged on for 14 fucking episodes. |
| Colin Trivia |
Before being cast as the Doctor, Colin Baker had already appeared in the show, and perhaps appropriately, his character had shot down Peter Davison's Doctor! Patrick Troughton returned to the show for the final time before he died, to battle Sontarans alongside the Sixth Doctor. He brought the kilt-wearing Jamie along with him too to help. Shame it wasn't Victoria. Still, she'd have probably gone all saggy by then. During the 18-month suspension, a red hot list of superstar celebrity rockstars got together in a recording studio and came up with Doctor In Distress, a sing-a-long anthem which was designed to climb the hit parade and persuade Michael Grade to change his mind about the suspension. It only reached about 267 in the charts, despite featuring such sizzling talent as the bird out of Dollar, somebody who used to be in Man About The House and one of the guys out of Bucks Fizz. Incredible. |
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| Colin Baker - The Good Things |
| Colin Baker - The Rubbish Things |
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Bonnie Bloody Langford. I mean, seriously, why? The show was already in deep trouble and facing Michael Grade's axe, why did they think that replacing Peri with Bonnie Langford would do the trick? Give me strength. The show was now really mining it's own history and continuity, to the point where whole stories were based around earlier episodes that had been shown once in 1967. Little wonder that the general public were beginning to switch off their tellies in total bewilderment. The sixth Doctor's costume. A clown costume. The Doctor had gone from being bohemian and mysterious to a clown in just a few short years. |
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| It's The End, But.... |
| When asked how many years he intended to carry on playing Doctor Who, Colin Baker famously replied that he couldn't bear the thought of somebody else having played the character for longer than him, and so it would have to be at least eight years to beat Tom Baker. Sadly for him, he became the only actor to effectively be sacked from the role after just two years. Michael Grade still wasn't happy with the show when it returned after it's 18-month absence, and decided that Baker must go. Colin was actually offered the chance to play the role for the first story of the following year, in order for him to regenerate into the new Doctor but he told the BBC to piss off. So it was that at the beginning of the next year of Doctor Who, we kicked off with a very abrupt regeneration which was achieved with the most amazing special effects and technical wizardry. Oh, and Sylvester McCoy wearing a blonde curly wig. |
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| Still, it wasn't all bad news. Look, here's Peri, another great Who companion who carried on the international flavour with her dodgy put-on American accent. Peri was an incredibly well-written and well-rounded character and that's why we all love her. Bonnie Bloody Langford was also introduced during this period, but let us not talk of those dark days in here. |
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