Doctor Who – Wirrn Isle

‘Wirrn Isle’

Written by William Gallagher, directed by Nicholas Briggs
Released March 2012
Story 158

“I said it before, the human race is indomitable… it is also the first race to realize that if you boil a frog slowly enough it won’t realize until it is too late.”

In the far future, the planet Earth has survived an encounter with solar radiation, leaving it a desolate blasted heath. The population planned ahead by building a massive ark containing the population preserved in suspension. When they reclaimed their planet, they found that rebuilding their once great civilization was not the only challenge they faced. A threat from the cold depths of space threatens to defeat humanity in its bid for dominance over the nearly inhospitable planet. By frozen Loch Lomond, the Doctor and his companion Flip find a family daring the odds by establishing a house in what could be the most unwelcome place on the planet.

Cut off from the technological wonder that is Nerva City, the Buchman family is attempting to make the best of a bad situation as only a family can, awkwardly. Veronica is bitter and resentful, husband Roger is emotionally distant and secretive and young ‘Toasty’ seems oblivious to the danger. When they welcome the Doctor and Flip to a delightful meal of ‘forage porridge,’ the moods gets grim. Consisting solely of strange green material found on the surrounding ground, forage porridge is not food at all. The Doctor sadly informs them that it is actually Wirrn mucus.

Cue my stomach to seize.

The Doctor and Flip traveled via transmat, that miracle method of getting from point ‘a’ to ‘b’ instantaneously first seen in Brian Hayle’s Seeds of Death. But it has become faulty, with help only accessible across the frozen loch. Flip volunteers to pilot the astro-light formerly belonging to the long deceased Ion. This leaves the Doctor to unravel just what skeletons are rattling around in the Buchman family closet and how deadly it could be.

Call the Orkin guy! It’s Wirrn!

Wirrn Isle is a clever and emotionally engaging story that excels in adventure (Flip playing the brave heroine is a nice touch and given that this is her last story to date, I worried for her safety) and in creepy horror (settlers eating cooked mucus not gross enough? There’s plenty more including the twitching ‘branches’ that Flip spots peeking out from the ice). Both Gallagher and Briggs note that the real strength of this story is the characters who are so well supported by the cast. Without these compelling performances, the story would fall flat due to some dubious decisions.

I am a big fan of the Wirrn and am happy to see them return. Setting the story after the Tom Baker classic Ark in Space is a nice touch as is hearkening back to Sontaran Experiment with the garbled dialect of the astronauts echoes in Sheer Jawn (played by veteran actor and sometime Sontaran Dan Starkey). However, the plot moves from point A to B to C and then back to B and A… which is really odd. Flip flies to a transmat hub to make it to the city with the Doctor and Veronica following on foot. When she arrives at Nerva City, it mainly consists of three characters and some unconvincing background crowd noise. We are meant to believe that while the Buchman family are eating plates of snot and fighting giant insects that the rest of the human race are celebrating a hair-brained Olympics based on half-remembered facts. It was so poor that I waited for the reveal that Nerva City was abandoned and the human race was still in suspension, but no.

The Doctor, Veronica, Roger and Toasty make a last stand in the cabin while Ion attempts to raid the place several times via the transmat with varying results. Despite a strong start, Flip spends much of the second half of Wirrn Isle trying to get back in the action.

In the behind the scenes material Baker notes that he thought the script was hard to follow due to the constant transmatting from place to place. But the real problem is that the characters keep jumping back to where they started, making Nerva City seem barely believable.

The real star for this story, as always, is Colin Baker. He has a knack for making the most absurd and incomprehensible plot sound acceptable. In this instance, he has some intense material to deal with and a great guest cast including the excellent Lisa Greenwood as Flip who has made a big impact on the listening fans of the Big Finish series. I have long held the opinion that the Sixth incarnation of the Doctor is the most brilliant and this story definitely supports that. The Doctor’s rewiring of the transmat system is ingenious and achieved with relatively few resources. Add to this the Doctor’s strong moral ground as he tries to explain that simple xenophobia is not reason enough to kill another living creature and you have one of the best characterizations ever. I know, I stand in a countable minority, but Six is one of the greats.

But the Doctor is not alone! He has Flip Jackson, the youngest companion to date (unless you count the comic strips). The Doctor has had his hands full in the past trying to keep his companions out of trouble, but Flip flat out welcomes it. We finally see this plot idea of Flip’s daredevil persona come to a head here, prompting the Doctor to finally accept that his travels are not just exciting jaunts through time and space but continual taunts with death that cannot go on forever.

The Wirrn and the future Earth are both used to great affect in this story, I just wish that it had more places to go than back to where it started. Even so, I do recommend it for the horror and adventure.

Wirrn Isle can be ordered from The Book Depository with free shipping worldwide by clicking on the link below:

Doctor Who Big Finish – Davros

Davros

Story 048
By Lance Parkin, Directed by Gary Russell
Release date: September 2003
“It’s not his the chair that is keeping him alive… it’s hatred. A hatred so intense that he can never ever die.”

The Doctor has been called in by a pair of investigative reporters. Arnold Baynes and his prize-winning wife Lorraine have discovered something very significant that could provide him with even greater power over the galaxy. Already, Baynes owns and controls much of the colonies and is suspected of using that control to steer society into a consumer base that cannot live without his products. With the newly uncovered find, that power could increase. When it revealed that the ‘find’ is the preserved body of Davros, the Doctor leaps into action, attempting to convince Baynes and his wife that only death and destruction can come of any collaboration with the twisted inventor.

Unfortunately for the Doctor, Lorraine Baynes is a Davros apologist and has written several books stating that he was incorrectly saddled with the responsibility of the Dalek’s actions. She sees Davros only as a genius that could help eliminate hunger and solve several problems facing the general populace, simultaneously making Baynes into a kind of savior, ensuring greater profits.

Unable to convince the Baynes’ that Davros is no good, the Doctor offers his services and agrees to work alongside Davros as an employee. The two of them recognize the other’s talents and somehow put aside their moral differences… for their own reasons. Davros is clearly biding his time, masquerading as the misunderstood victim of society and the Doctor is attempting to appear impartial but is determined to be present when he is proven right and Davros needs to be stopped.

The second in a series of stories centered on the villains of Doctor Who, Davros is an examination of the Dalek’s creator so in-depth and sophisticated that it nearly trumps the outstanding multi-part series ‘I, Davros.’ An expertly executed adventure, ‘Davros’ positions the devious Kaled scientist with the crafty alongside the brilliant Sixth incarnation of the Doctor (played by Colin Baker). Against the other three stories in this ‘series,’ Davros shines as an exemplary installment, utilizing both the Doctor and his nemesis in a new fashion that seems absurd at first (the two of them agreeing to be employed by a rich industrialist) and quickly becomes a statement on the nature of Davros’ tortured psyche.

There are fans who are bored to tears with Davros as he was often shoe-horned into Dalek stories for no real reason (his appearance in Remembrance of the Daleks is almost embarrassing, despite Molloy’s performance) and I can understand that feeling. The Daleks of the 1980’s were forced to share the limelight with Davros and ended up losing a large part of their threat on screen. They became walking guns that could barely make their way along the studio floor while Davros was the real villain of the piece.

Genesis of the Daleks may have introduced viewers to Davros, but he was not fully developed until much later in Revelation of the Daleks when his truly twisted insanity was on full display. JNT must have thought that Davros and the Daleks could not appear on screen without each other, which is short-sighted as Big Finish has proven several times over.

Actor Terry Malloy with Davros head (a replica, of course)

In Parkin’s story, we see Davros through the eyes of revisionist historians, looking to vindicate the scientist from his creations’ crimes. Parkin also allows us a view from the inside of Davros’ mind as he relives his past through excruciating nightmares that become so intense they overlap with his waking reality. Of course the Doctor knows Davros of old and merely waits patiently by the sidelines until he can act, defusing the situation before it goes too far. It’s an unusual position for the Sixth Doctor to place himself in as he is ordinarily an ‘all action man,’ but in this case one can almost imagine him smiling wryly waiting to be say ‘I told you so.’

So sure of himself is Davros that he attempts to bend the Doctor to his line of thinking, stating that he is the closes thing Davros has to a ‘friend.’ Not wishing to appear callous, the Doctor lets it pass, but keeps his distance. Of course the Doctor wishes that he was wrong, that Davros could indeed invent some brilliant new mechanism capable of saving life instead of killing it, but as we learn from his flashbacks, Davros sees this as inevitable and part of nature itself.

In his nightmares, Davros dreams of his time before the creation Daleks with Shan, an assistant inside the domed city. It is Shan’s research into the continuation of the war with the Thals and the possible outcome that leads to Davros’ development of the Dalek project, the preservation of the Kaled race by altering their genetic make-up to live in the hellish post-nuclear landscape that the generations-long war would create.

The intention of Shan’s research was to inform and steer the Kaled council toward saving lives and expose the danger of the war. Davros instead saw it as a road map toward the future. Experimenting on the remaining population produces freakish genetic anomalies, the future of their race, a horrific creature fueled by hatred and fear of the different. Unable to earn Shan’s affection, perhaps because even Davros cannot understand the nature of his love toward her, he ruins his associate, thus eliminating the only chance at a real relationship from occurring in his live.

A self-fulfilled prophecy, Davros is caught in the explosion of a Thal attack and revived as a terrible imitation of life. What is left of his body is kept alive by the same life support system he developed for his Dalek experiments. His vocal cords, sight and limbs are terribly damaged or lost, replicated by devices grafted to his remaining trunk. The scientists offer him the chance to kill himself painlessly, but he refuses. He may appear weak, but the others are the weak ones. Incapable of doing their own dirty work, they are not worthy of survival. Davros is the future. Fueled by hatred and determination, he will survive anything but he will be unable to truly experience the abstract travesty of life left to him. Immortal but not truly alive.

It has been stated by almost anyone able to type that Colin Baker is a king of the audio range but in this case he is just so lordly that one cannot help but be overcome by his ‘presence.’ He’s just so damned good. The sequence in which the Doctor’s built in alarm clock tries to drown out his snoring is hilarious. Outraged that he has somehow been given an implant that will never stop talking (imaging a Fox News feed drilled into your skull), he gouges it out with a screwdriver.

Colin Baker brings some necessary comedy to this somber story, asking Davros to make him tea as he arrives in the workshop and delivering snide jabs at the mutated genius, ‘There’s an old saying in Earth. A Dalek never changes his bumps.” His casual attitude is backed by his unique self-assurance that he can and will stop Davros. Aside from the Third Doctor, this self-belief makes the Sixth Doctor the most formidable of heroes.

Davros is a brilliant glimpse inside the mind of a monster, giving listeners an in-depth exploration of evil, and how someone can turn so terribly cruel and alone that only destruction of all else remains for them. A triumph of the Doctor Who legacy, this is an absolute masterpiece.

Doctor Who – Davros can be ordered directly from Big Finish and from local retailers such as Mike’s Comics.

Doctor Who Big Finish- The Marian Conspiracy

The Marian Conspiracy

Story 06
Written by Jacqueline Rayner
Released March 2000
“Of course an execution is an excellent day out… take the kids, they love it!”

I had initially skipped around the Big Finish series and heard the Apocalypse Element, wondering who this flippant older companion was. Evelyn Smythe of course has a strong fan following amongst fans of the extended ‘Who universe. While I of course have a sweet spot for monster stories, I adore pure historical Doctor Who adventures. From Marco Polo to Reign of Terror and even the late 80’s attempts that inserted science fiction elements. Whereas the BBC Wales Doctor Who series seems unable to understand the point of tales set in established history and use the occasions to include historical figures as celebrity guest-stars. Another point that escapes the Wales team in the regard to historicals is that they are inevitably about the Doctor adhering to the time line and refraining from becoming part of established events or altering what must happen.

Writer Jacqueline Rayner understands what makes an historical adventure work and the Marian Conspiracy excels in providing complicated plots that not only tempt the Doctor to take a part in history but also put him in jeopardy as well. Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor is renowned for his intelligent and worldly manner tempered by an egocentric attitude. On screen this often came off as a bit camp and crass but he has found a new legion of followers in the audio format. New companion Evelyn gives the Sixth Doctor a run for his money by being almost as self-opinionated and sure of herself, spouting a stubborn streak and an indefatigable character. She’s what many call ‘brassy’ and I can certainly see why listeners like her.

The Marian Conspiracy opens with the Doctor discovering that Evelyn Smythe is a walking temporal anomaly. Taking her back to Tudor England, the Doctor seeks an audience with the Queen while Evelyn rubs shoulder with the locals by the pub… where she discovers the date after causing a catastrophic faux pas by raising a glass to ‘good Queen Bess’ long before Queen Elizabeth took the throne.

As the Doctor attempts to find the much-needed answers to the temporal anomaly, he becomes wrapped up in local politics. Placed in an awkward position, the Doctor is very fond of Queen Mary, but cannot support her overzealous mission to burn heretics at the stake. Meanwhile Evelyn introduces hot cocoa to her new friends only to find that they are involved in a dangerous plot. Both soon find that they must tread carefully to maintain the web of time but not too

A straight forward and sensible adventure, the Marian Conspiracy is like a step back in time to the Hartnell era when Doctor Who was as educational as it was entertaining. It’s a thrilling and smart story that appeals to a specific kind of listener, so I can fully understand fans of the monster story dozing off to this one. But for fans of the Smugglers and the Massacre of St. Barthlomew’s Eve, it’s an ideal offering. The quality of the material from the voice acting to script and soundscape (music and background sound effects) wrap the ears in a lush world of history and atmosphere.

Not a thrilling high adventure entry, the Marian Conspiracy is nonetheless a superb story and the beginning of a lovely friendship between the Doctor and Evelyn.

Doctor Who – The Marian Conspiracy can be purchased at local retailers such as Mike’s Comics and online from Big Finish.

Read other Big Finish reviews at the Daily P.O.P. here.

Doctor Who Big Finish- Whispers of Terror

Whispers of Terror

Story 03 Written by Justin Richards

Released: November 1999

“-something grand school of acting (no doubt). Loud. Bombastic… not my sort of thing, really.”

As he was the lead actor during one of its most unfortunate drops in viewing figures, Colin Baker is often regarded as one of the less successful actors to play the Doctor. Following the departure of Peter Davison as the Doctor in 1984, Baker’s entrance was one of violence and vulgar extravagance. After donning decrying the shame he felt regarding his previous incarnation, he donned a tasteless costume and proceeded to attack his companion Peri (whom he had only just sacrificed his life for in the previous adventure). It is understandable that a large portion of fandom shares a kind of revulsion to the Sixth Doctor, but he remains one of the most dynamic and potent versions of the character, as exemplified in adventures such as Whispers of Terror, that match his boundless intellect with a clever mystery.

The Doctor and Peri arrive within The Museum of Aural Antiquities just as a drastic political change. Set during an early stage of their ‘relationship,’ the pair are at odds with each other almost immediately. The Doctor is constantly screaming at Peri while she vainly attempts to get information from him. It’s easy to define this as an abusive relationship but that would forget that the Doctor is a genius of nearly 900 years while his companion is a teenager of privilege possessing nearly no survival skills. It has also been hinted that the Doctor is merely putting on an act and has shown he dearly cares for Peri and holds her safety paramount in his concerns.

Soon after arriving at the museum, the time travelers discover a murder victim. Shortly afterwards, they find a suspicious individual editing audio files. Initially murder suspects, they soon prove themselves to be indefensible in finding the culprit behind the murder and a more sinister grab for power.

Justin Richards’ script is simply stunning. His blend of twisting mysteries, inspired fantastic concepts and extravagant dialog makes Whispers of Terror a rather gripping adventure. An ingenious concept, Whispers of Terror involves a villain/monster fueled with murderous rage and consisting of only sound. The idea is great, but even better is the execution by Big Finish who prove up for the task, providing dizzying aural landscapes of fright that travel from ear to ear with each track.

An excellent adventure in the vein of the 22nd series of Doctor Who, Whispers of Terror is another accomplishment in a long series of comeuppances for Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor. A multi-colored action man with a penchant for verbose dialog and grand drama. A triumph!

Doctor Who – Whispers of Terror can be purchased at local retailers and online from Big Finish.

Read other Big Finish reviews at the Daily P.O.P. here.

Doctor Who Big Finish- The Holy Terror

The Holy Terror

Story 14

Written by Robert Shearman
Released November 2000
Humor in Doctor Who is a tricky thing. When it is over-played, it can come off as pantomime or garishly vulgar or it may be written by someone with a bad sense of comedy. In the case of the Holy Terror, we are given a treat by Rob Shearman (of the 2005 script Dalek), a man who appreciates the double bit of comedy. Throughout Shearman’s story, moments are played for laughs, but always at the expense of another. It’s all beautifully written and crafted with brilliance that in the hands of another writer may have come off as strained or improper in some way.

In the opening sequence, Frobisher is in the bath hunting a holographic fish made by the TARDIS’s computers. The TARDIS revolts at being used in such a way and shuts down all of its systems. The Doctor attempts to explain to Frobisher the deeper threat of violence even when no one is harmed. Allowing the TARDIS to take them where it will, the travelers arrive in a strange world ruled by tradition without reason, ritual without understanding and belief on pain of death.

The TARDIS materializes during the inauguration ceremony of the new God-King, Pepin the Great. But Pepin isn’t feeling especially God-like after his father performed the cardinal blasphemy by dying. Flanked by a bitchy wife with dreams of opulence on one side and a scribe recording his embarrassingly unimpressive thoughts on the other, he scarcely notices his warped step-brother who plots to overthrow the kingdom. In the darkness of the secret catacombs, a secret evil has been crafted that promises to change everything. While the Doctor attempts to unravel the mystery of the strange world, Pepin comes up with the clever idea of naming Frobisher as God. Then things get… complicated.

As I have said in other reviews, the Sixth incarnation of the Doctor got short-changed on screen. His combination of theatrical bravado and heartfelt sincerity made him the most alien of personas, especially after the down-played gentlemanly Fifth incarnation played by Peter Davison. Dressed in an outlandish colorful garb, the Doctor was a brash genius with a strict moral code that often jarred with that if his companions. Actor Colin Baker has stated that he was overjoyed to play the part and planned to break the 7-year record set by Tom Baker before him. Rather unfairly, he was sacked after 2 years but has found a new following thanks to these Big Finish audio adventures.

The companion Frobisher is an odd one, even by Doctor Who standards. Introduced in the Doctor Who comic strip, he is a shape shifting private eye who is disguised as a penguin (simply because the editor and artist were both partial to penguins). Voiced by Robert Jezek, Frobisher is a charismatic companion with a frenetic energy, impish innocence and awkward New York accent. The voice threw me at first, but in time I got used to it and look forward to hearing him again.

Frobisher from the Doctor Who graphic novel-Voyager

One of the aspects that I have enjoyed of the Big Finish audios has been the inventive intelligence with which they are written. The Sixth Doctor in particular is depicted as a genius with keen insight, a deep understanding of technology and unflinching bravery in the face of danger. He often solves the problems that he encounters using inspired actions, but these acts usually place him directly in the path of some deadly threat. Another of the Sixth Doctor’s personality traits that I find unique and enjoyable is his deep emotional sympathy, often expressed in passionate ways. This story gives him many opportunities to express his feelings and it produces a many-faceted face of the character.

The Holy Terror is a wonderfully layered story that has several light and humorous moments that come off as vaudevillian. This comedic angle threw many fans upon first listening, but when the dark and sinister truth beneath the comedy are shown, it becomes clear why so much humor was injected into this one. Without giving away its secrets, Holy Terror is one of the most heartbreaking and terrifying Doctor Who stories I have ever listened to and while I was a bit shaken by this at first, it appeals to me that Shearman wrote such an ambitious story for the Sixth Doctor.

Doctor Who – The Holy Terror can be purchased at local retailers and online from Big Finish.

Additionally, a special box set of action figures is being released in the US next week based on the season 22 story, Revelation of the Daleks.

Pre-order this set at Mikes Comics

Also, fans can finally (?) wear the colorful garb of the Sixth Doctor as a comfy T-shirt:

Buy the 6th Doctor Costume T-Shirt from Forbidden Planet

Surely, a conversation starter…

Read other Big Finish reviews at the Daily P.O.P. here.

Doctor Who – Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant return to Big Finish and Sylvester McCoy plays a tri-logic game

The Sixth Doctor, played by Colin Baker and his companion Peri, played by Nicola Bryant are once again united in a special anthology of audio adventures from Big Finish. This will mark the 150th release (of the main line of titles, there are many others). Baker and Bryant had a special kind of chemistry on the screen as the bombastic eccentric Doctor and the young American companion Peri.

The actors have appeared on and off screen since they left the airwaves in 1985, continuing their collaboration. Their latest Doctor Who adventure promises to be something very special.

Via TardisNewsroom:

August 2011 sees the release of the 150th Doctor Who main range title, Recorded Time and Other Stories. This two-disc anthology stars Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant, and its four stories are written by writers new to the range…

“Three of the four Recorded Time stories made it to the final 12 of last year’s Writers’ Opportunity,” says script editor Alan Barnes. “The story that we picked to go into production – Rick Briggs’ The Entropy Composition – won out because it fitted best with the stories we’d already commissioned for the Demons of Red Lodge anthology release. But it broke my heart to lose some of those final 12, so I was determined to give my personal favourites a second chance!

“They’re a terrific mix of styles: Catherine Harvey’s Recorded Time – the title track, if you like! – is a surreal excursion into the court of Henry VIII, with a decidedly tragic edge; Matt Fitton’s A Most Excellent Match takes us into the world of Jane Austen (among others); and Philip Lawrence’s Question Marks is a real-time thriller set in a stricken vessel… but to say more would spoil it!”

The only episode not by a new writer is Paradoxicide by Richard Dinnick, in which the Doctor and Peri investigate a message from the legendary planet Sendos.

Director Ken Bentley has assembled a lovely guest cast which includes Raquel Cassidy (Party Animals, Lead Balloon, Doctor Who: The Judgement of Isskar), Joan Walker (Doctor Who: The Magic Moustrap) and Paul Shearer (The Fast Show).

The second news piece for this blog entry involves the Reeltime production ‘Downtime’ directed by Christopher Barry and written by Marc Platt (Ghostlight). This was created during the ‘Wilderness Years’ between the end of the classic Doctor Who series and the return of the program in the 1996 TV Movie starring Paul McGann. The Reeltime productions are superb films that included several actors from the classic program and several gifted creators who would become part of the BBC Wales revival.

Downtime- 1995

Downtime starred the late Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Lis Sladen as Sarh Jane Smith, Jack Watling as Professor Travers, Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield and K-9 voice actor John Leeson as Anthony, the DJ.

As some readers may recall, Downtime producer Ian Levine has been working with Seventh Doctor actor Sylvester McCoy in creating new material to be included in a DVD release of Downtime. Today, Shadowlocked released a new exclusive image of McCoy filming a scene. The scene looks very similar to one from the William Hartnell adventure Celestial Toymaker (starring the late Michael Gough) in which the Doctor was ensnared in a dimensional trap and forced to play a tri-logic game while his companions performed a deadly array of absurd tasks.

I’m very excited about this new Doctor Who project and hope that more information will trickle in.

Via Shadowlocked:

Sylvester McCoy films a scene for Downtime

Here’s a bit of fun to warm the hearts of Doctor Who fans. Having read last week’s interview with Sylvester McCoy, Rob Ritchie was kind enough to send us this pic of the great man recreating his most famous role (at least until the first Hobbit movie comes out) for a new imagining of the 1995 straight-to-video release Downtime…

Original director Christopher Barry could not include The Doctor as a character for the original release due to rights issues, but this seems to be getting remedied now for a revised version of the tale, which featured the late Nicholas Courtney as The Brig, Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith and Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield.

We’re assured by Sylvester McCoy that the rather scruffy-looking table in the picture will end up CGI’d into the TARDIS centre console, with suitable background dropped into where the green screen currently is.

Chris tells us that the new inclusion of The Doctor in Downtime is accompanied by a new villain called Padmasambavah, played by Steven O’Donnell, who many UK viewers may remember as ‘Spudgun’ from the Rik Mayall/Adrian Edmonson 1990s comedy Bottom (his sidekick in that show, Christopher Ryan, is an old hand at Doctor Who, having played Lord Kiv in the Colin Baker adventure Mindwarp and also the Sontaran Commander Staal in the David Tennant story The Sontaran Stratagem, and a different Sontaran in the Matt Smith outing The Big Bang).

The re-booted version of Downtime is being handled by producer Ian Levine.

Doctor Who Colin Baker (1984-86)

The most controversial era of the Classic Doctor Who Series (1984-1986) has fallen on the shoulders of producer John Nathan Turner and actor Colin Baker. Much like his predecessor, Peter Davison, Colin had a history of television acting, something that was a new facet to the program compared to its previous connection to RADA – style drama.

Rather than relying on the more subtle attitudes of situation drama acting, Colin Baker’s acting style went the other way into a boisterous and ‘larger than life’ line delivery. Whether you like Doctor #6 or not, you could never call him quiet or subdued.

In contrast to the previous somber and refined science fiction series of stories ranging from the intellectual Kinda to the historical dramas like Black Orchid, the new era introduced hyper-violent and absurd material such as Vengeance on Varos and Timelash.

Many eras of Doctor Who can be directly tied into the period they were filmed in. For instance, the optimism of the early 1980’s can be seen embraced by the Peter Davison era. That same optimism became darkened by economic recession and a growing level of violence in entertainment in the mid 1980’s which was reflected in Davison‘s final season as the Doctor.

This darker edge to the series can be seen in almost every episode of Doctor Who’s Season 21 and it extended into Colin Baker‘s character and the adventures that Doctor #6 went on with his companion Peri, who seemed to be unsettled by both the Doctor and the mad and dangerous universe they explored.

Colin Baker has often been quoted as wanting to introduce more alien traits into the character, giving the Doctor back the strangeness and eccentricities that had been so prominent during the William Hartnell and Tom Baker eras.

The Doctor‘s sense of morality and existential proportion is so skewed that he would saunter through a hallway full of bodies like it was nothing but grieve over the death of a butterfly. I have to applaud the intent of this take on the Doctor as it portrays what it means to ‘walk throughout eternity’ or experience time in a completely different way to us humans. Nevertheless, it was jarring to the audience who had become comfortable with a more human version of the Doctor in Peter Davison.

Doctor Who ‘Who’s Who’ Peter Davison to Colin Baker

Doctor Who ‘Who’s Who’ Colin Baker – taking on the part

After playing the Doctor for a short two years on screen including a radio drama and a stage play (switching parts with Jon Pertwee), Colin Baker took the brunt of the blame for Doctor Who‘s steady decline in viewing figures and was fired. He has since become one of the loudest and proudest supporters of the program and continues to appear at conventions and support the new series with current Doctor #10, David Tennant.

Colin Baker on Top Gear

After his time on the program, Colin Baker and co-star Nicola Bryant continued to work together on a series of video by Reeltime Pictures entitled ‘The Stranger.’ Many fans feel that the Stranger adventures offer a much clearer idea of what kind of character Colin was trying to develop on Doctor Who. The Stranger videos are very similar in some ways to Doctor Who and portray an odd and weirdly fantastic type of science fiction that Doctor Who is known for. Other Doctor Who actors, such as Sophie Aldred and Terry Malloy also worked on the series which can be purchased here.

Much like his colorful costume, Colin Baker’s Doctor polarized viewers and fans alike. Many supported and accepted the new take on the gentleman Time Lord, while others continue to cry that he is not the Doctor they wanted to see. As I’ve said many times, this variety is part of the appeal of the program. You never know what you’re going to get, but Doctor Who rarely remains constant for long.

Looking at the change of direction that arrived in 1984 when the Doctor regenerated out of the dashing cricketer and into the multi-colored action man, I have to wonder what we Doctor Who fans have in store for us as we prepare for the transition into yet another new face of the Doctor.