Colin Baker

Colin Baker (born 8 June 1943 ) played the Sixth Doctor from 1984 to 1986, beginning with an appearance at the conclusion of The Caves of Androzani, continuing from The Twin Dilemma to The Ultimate Foe.

He reprised the role for the 1989 stage show The Ultimate Adventure and the 1993 Children in Need special Dimensions in Time, as well as in numerous Doctor Who audio stories from Big Finish Productions.

Prior to becoming the Doctor, he was cast as Commander Maxil in Arc of Infinity and was considered for the roles of Arnold Jellicole in Robot (REF: Doctor Who The Handbook: The Fourth Doctor), Persuasion in Four to Doomsday (REF: TCH 34) and Scobie, Bilton and Sheard in Time-Flight (REF: TCH 35).

Profile
Before being selected to replace Peter Davison as the Doctor, Baker was an established television actor. His most notable role was Paul Merroney in The Brothers. Baker also guest starred as Bayban the Butcher in the Blake's 7 episode City at the Edge of the World.

Baker made his Doctor Who debut as Commander Maxil in Arc of Infinity in 1983. On the strength of that performance, as well as a wedding party at which he impressed producer John Nathan-Turner, he was cast as the Sixth Doctor following Peter Davison's decision to leave the series. His era on Doctor Who began in 1984 and was interrupted by the show's cancellation a year later. After fan backlash, this was reduced to an eighteen-month hiatus, ostensibly because the show was moved from the spring to the autumn schedule. In the interim, Baker voiced the Doctor in the radio drama Slipback.

Following the conclusion of Season 23, Baker was dismissed as the Doctor at the insistence of BBC management, who wanted to refresh the show. The Controller of BBC One at the time, Michael Grade, believed Doctor Who had become outdated, with overly violent, farcial storylines. Baker was asked to return for the first serial of the next season to pave the way for the next Doctor, but he declined, not wishing to miss out on other work in the meantime. He in turn offered to do the whole season and have the Doctor regenerate at the end, but was himself rejected. An interview with The Sun in which he criticized Grade ensured he would never return.

Years later, Baker would express regret for refusing the BBC's request, claiming he was being "selfish" and "not thinking about the fans".

As of 2022, Baker is the only actor to play the Doctor who has been fired by the BBC. Prior to his dismissal, he claimed he would gladly have done the show for as many as eight years.

Post-departure
Baker's post-Who filmography includes guest appearances in BBC series Casualty and Jonathan Creek, Al Murray's sitcom Time Gentlemen Please (as Professor Baker), Channel 4's adaptation of A Dance to the Music of Time, and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. As himself, Baker has been a 'Dictionary Corner' guest on the daytime quiz show Countdown and competed in ITV's reality series I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!.

Doctor Who and Big Finish
Despite the circumstances of his departure from Doctor Who, Baker has remained involved with the franchise. He reprised his role as the Doctor in the play The Ultimate Adventure, replacing Jon Pertwee, and on television in the 1993 charity special Dimensions in Time. In the BBV Productions video series The Stranger, he played the eponymous character, who was similar to the Doctor.

Since 1999, he has acted in audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions, usually as the Doctor. Occasionally, however, he has played alternate versions of the Doctor, such as the Burner Doctor in Disassembled and the Curator in Stranded. In the Gallifrey story Appropriation, he returned to the role of Maxil for the first time since Arc of Infinity.

In 2015, Baker finally acted in a Sixth Doctor regeneration story, the Big Finish anthology The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure. In the commentary included with the release, he remarked this finally put to bed his jest that he had never handed over the role. Baker has waited the longest of the Doctors to perform a regeneration scene, at 28 years since his exit from Doctor Who; only Paul McGann, who regenerated in The Night of the Doctor 17 years after the TV movie, comes close.

Baker has also played himself in the context of Doctor Who. In The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, he, Peter Davison, and Sylvester McCoy attempt to appear in the 50th anniversary special The Day of the Doctor, while in The Sixth Doctor is on trial AGAIN!, a trailer for the The Collection release of Season 23, he is put on trial for an unpaid parking ticket.



In 1994, Baker became the first Doctor to write a Doctor Who story, penning The Age of Chaos, a graphic novel published by Marvel UK featuring the Sixth Doctor and Frobisher. He has since written short stories about the Sixth Doctor for Doctor Who Magazine 's annual Yearbooks, the anthology The Target Storybook, and the first volume of Big Finish's Short Trips. It was not until the release of Tom Baker's Scratchman that another Doctor would be credited for writing published Doctor Who fiction; although Matt Smith is known to have written stories featuring the Doctor in preparation for his role as the Eleventh Doctor, they were never released.



Personal life
Baker was first married to Liza Goddard; the two later divorced. He later remarried and had five children. His son Jack died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in 1983, leading to Baker's support for the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths. His wife and four daughters, including Rosie Baker, played themselves in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.

From 1995 to 2019, Baker wrote a column for the Bucks Free Press called Look Who's Talking. In 2010, Hirst Books published a volume of a hundred of these columns, also called Look Who's Talking. In 2012, they released a second collection of Baker's writing, including his Doctor Who stories, entitled Gallimaufry.

Baker has served as honorary President of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society since Nicholas Courtney's death in 2011.

Colin Baker is of no relation to Tom Baker, who played the Fourth Doctor.

In the DWU
Colin Baker appeared as himself in the webcast The Sixth Doctor is on trial AGAIN!, where he is put on trial for an unpaid parking fine which he received whilst filming new material for Doctor Who Season 23.

Credits
as the Sixth Doctor

Doctor Who

 * The Caves of Androzani
 * The Twin Dilemma
 * Attack of the Cybermen
 * Vengeance on Varos
 * The Mark of the Rani
 * The Two Doctors
 * Timelash
 * Revelation of the Daleks
 * The Mysterious Planet
 * Mindwarp
 * Terror of the Vervoids
 * The Ultimate Foe

Mini-episodes

 * Dimensions in Time

Stage

 * The Ultimate Adventure

Doctor Who

 * Real Time

The Collection

 * The Sixth Doctor is on trial AGAIN! - Colin Baker
 * The Eternal Mystery - The Sixth Doctor (voice) (uncredited)

The Collection

 * A Fix with Sontarans

Other

 * The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot
 * Untitled
 * Famine Appeal

BBC Radio

 * Slipback

Doctor Who Main Range

 * The Sirens of Time
 * Whispers of Terror
 * The Marion Conspiracy
 * The Spectre of Lanyon Moor
 * The Apocalypse Element
 * The Holy Terror
 * Bloodtide
 * Project Twilight
 * The One Doctor
 * ...ish
 * The Sandman
 * Jubilee
 * Doctor Who and the Pirates
 * Project: Lazarus
 * Davros
 * Zagreus
 * The Wormery
 * Arrangements for War
 * Medicinal Purposes
 * The Juggernauts
 * Catch-1782
 * Thicker than Water
 * Pier Pressure
 * The Nowhere Place
 * The Reaping
 * Year of the Pig
 * I.D. / Urgent Calls
 * The Wishing Beast / The Vanity Box
 * 100
 * 100 BC
 * My Own Private Wolfgang
 * Bedtime Story
 * The 100 Days of the Doctor
 * The Condemned
 * Assassin in the Limelight
 * The Doomwood Curse
 * Brotherhood of the Daleks
 * The Raincloud Man
 * Patient Zero
 * Paper Cuts
 * Blue Forgotten Planet
 * City of Spires
 * The Wreck of the Titan
 * Legend of the Cybermen
 * The Crimes of Thomas Brewster
 * The Feast of Axos
 * Industrial Evolution
 * Recorded Time and Other Stories
 * Recorded Time
 * Paradoxicide
 * A Most Excellent Match
 * Question Marks
 * The Curse of Davros
 * The Fourth Wall
 * Wirrn Isle
 * The Acheron Pulse
 * The Wrong Doctors
 * Spaceport Fear
 * The Seeds of War
 * The Space Race
 * Antidote to Oblivion
 * The Brood of Erys
 * Scavenger
 * Breaking Bubbles and Other Stories
 * Breaking Bubbles
 * Of Chaos Time The
 * An Eye for Murder
 * The Curious Incident of the Doctor in the Night-Time
 * The Widow's Assassin
 * Masters of Earth
 * The Rani Elite
 * Last of the Cybermen
 * Criss-Cross
 * Planet of the Rani
 * Shield of the Jötunn
 * Vampire of the Mind
 * Order of the Daleks
 * Absolute Power
 * Quicksilver
 * Vortex Ice / Cortex Fire
 * The Behemoth
 * The Middle
 * Static
 * The Lure of the Nomad
 * Iron Bright
 * Hour of the Cybermen
 * The Hunting Ground
 * Memories of a Tyrant
 * Emissary of the Daleks
 * Harry Houdini's War
 * Blood on Santa's Claw and Other Stories
 * Blood on Santa's Claw
 * The Baby Awakes
 * I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day
 * Brightly Shone The Moon That Night
 * Cry of the Vultriss
 * Scorched Earth
 * The Lovecraft Invasion
 * Plight of the Pimpernel
 * Colony of Fear
 * The End of the Beginning

Special Releases

 * The Ratings War
 * Excelis Rising
 * The Maltese Penguin
 * Real Time
 * Her Final Flight
 * Cryptobiosis
 * Return of the Krotons
 * The Four Doctors
 * Voyage to Venus
 * Voyage to the New World
 * The Light at the End
 * The Worlds of Doctor Who
 * Second Sight
 * Trial of the Valeyard
 * The Legacy of Time
 * Prequel
 * The Avenues of Possibility
 * Collision Course

The Lost Stories

 * The Nightmare Fair
 * Mission to Magnus
 * Leviathan
 * The Hollows of Time
 * Paradise 5
 * Point of Entry
 * The Song of Megaptera
 * The Macros
 * The Guardians of Prophecy
 * Power Play
 * The First Sontarans
 * The Ultimate Evil
 * Mind of the Hodiac

The Sixth Doctor Adventures

 * The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure
 * The End of the Line
 * The Red House
 * Stage Fright
 * The Brink of Death
 * The Sixth Doctor and Peri: Volume One
 * The Headless Ones
 * Like
 * The Vanity Trap
 * Conflict Theory
 * The Eleven
 * One for All
 * Elevation
 * Water Worlds
 * The Rotting Deep
 * The Tides of the Moon
 * Maelstrom

Classic Doctors, New Monsters

 * Judoon in Chains
 * The Carrionite Curse
 * Together in Eclectic Dreams

The Stageplays

 * The Ultimate Adventure

The Tenth Doctor and River Song

 * Expiry Dating

Out of Time

 * Wink

The Companion Chronicles

 * Peri and the Piscon Paradox
 * Beyond the Ultimate Adventure

Short Trips

 * The Wings of a Butterfly
 * The Doctor's Coat
 * Murmurs of Earth
 * To Cut a Blade of Grass

Doctor Who Unbound

 * Dust Devil

The Diary of River Song

 * World Enough and Time
 * The Eye of the Storm

Peladon

 * The Death of Peladon

Jago & Litefoot

 * Chronoclasm
 * Jago in Love
 * Beautiful Things
 * The Lonely Clock
 * The Hourglass Killers
 * Masterpiece
 * Jago and Litefoot Forever

The Lives of Captain Jack

 * Piece of Mind

Target Novelisations

 * Attack of the Cybermen
 * Vengeance on Varos
 * The Twin Dilemma
 * Mindwarp
 * The Two Doctors
 * Timelash

BBC Audio

 * Fortunes of War

Doctor Who Audio Annuals

 * Time Wake

Other Roles

Doctor Who

 * Arc of Infinity - Commander Maxil

Doctor Who Main Range

 * Project: Lazarus - clone of the Sixth Doctor
 * Zagreus - Lord Tepesh

Stranded

 * Crossed Lines - The Curator
 * The Keys of Baker Street - The Curator

Doctor Who Unbound
As The Warrior
 * Genesis
 * Dust Devil
 * Aftershocks
 * The Difference Office

Bernice Summerfield

 * Birthright - Mikhail Vladamir Popov

Gallifrey

 * Appropriation - Commander Maxil (cameo, uncredited)
 * Disassembled - Lord Burner
 * Forever - Commentator Theta Sigma

Comics

 * The Age of Chaos

Brief Encounters

 * A Wee Deoch an ...?
 * The Deal
 * A Tourist Invasion

The Target Storybook

 * Interstitial Insecurity

Short Trips

 * The Wings of a Butterfly