LogFAQs > #913382723

I_Abibde posted...

Related to a point you made above: The Sixth Doctor TV episodes do nothing for me (... and that costume is excrement, if you ask me), but the guy is aces in the Big Finish audio dramas, IMO.

I loved his coat. Partly because I think it just looks cool, but also because it seems something like an alien that doesn't really understand or care about human pop culture WOULD wear. He's a flashy, arrogant, egotistical know-it-all (with an over-inflated sense of his own aesthetic/artistic knowledge). Hes not going to dress to blend in (especially when he spends 80% of his time in space, where Earth clothes NEVER blend it). The Doctor has always been a bit of an attention whore, it makes perfect sense that he'd wear something that pretty much forces you to look.

(Plus, it was the 80s. It actually looked slightly less ridiculous then than it does now.)

The Doctor shouldn't dress like an English cricketeer (Five), or a hipster professor (Ten), or like someone's dad trying to pretend to be cool (Nine). Arguably, he shouldn't even necessarily dress respectably formal (One) or somewhat stylishly Victorian (Three and Eight). He SHOULD look kind of weird, in that "immediately stand out in every possible crowd" sort of way. Two and Four actually hit that note well, since they basically look like intergalactic hobos. You take one look at them and realize you're looking at someone who either doesn't understand basic modern Earth fashion styles, or you're dealing with someone who really just doesn't give a shit.

Though, speaking of the audio dramas, they actually gave him a modified version of his outfit in those (you can see it on some of the CD covers). It's basically a blue, toned-down version of his coat. Which, as Colin Baker has mentioned, is a lot closer to what he actually would have liked to wear in the show, but which he never could because it would have screwed with blue-screen tech at the time (the reason why blue is about the only color you CAN'T see in his TV coat).

If anything, I think that ridiculous sort of outfit fits his version of the character better than what Colin Baker wanted to wear the most when he started - he's mentioned he basically wanted to wear an outfit that was all-black and actually looked more like something you'd expect the Master to wear, and play the character a touch more sinister (which, ironically, you almost get with the Valeyard). Which could have been cool in its own right, but which didn't really fit how he played the character.

I love his interpretation of the character, though. It's easily my favorite (Seven skirts close to what I like, but loses points for other reasons). The only reason Six bothers so many people is because he's not "loveable" enough (too many people by that point had gotten used to the idea of the Doctor as a likeable grandfather or a cool uncle sort of figure, and didn't like the darker aspects - though I'd still take those every single time over the modern trend of seeing the Doctor more as someone to crush over and ship with ~squee!~), and because he had the misfortune of being on the show in the precise moment Michael Grade was trying to murder it, which led to scheduling BS, weaker scripts, and a lot of other problems. Colin Baker never really had the chance to shine that he deserved.

As he himself has mentioned, it's funny that Peter Davison wanted to leave the show after his third season and they tried to badger, cajole, and bribe him into staying... and then Colin Baker openly said he wanted to be on the show for years and beat Tom Baker's record (seven seasons) and they threw him out as soon as possible.


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