The comparison has been made before, but after watching “Time Enough and Again” and “The Doctor Falls” I saw even more similarities between Peter Capaldi’s twelfth Doctor and Colin Baker’s sixth Doctor.
In fact, I’ve been in the room when Colin Baker himself has compared his Doctor with Peter Capaldi’s. At first, I disagreed with him but the more I’ve looked at the two, the more I’ve realized he’s right.
And, when the dust settles, I wonder if Capaldi will join Colin Baker at the bottom of the list on favorite Doctor rankings.
Let me preface this by saying that I wholeheartedly disagree with the general hatred of Colin Baker’s Doctor. In fact, he’s in my top three favorite Doctors. And while I have more than a few issues and reservations with how the twelfth Doctor has been portrayed thus far (and pending some serious Big Finish magic remains at the bottom of my list), Peter Capaldi himself has been fantastic.
That being said, let me compare the two Doctors.
Poor Characterization
Peter Davison was a beloved Doctor, and a quieter Doctor (especially coming on the heels of Tom Baker).
As he regenerates in Caves of Andrizoni we are introduced to a loud, crass, rude, brash Colin Baker (whose Doctor may have been a bit colorblind but that’s neither here nor there).
One problem was that he immediately dismissed Davison–and also assaulted Peri. That quickly earned him the enmity of the fans and he never was given the chance to redeem himself.
The general public wasn’t ready for that kind of Doctor–and that kind of character arc, as he bccomes the Doctor–and as a result, Colin is consistently rated as one of the worst Doctors.
Which truly isn’t fair to him.
Fast forward a few decades to Matt Smith, another beloved Doctor though quiet isn’t quiet a word I’d used to describe him–but he is another innocent Doctor. He regenerates into Peter Capaldi who is a much harsher, dangerous Doctor.
Through the twelfth Doctor’s three seasons, he is never given consistent characterization. When the writers attempted to give him one, it flip-flops back and forth between different versions of the character–despite Capaldi’s best attempts to try and make it appear as consistent as possible.
Out of Character Moments
Yes, I am well aware of the infamous moment in The Twin Dilemma where the sixth Doctor strangles Peri. It is extremely out of character for the Doctor, and it made people discount Colin Baker before he had a chance to do much of anything.
Peter Capaldi’s Doctor was similiarly out of character, but never recovered into a stable, Doctor-ish characterization.
Let’s look at “Hell Bent.” He guns down another Time Lord in cold blood. He dismisses regeneration as a cold, despite the series always showing regeneration as something much more traumatic, even at the best of times. (Even Romana’s more regeneration was more serious that a “cold.”)
“Smile” is a recent example. After centuries, if not millennia, defending Earth and the human race, he sides with emoji bots who showed no sign of possessing sentience until he declared they were? Then deletes their memory, something the new series has definitively stated as an outright evil?
And so on, from his relationship with the Master, to his co-dependent relationship with Clara, and so on, and so on, and so on, the twelfth Doctor has been out of character wth not only what came before–but with what happened within the same series, or within the same episode.
I have a couple of questions for all of you who say you hate the sixth Doctor. Have you actually watched any of his serials? Have you listened to his Big Finish audios? I’ve made it no secret that one of my absolute favorite Doctor Who adventures is a sixth Doctor Big Finish Audio.
Why is the Sixth Doctor Hated?
James Bojaciuk and I did a bonus episode of The Raconteur Roundtable where we discussed the first half of Series 10 quite in-depth. James tells me, at one point, that the official Doctor Who Tumblr told people not to bother with classic Doctor Who.
There is one thing that will save Peter Capaldi’s twelfth Doctor from landing in the same spot as Colin Baker’s sixth Doctor.
I asked the Nexus’ Doctor Who team why people hated the sixth Doctor. I came into loving him at an odd angle. I’d listened to several of his audios and fallen in love with him and his work at Big Finish before I saw my first Sixth Doctor televised serial. I can’t hate his serials because I can see the Doctor he would turn into. Looking solely at his televised serials, however, I get why people may not have liked him.
But if you love Capaldi and are willing to defend his Doctor and his failed characterization, then there’s no reason why Colin Baker shouldn’t get the same treatment. Oh wait, there is one.
Peter Capaldi is a new Who Doctor and Colin Baker is a classic Who Doctor.
And yes, I am pulling out this card.
I’m not saying you must like Colin Baker’s Doctor better than Peter Capaldi’s. To each their own. The fun thing about Doctor Who is no two people’s list are the same. We have have our favorites and least favorites.
My thing with this is that one Doctor is hated and the other (who is quite frankly remarkably identical when you objectively compare their TV runs) may remain beloved merely because of which decade their eras aired in?
Let’s take a look.
Both the sixth Doctor and the twelfth Doctor came on the heels of beloved Doctors with vastly different characterization. Both had a lot of behind the scenes drama going on during their runs–both had production delays, both had issues with the writing team, both had abbreviated runs thanks to a near total clearing-house of Doctor Who production.
The sixth and twelfth Doctors are remarkably similar, and, despite the problems of their televised runs, both deserve our respect.
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