From: ira2p@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (Iain Robert Asplin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho
Subject: Re: In defence of the 6th doctor
Date: 14 Aug 92 03:39:18 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <1992Aug13.201722.1793@ioe.ac.uk> teexijd@ioe.ac.uk (IAN DAVENPORT) writes:
>In <PyZFPB2w165w@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca> yadallee@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Dave Shariff Yadallee) writes:
>
>
>>At this time, I would like to defend the 6th Doctor, the one labelled the most
>>violent.  Seems to me that many people have forgotten the lighter moments of
>....
>Various good deeds of the 6th Doctor edited out
>...
>>in ToaTl, he was remorseful about Peri's Death, and was always tolerant to
>>Mel, warning her where Not to go.
>
>I liked Colin Baker's Doc., but anyone capable of tolerating Bonnie Langford
>either deserves a pat on the back or a slap in the face.
>
>Ian J Davenport  MULLARD SPACE SCIENCE LABORATORY  ijd@uk.ac.ucl.mssl
>
>  "Gee! A real space lab?" - Unnamed Tower records sales assistant

I agree wholeheartedly with Ian's statement.

When I first saw Colin Baker's Doctor, it was during the hiatus in
Britain when KTCA Minneapolis/St. Paul bought and ran his first seven
stories.
I loved him.  I thought the pomposity was simply hilarious, like the scene
in "The Twin Dilemma" where he steps out of the TARDIS on Jocanda and
spreads his arms wide and leaves them there as the camera pans away from
him.  Simply hilarious, and *that's* what JNT and Saward were trying to do
with the Sixth Doctor.  Yes, the characters in the story couldn't possibly
like him very much, but that's beside the point for we the viewer.
WE are sitting outside all this looking in at this guy's outrageous
behavior and I for one was laughing all the way to Gallifrey.
Additionally, Colin's Doctor can verbally assault villains like absolutlely
no other Doctor could.

Also, I liked his first seven story run, and was shocked some time later to
hear that so many people were critizing it as I heard no such criticisms
on the first run here.
Looking back at those stories I still don't see what there was to hate so
badly.  I think I can understnad Twin Dilemma and Timelash not being liked
very well, but the other five are  great I think.
OK, maybe Peter Moffatt could have directed Two Doctors better than he did,
but the script certainly made up for that.
Vengeance on Varos is the only serious dystopia Doctor Who has ever attempted,
and in this case succeeded birilliantly, and I really don't think any of
the other Doctors could have pulled it off quite as well.  Arak and Etta
were *very* nice touches.
OK, the Cybermen are too weak in Attack, but apart from that there isn't
a whole lot wrong with that one.
The Mark of the Rani is quite good I think.  I cannot stand Pip and Jane
Baker's dialog-writing in their other three stories, but here most of 
the atrocious dialog was cut out by Eric Saward in editing (something
which couldn't be done in the other three, since Saward had quit by then)
and the good characters and solid story were allowed to shine through.
And as for Revelation of the Daleks, my only criticisms of this would
be both the Doctor and the Daleks themselves have very little to do until
the very end, but there are so many other interesting things going on in
the meantime that I don't mind all that much, and any story directed
by Graeme Harper is definitely worth watching if only for the visuals.

So I didn't get it.  This set didn't seem to have anything *more* wrong
with it than any other season, IMHO.  The only trend that perhaps did need
checking was too much reliance on the series' past for the stories, which
realy is only a problem for casual viewers or for people who don't know
the series' past well enough to appreciate all the continuity.
For someone like me and I suspect many others of you too, this wasn't so bad.

My feeling about the widespread criticism of this season is that everyone's
harping is sort of a denial-excuse.  I mean people generally kind of liked
the stories at first and probably would have grown to like them more as
they thought about them, but the spectre of the dreaded hiatus hung over
this season's head.  In an effort to try and explain away why the hiatus
hit, I think a lot of people started thinking, "oh, well if they're taking
it off, there must have been something wrong with it," then went back and
took deeper looks at the season and psycho-magnified the faults of the
season.  

I think the same thing is holding true again now with Sylvester McCoy's
stories.  After transmission of Seasons 25 and 26, all the polls and
comments I read were overwhelmingly positive.
Now that the series has been in hiatus for three years, people again are
thinking, "well, there must have been something wrong with those last
stories," and are again over-glorifying the faults present in those seasons.

People tend to forget that every season had its faults, or just about
every season.  
The only season I can think of where I could consider *every* story a 
classic would be Season 7.  All the others have got at least one lousy
one, IMHO, or at least one that's good, but not quite *great*.

That's my two pence worth.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho