Colin Baker

Colin Baker (born 8 June 1943BFI) 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 hiatushttps://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/doctor-who-guide/doctor-who-is-axed/, 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 The Controller of BBC One at the time, Michael Grade, believed Doctor Who had become outdated, with overly violent, farcial storylines.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 criticised Gradehttps://drwhointerviews.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/colin-baker-1987/ 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 Trial, a promotional mini-episodes produced for Doctor Who: The Collection — Season 23 Blu-ray boxset, a a properly in-universe Baker is put on trial for an unpaid parking fine.
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 Doctorhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8580985.stm, 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 honourary 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 was mentioned to exist in the DWU in WC: Peter Capaldi and Simon the Shy Cyberman Invite You to Breakfast with 7 Doctors, and he appeared another webcast, The Trial, where the real world Baker played himself being put on trial for an unpaid parking fine which he received whilst filming new material for Doctor Who Season 23.
== Acting Credits ==
as the Sixth Doctor
=== Television ===
==== 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
=== Webcasts ===
==== Doctor Who ====
* Real Time
==== Tales of the TARDIS ====
* Vengeance on Varos
==== The Collection ====
* The Eternal Mystery - voice, uncredited
=== Other ===
* A Fix with Sontarans
* Untitled
=== Audio ===
==== 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
* Purity Undreamed
** The Mindless Ones
** Reverse Engineering
** Chronomancer
* Purity Unleashed
** Broadway Belongs to Me!
** Purification
** Time-Burst
* Purity Unbound
** Girl in a Bubble
** The Corruptions
** The Wrong Side of History
* The Quin Dilemma
** The Exaltation
** Escape from Holy Island
** Sibling Rivalry / Children of the Revolution
** The Thousand Year Thaw
** The Firstborn
==== Classic Doctors, New Monsters ====
* Judoon in Chains
* The Carrionite Curse
* Together in Eclectic Dreams
* The Queen of Clocks
==== Sontarans vs Rutans ====
* Born to Die
==== The Stageplays ====
* The Ultimate Adventure
==== The Tenth Doctor and River Song ====
* Expiry Dating
==== Out of Time ====
* Wink
==== Once and Future ====
* Past Lives
* The Artist at the End of Time
* Two's Company
* The Union
==== 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
* The Hoxteth Time Capsule
==== 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
Other Roles
=== Television ===
==== Doctor Who ====
* Arc of Infinity - Commander Maxil
* The Power of the Doctor - Guardian of the Edge
=== Webcasts ===
==== The Collection ====
* The Trial - Colin Baker
=== Other ===
* The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot
* Famine Appeal
=== Audio ===
==== 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
==== Once and Future ====
* The Artist at the End of Time - The Curator
==== Doctor Who Unbound ====
As The Warrior
* Genesis
** Dust Devil
** Aftershocks
** The Difference Office
* Destiny
** Who Am I?
** Time Killers
** The Key To Key To Time
==== Bernice Summerfield ====
* Birthright - Mikhail Vladamir Popov
==== Gallifrey ====
* Appropriation - Commander Maxil (cameo, uncredited)
* Disassembled - Lord Burner
* Forever - Commentator Theta Sigma
=== Audiobook readings ===
==== 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
== Writing Credits ==
=== Comics ===
* The Age of Chaos
=== Short Stories ===
==== Brief Encounters ====
* A Wee Deoch an ...?
* The Deal
* A Tourist Invasion
==== The Target Storybook ====
* Interstitial Insecurity
=== Audio ===
==== Short Trips ====
* The Wings of a Butterfly
== Mischellanous ==
=== Documentary ===
* The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
* Showman - The Life of John Nathan-Turner
* Behind the Sofa
to be completed
=== Audio commentary ===
* Timelash
to be completed
== Footnotes ==
== External links ==
Category:Articles that were originally Wikipedia forks
Category:Doctor Who regular cast
Category:Doctor Who stage play actors
Category:BBV Productions actors
Category:The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot cast
Category:Video game actors
Category:Doctor Who webcast actors
Category:Big Finish Bernice Summerfield voice actors
Category:Big Finish Gallifrey voice actors
Category:Big Finish Jago & Litefoot voice actors
Category:Actors who portrayed Davros
Category:Actors who have voiced for the Doctor
Category:Pre-2005 Doctor Who cast reprising their roles at Big Finish
Category:Doctor Who vocalists
Category:The Diary of River Song voice actors
Category:BBC Audio audiobook readers
Category:Doctor Who short story writers
Category:Comic writers
Category:Actors paid not to appear in Doctor Who
Category:Performers of songs about the Doctor Who universe
Category:BBCi actors
Category:Doctor Who Pinball archive voice actors
Category:Actors who had speaking roles in adlibbed stories
Category:People interviewed on Doctor Who Live
Category:Actors interviewed on Doctor Who Confidential
Category:Classic Doctors, New Monsters voice actors
Category:The Stageplays voice actors
Category:Excelis Saga voice actors
Category:The Companion Chronicles voice actors
Category:Bonus Releases voice actors
Category:The Lost Stories voice actors
Category:Main Range voice actors
Category:Short Trips voice actors
Category:Special Releases voice actors
Category:Big Finish regular cast
Category:Actors who portrayed companions of the Doctor
Category:Doctor Who cast reprising their roles at BBC Radio
Category:Actors who portrayed the Sixth Doctor
Category:Short Trips audio writers
Category:The Lives of Captain Jack voice actors
Category:The Legacy of Time voice actors
Category:The Sixth Doctor Adventures voice actors
Category:Tenth Doctor Adventures voice actors
Category:Doctor Who actors who played themselves
Category:Doctor Who actors that exist in the DWU
Category:Stranded voice actors
Category:Big Finish Doctor Who Unbound voice actors
Category:1963 Doctor Who cast reprising their roles in 2005 Doctor Who
Category:Once and Future voice actors
Category:Peladon voice actors
Category:Sontarans vs Rutans voice actors
es:Colin Baker
ru:Колин Бейкер
Category:Actors who portrayed multiple incarnations of the Doctor