Sixth Doctor

* Season 21
* Season 22
* Season 23
* Dimensions in Time

### Cause of Regeneration

Invented a death for himself and The Valeyard after being brutally sliced by the Exercise Bicycle, hitting his head on the console and radiation poisoning.

## Behind the Scenes

### Secondary Actors/Actresses

John C. Reilly (lookalike, 2009, briefly)
John Townshend (lookalike, 2013-)

"In all my travelling throughout the universe, I have battled against evil, against power-mad conspirators. I should have stayed here. The oldest civilisation: decadent, degenerate, and rotten to the core. Power-mad conspirators, Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen - they're still in the nursery compared to us. Ten million years of absolute power. That's what it takes to be *really* corrupt! [ Doctor, these unseemly outbursts will not... ] *Unseemly outbursts?!* If I hadn't visited Ravalox, as I then thought of it, the High Council would've kept this outrage buried, as presumably they have for several centuries!" - The Sixth Doctor denouncing the Time Lords, The Trial of A Time Lord: The Ultimate Foe

"Sweet?! Effete! Sweet? *Sweet?* That says it all. No, this has been a timely change. Change? What change? There is no change... no time, no rhyme, no place for space, nothing! Nothing but the grinding engines of the universe---are crushing me...the ever lusting...BOREDOM of eternity! Ah...AH? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA...." - Sixth Doctor already lost his sanity in The Twin Dilemma.

"Hold on, Mel! Hold on! [What is it? What's attacking us?] Focused beams of radiation! It's coming from the planet LakertyaAAA!!" - Sixth Doctor's final intelligable words during Time and the Rani

Bumptious, bombastic, self-centered, melodramatic, and above all stubborn, the **Sixth Doctor** instantly believed himself superior to almost anyone he encountered. He would often browbeat others into submission with his savage wit and his grammarian's interest in language. Even so, his mercurial and flippant tendencies did not define the true heart of his persona. Beneath his thunderous and turbulent exterior, he was quite the opposite: a passionate, warm, virtuous and empathetic individual.

He was profoundly difficult with his first companion, Peri Brown, whom he initially challenged for her use of American English and her as-yet-incomplete education. Indeed, during the early hours after his regeneration, he physically assaulted her due to post-regenerative paranoia. It took considerable time for himself and Peri to stop bickering and speak together on amiable terms, but the Sixth Doctor eventually became someone she could rely upon. With enough distance from the regenerative event, she was able to look to the Doctor for strength after her mother's death.

Despite his bluster, the Sixth Doctor did possess great reserves of compassion. His gentler side began to blossom largely as a consequence of travelling with Melanie Bush, a brilliant computer programmer from Earth in the 1980s.

A dominant feature of his life was yet another Time Lord trial. Though this one sought to blame him for a shifting docket of crimes, it in fact turned out to be an elaborate ruse. He later found himself in a reverse situation where he became the prosecutor against the Valeyard, the malicious being that had framed him in an attempt to steal his regenerations. He discovered that the Valeyard's dubious existence was somehow tied to his own and took shape from his inherently darker characteristics.

For one reason or another, the Sixth Doctor found himself under attack from the Rani above Lakertya, an attack that forced him into a crash landing on the planet. By the time the Rani forced her way into his TARDIS, the Doctor had regenerated.

## Biography

### Before his existence

The First Doctor would occasionally have premonitions of his future incarnations, (PROSE: *A Big Hand for the Doctor*) and there was a rumour that he was able to glimpse his first seven regenerations during a game of Eighth Man Bound. (PROSE: *Christmas on a Rational Planet*)

When the First Doctor learned that he was diverted from the South Pole by "forces from the future" to stop him from becoming an incarnation that would play a key role in a future conflict, he was informed by the Player that he would have "lots of new faces" before he regenerated into the incarnation involved in the conflict. (AUDIO: *The Plague of Dreams*)

Shortly before his regeneration, the First Doctor was told of "a few false starts" including "a clown with a recorder", "the space dandy with the Aikida, "scarf and sweets", "the nervous vegitarian", "**the egotistical psycho**", "the shorty with the umbrella", "sign language gramps", "victorian Honeybaby", "time lord victorious", "listless-looking man", "bald", and "Poirot" before he became the Fourteenth Doctor. (TV: *Twice Upon a Time*)

The Seventh Doctor told his fifth incarnation of a time "all of [them] teamed up to save Gallifrey", with the Fifth Doctor also showing signs of remembering the incident. (AUDIO: *Cold Fusion*)

When the Fifth Doctor was under the influence of the Dark, he saw a nightmare image of himself regenerating on a blood soaked altar. (PROSE: *Fear of the Dark*)

Mawdryn attempted to force the Fifth Doctor to use up his eight remaining regenerations to end his follower's cycle of perpetual rebirth, but this was rendered unnecessary when Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart made physical contact with his younger self and a discharge of temporal energy was released that allowed Mawdryn and his followers to die. (TV: *Mawdryn Undead*)

In an attempt to humiliate the Fifth Doctor, the Master suggested he was getting old and that he should soon regenerate. (TV: *The King's Demons*)

When the Fifth Doctor was paralysed from the waist down after a spaceship crash, he expressed concern that he would regenerate if he passed out while being transported, but he made it back to the TARDIS without regenerating, and was able to find healing nanites that could repair his back. (AUDIO: *Devil in the Mist*)

After losing his body to the Time Lords, the Tremas Master made a failed attempt to steal the regenerations of the Fifth Doctor. (PROSE: *The Velvet Dark*)

The Fifth Doctor was told by Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart that he had worked with eight other incarnations of the Doctor by 1999, including four of his future incarnations. (PROSE: *The King of Terror*)

A few weeks before his regeneration, the Fifth Doctor saw a white creature standing several yards away. According to him, it was wearing a blue cravat, however Turlough only saw "the big red coat" and Tegan merely saw "the afro" (TV: Market)

### Post-Regeneration

Whilst on Androzani Minor, both the Fifth Doctor and Peri Brown contracted a fatal condition called spectrox toxaemia. The Doctor gave Peri the only antidote available, saving her at the cost of his own life. He expressed uncertainty as to whether he would regenerate or not, as it felt "different this time". However, he managed to regenerate. (TV: *The Caves of Androzani*)

The Doctor expressed joy at the change, seeing his sixth incarnation as an improvement over the Fifth Doctor, who he considered unbecoming. Despite having stabilised physically, he permanently suffered personality and mental issues that caused him to lapse into extreme paranoia, insanity, and violence. After becoming confused over Peri's name, stating that she was a Peri from Persian mythology. He told her it was a good and beautiful fairy, but before it became good, it was evil, an alien spy at that. He then told Peri that we "all know the fate of alien spies", and attempted to strangle her to death. The only reason he didn't succeed was due to Peri grabbing a mirror and shoving it in front of his face, causing him to pause and look at it, allowing her ample oppurtunity to kick him in the groin and snapping him out of it. Later, when the Sixth Doctor attempted to change his outfit, in the wardrobe room, he suffered schizophrenia, muttering that there was "no place for space" and that there's "no change".

After regaining his senses, the horror of his actions caused him to exile himself on Titan III as punishment until he had attained appropriate humility. On Titan III, he met another Time Lord, his old tutor Azmael. Instead of a self-imposed exile, the Doctor soon became involved with stopping the Gastropod Mestor from launching his eggs into space, which would cause death and destruction on every world they landed on. These efforts cost Azmael his life, as he sacrificed himself to trap Mestor in his own mind to prevent him having the chance to assault the Doctor's still-fragile new persona, but left the Doctor affirmed in his new identity. The Doctor left Titan III knowing he'd never change, and accepted this. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*)

### Dark Beginnings

The Doctor set out to fix everything wrong with his aging TARDIS, even succeeding in repairing its broken chameleon circuit, however Peri broke it again after tripping over the cord that fixed it. Picking up an extraterrestrial signal, he and Peri were drawn into an adventure involving an attempt by the CyberNeomorphs to destroy the Earth with Halley's Comet. (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*)

Discovering that the TARDIS was running low on vital Zeiton-7 crystals, the Doctor travelled to their source on the planet Varos. While searching for the crystals, the Doctor was nearly forced to participate in deadly "games" when he attempted to free those trapped in the Punishment Dome. Stopping Sil, the greedy Mentor who had caused this devolution, the Doctor obtained the required Zeiton-7, restoring the TARDIS' supply of it. (TV: *Vengeance on Varos*)

Tracing a time distortion to 19th century England, the Doctor discovered that the Master had teamed up with another renegade Time Lord, the Rani, to aid her experiments in the extraction of the chemical responsible for inducing sleep from human miners. Sabotaging the Rani's TARDIS, the Doctor sent the pair flying through the Time Vortex while he took back the chemical and cured the miners. (TV: *The Mark of the Rani*)

Just for fun, The Doctor left Peri in the TARDIS while he massacred an entire school for the blind on Jupiter, however regret it the next day saying it deeply ached his back and demanded Peri to try and chiropractor his back into working order. She directed him to the Zero Room. (COMIC: *What's Up With Six?*)

After the Doctor and Peri went on a fishing trip, the Doctor felt a time slip in his subconscious where he saw his second incarnation get executed. Upon Peri's suggestion to see a doctor, he went to *Space Station Camera* to see Joinson Dastari, only for them to find that a massacre had occurred there, with no signs of life. In the service ducts, they found Jamie McCrimmon, who claimed that the Second Doctor had been executed by the Sontarans during a battle on board the space station. After letting Jamie rest, the Sixth Doctor deduced that the Second Doctor's supposed death was an illusion created by the Sontarans. The Sixth Doctor used telepathy to track the Second Doctor to a hacienda near Seville, where he was being held captive while Dastari tried to isolate the symbiotic nuclei in his cells so that the Sontarans could be given the secret to time travel. While Peri distracted the hacienda's occupants, a local woman called Anita helped the Sixth Doctor and Jamie find a secret passageway into the cellars.

The Sixth Doctor sabotaged a TARDIS copy that was being developed on the space station, and lied to Jamie about its workings while he knew the Sontaran Group Marshal Stike was listening in on them. Jamie wounded Stike, and the two of them escaped. Knowing there was another Time Lord present, the augmented Androgum Chessene changed the plan into having Dastari alter the Second Doctor into Chessene's Androgum consort. Chessene also betrayed the Sontarans. The effect on the Second Doctor was not permanent, however, as the condition was not stabilised. The Sixth Doctor, Peri, and Jamie followed the Second Doctor to Las Cadenas restaurant in Seville. Dastari and Chessene had the Doctors and their companions brought back to the hacienda. The Sixth Doctor saved Jamie from being butchered and eaten by the Androgum Shockeye. Dastari then freed the Second Doctor upon realising his mistake in augmenting a primitive Androgum, and was shot by Chessene for betraying her. With Peri's help, the Sixth Doctor deceived Chessene into using the faulty prototype TARDIS, and Chessene was killed by molecular disintegration. (TV: *The Two Doctors*)

### Mellowing Out

On Stella Stora, the Doctor met an investigator named Hallett. (TV: *Terror of the Vervoids*)

When the TARDIS became caught in a time corridor oriented from the planet Karfel, the Doctor discovered that Megelen, a human who had become mutated into a half-Morlox hybrid, now ruled the planet. Calling himself the Borad, Megelen was using a device known as the Timelash to banish his disobedient subjects through time and space. The Doctor, tied with a rope, was sent into the Timelash to take four of the crystals that powered it. Myrkos and Sezon helped him before he fell, climbing into the Timelash along the crystals as well. Taking the crystals prevented Megelen from mutating Peri into a hideous mutant like himself in order to mate with her. The Doctor, Sezon, and Myrkos escaped the Timelash and sent Megelen through his own device, screaming "nobody wants you". (TV: *Timelash*) Shortly afterwards, Isidora Duncan came through the Timelash and the Doctor helped her back to her own time, after telling her his real name and having a one night stand with her. (PROSE: *Timesmash)*

Whilst Peri is enjoying a day out, the Sixth Doctor pops round to a dance instructor's studio for tuition in the art of the waltz. She initially declines, maintaining that she has a full class of children to teach. The Doctor returns the next day, having bought off all the parents. Now her only possible student, she begins to teach him. He learns very quickly and soon progresses to the foxtrot. Along the way, Becky reveals that much of the joy in her life has been sapped by her loveless marriage to David. When she announces that she has fallen in love with the Doctor, for he has been the first man to care about her ambitions in a very long time, the Doctor decides that he had best exit her life so as not to cause her further pain, but not before telling her his real name. (SHORT: *Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing*)

The Doctor went to Necros to pay his respects to his old friend Arthur Stengos at Tranquil Repose, but discovered that Davros had falsified the news of Stengos' death to lure him to the planet. The Doctor learned that Davros had created a new breed of Imperial Daleks, loyal to him alone. The situation was resolved with the arrival of the Renegade Daleks, who sought to take Davros to Skaro for trial. (TV: *Revelation of the Daleks*)

Briefly, the Doctor was turned into a female by a lesbian alien whom was infatuated with the Doctor. However, there was literally a reverse button which Peri pressed, and the two escaped. (COMIC: *Rainbow of Tears*)

### Final Travels with Peri

After a series of stressful adventures, the Doctor decided to take Peri to the planet Ravolox to relax. Soon discovering that Ravolox was Earth, moved thousands of light years from its original position, they encountered the primitive descendants of humanity, and prevented L3 robot Drathro from allowing a black light explosion. The Doctor also met conman Sabalom Glitz, who explained that "Ravolox" had been moved to protect the secrets of a "higher species" from the Andromedan "Sleepers". (TV: *The Mysterious Planet*)

Sometime later, the Doctor and Peri landed on a planet that had been subjugated by the Daleks. He managed to instigate a human uprising that forced Skaro to send a squadron of Imperial Daleks to find and destroy the Doctor before he could do any more harm. They were chased to and cornered in an ancient religious building, only saved from their inevitable extermination by the sudden arrival of a platoon of Cybermen, who engaged the Daleks in a brief gunfight. Bernice Summerfield, who had been sent by a future incarnation of the Doctor to save his previous selves from the Cybermen, took advantage of this by placing explosives around the chamber the Doctor was in and ushering him and Peri to safety. After detonating the explosives, Bernice explained the situation to the Doctor, telling him to rendezvous at the Old Marley church.

After arriving at the church, the Doctor worked out a plan with his third, fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth incarnations, and helped to hold off Cybermen that had followed him and his other incarnations there. He then worked with his other incarnations to telepathically turn the Cybermen's time capsules and spaceship into time bombs, and safely evacuated everyone away from the church. Following these events, the Doctor left in his TARDIS. (TV: *Destination: Holocaust*)

On the planet Thoros Beta, the Doctor encountered Sil, and discovered that he and his fellow Mentors were trying to make deals with a savage king named Yrcanos through manipulating his mind. After a failed attempt to probe his mind to see if the Time Lords had sent him to intervene on their behalf, the Doctor pretended to be on the Mentors' side and helped a scientist named Crozier transplant the mind of Kiv, the Mentor leader, to a deceased Mentor. Though the process was successful, Kiv's mind was unable to adjust to new body, and so Crozier made plans to have Peri's mind overwritten with Kiv's consciousness, which would kill her in the process. Rushing to her rescue, the Doctor was suddenly influenced by the Time Lords, who put him under their control and forced him to board his TARDIS (TV: *Mindwarp*) and travel to a Time Lord space station. (TV: *The Mysterious Planet*)

### Trial

Upon arriving at a courtroom on the CIA's space station, the Doctor initially tried to use his status as Lord President to avoid a trial, but was informed by the Inquisitor that he had long since been removed from office due to his perpetual absence. Alerted to the fact that he was the defendant, the Doctor chose to represented himself in the trial, during which he and his prosecutor, the Valeyard, would present events from his life via the Matrix as evidence. The Valeyard proceeded to display his recent adventures on Ravolox (TV: *The Mysterious Planet*) and Thoros Beta. (TV: *Mindwarp*) Having been under the effects of partial amnesia due to being taken out of time, the Doctor was unable to defend his actions properly, (TV: *The Mysterious Planet*) and also suffered an emotional blow when he witnessed what seemed to be Peri's death. Although just minutes later he would forget Peri forever...to no reason. (TV: *Mindwarp*)

The Doctor presented the case for his defence, offering an adventure from his future. The Time Lords cruelly told him he would have to do it while human. The Time Lords forced him onto Earth using a chameleon arch to make him human, a man named Coleman Stone. There, in a public gym, he met Melanie Bush, an instructor. After meeting an artificial race, the Vervoids, and being forced to kill them after their "coding" was turned to massacre, he regained his memories and was allowed back into the court. However, the Valeyard seized on this to charge the Doctor for the genocide of the Vervoids, prohibited by Article 7 of the Constitution. (TV: *Terror of the Vervoids*)

The Doctor tried to point out the hole in the Valeyard's claim of genocide; the Vervoids were artificial in nature and never truly alive to begin with. After winning "this one for now" he was ordered to save twenty people from the sinking of the RMS Titanic, a fixed point in time, if he wanted to go free. They didn't reach this number. They saved a family of 7 from boarding, they convinced Henry Percy McAdam to get into the penultimate lifeboat to be launched, and managed to convince one of the electricians, Macintosh "Mac" Hughes, to leave his post in the electrical engine room and follow them up to the deck. However, Mel, whom had now fallen in love with Mac over the course of the voyage, pulled him into the TARDIS and demanded the Doctor take off. (TV: *The Night Of Ice*)

When the Inquisitor pressed the Doctor to provide evidence against the Valeyard's claims, the Doctor was surprised at the arrival of both Mel and Glitz, who were brought to act as witnesses. Furthering his shock, the Doctor learned that the Master had supplied this aid from inside the Matrix, and that the Valeyard was in fact a manifestation of the Doctor's own inner darkness created "between [his] twelfth and final regeneration". Taking advantage of the confusion, the Valeyard fled into the Matrix. The Doctor and Glitz followed and entered a battle of wits with the Valeyard. However, the Master intervened with this and tried using the Doctor as bait for his own plots. The Doctor overcame this and proceeded to find out that the Valeyard had prepared a weapon to kill all the Time Lords in the court room.

The Doctor defeated him and learned that the Valeyard falsified some of the evidence with the aid of the High Council in a plot to steal the Doctor's remaining regenerations. To his surprise, he learned Peri had not died, but was now wed to Ycarnos as his queen. With one last-ditch effort to win, the Valeyard took control of the Doctor's mind, but he inched his way into an alternate reality causing his regeneration, which would kill himself and the Valeyard - he stated "something involving a violent gash" which would "bleed out" the Valeyard. After the Valeyard begged him for mercy, and his "precious morals" the Doctor replied that they "died with me". (TV: *The Ultimate Foe*)

In his state of grace before regeneration, the Doctor returns to his dance instructor Becky, now in her eighties. He offers her the chance to travel with him in the TARDIS, but she declines, noting that she is now far too old for such an adventurous life. The Doctor leaves Becky's side for the third time in her life, while she dreams again her original, unfulfilled dream of being a professional dancer. (SHORT: *Teach Yourself Crying*)

### Painful Death

Unknown to him, The Rani was nearby with the plan of kidnapping him. The Doctor already knew of his death via a "violent gash" that he had invented to kill the Valeyard, and was enjoying his last 24 hours of life while "trolling" Mel with the exercise bicycle and carrot juice. Mel was left to pilot the TARDIS while he "worked off the fat he gained sitting in court". The Rani sent a tractor beam of deadly radiation from the planet Lakertya. While the Doctor was riding his exercise bicycle, Mel accidentally flew the TARDIS into the tractor beam. It began shaking violently. The Doctor tried to explain what was going on but as the TARDIS shook, the TARDIS control console caught fire and blew up. Mel was thrown into it, knocking her out.

The exercise bicycle fell over, causing The Doctor to fall. He hit his head on the TARDIS time rotor casing, shattering it and getting a "grade-seventeen concussion" (as described by the Seventh Doctor) and fell into the still-spinning wheel of the bicycle, which sliced and ripped open his chest several inches deep. Screaming in pain, he pushed the bicycle off him. He attempted to crawl to Mel as he bled out. Hallucinating, he saw one of his future incarnations tell him to kill himself. Suffering, he tried to get to the sonic lance to impale himself in the head to end it all. The Rani's beams of radiation hitting the TARDIS caused him to grow too weak, so he laid bleeding out on the floor of his TARDIS unable to stop his suffering. However he found glee as he saw a "black essence" escape his body, the spirit of the Valeyard dying. He whimpered in pain as he mumbled about carrot juice, suffering hallucinations and growing delusional. After stating that "Our future is in safe hands", he eventually died offscreen, most likely due to blood loss or the radiation. (TV: *The Trial of a Time Lord*)

After the TARDIS landed on Lakertya, the First Rani and her Tetrap servant, Urak, invaded the TARDIS, and Urak was ordered to leave Mel behind and take the Doctor to the Rani's laboratory. As Urak rolled the Doctor onto his back in preparation to take him away, the final stages of his regeneration commenced, and he transformed into his seventh incarnation, with his face dissolving as white, pink, and green beams of light shot out from his skin. It temporarily blinded Urak and the Rani, who were blasted back and watched as The Doctor's face dissolved into a vortex. All that disappeared quickly and The Doctor regenerated into his seventh incarnation. (TV: *Time and the Rani*)

### Human

Like all previous incarnations, The Sixth Doctor was transported to earth as a human, Coleman Stone, in the year 1986. He became an actor and had a wife and three sons. In later life became a vendor and producer of Carrot Juice. (PROSE: *Carrot Juice, Carrot Juice, Carrot Juice*)

## Personality

The Sixth Doctor could be unpredictable, consistently self-absorbed, stubborn, argumentative, moody, melodramatic and arrogant, believing himself greatly superior to anyone he encountered. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*, *Attack of the Cybermen*, *Vengeance on Varos*, *The Two Doctors*, *Timelash*, *The Mysterious Planet*) However, he was critical of himself in some situations. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*, *Attack of the Cybermen*, *Revelation of the Daleks*) Despite his hubris approach, the Doctor knew when to be serious, such as when he rushed to help Gustave Lytton after exiting his TARDIS in a comedic manner, (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*) and being quick to respond to the threat on his timestream after mocking his Dalek pursuers for being easily distracted. (TV: *Destination: Holocaust*)

He also believed himself to be blessed with both "tact and finesse", (TV: *Terror of the Vervoids*) and believed he could subdue opponents with his charm. (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*)

He was not good at hiding his real name, telling both Isidora Duncan and his dance instructor Becky. (SHORT: *Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing*, PROSE: *Timesmash*)

When Peri was distressed over the idea that Ravolox was a devastated Earth, the Doctor tried to comfort her, even showing empathy for her plight, despite initially telling her not to get emotional. (TV: *The Mysterious Planet*) He was devastated when presented with the news of Peri's demise on Thoros Beta, and was enraged that the Time Lords had engineered her execution, threatening he had every intention of discovering what they were up to. (TV: *Mindwarp*) When he discovered the Time Lords had relocated Earth and renamed it Ravolox to keep the secrets of the Matrix from being exposed, the Doctor announced his purpose was to stop evil and power mad conspirators. (TV: *The Ultimate Foe*)

By the time he travelled with Mel, the Doctor acted disciplined, aware that his actions had consequences, and was careful about what he did and where he went. (TV: *Terror of the Vervoids*)

Despite his often unstable demeanour, the Doctor was quick to act when the situation called for it, and very little, even his companions, could hope to get in his way. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*, *The Mysterious Planet*, *The Ultimate Foe*) More than his other incarnations, the Sixth Doctor was a fatalist, more than once deciding he was doomed and resolving to accept his fate. (TV: *Timelash*, *The Mysterious Planet*, *The Ultimate Foe*)

His adventurous side still remained, but the Sixth Doctor was more selfish about it, especially when it came to decision making. He would often decide he knew what Peri wanted out of her travels and often told her where she wanted to go instead of asking her. (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*, *The Two Doctors*, *Timelash*, *The Mysterious Planet*)

A man of little fear, the Doctor would remain unfazed when in the line of fire, (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*, *The Mysterious Planet*, *Destination: Holocaust*) or in the face of the unknown. (TV: *Vengeance on Varos*, *The Ultimate Foe*) Even when helpless or under threat, the Doctor would be unafraid to speak his mind. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*, *The Mark of the Rani*, *The Two Doctors*, *Revelation of the Daleks*)

While he believed that the "purpose of life [was] too big to be knowable", the Doctor felt that "everything in life [had a] purpose" and that "every creature [played] its part". (TV: *The Mysterious Planet*) While he was willing to leave Hugo Lang for dead after Lang made an attempt to kill him, (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*) the Doctor was, for the most part, always willing to lend a helping hand wherever he could, (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*, *The Mark of the Rani*, *Revelation of the Daleks*, *The Mysterious Planet*, *Destination: Holocaust*) and see that justice triumphed over the guilty. (TV: *Mindwarp*)

He wore several cat brooches on his left lapel, (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*) and carried a cat themed face mask on his person. (TV: *The Mysterious Planet*)

The Doctor was more willing to resort to a "modicum of force" than his previous incarnations. (TV: *The Mysterious Planet*) While his physical attack on Peri could be attributed to post-regenerative trauma, (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*) he later stabbed a Cyberman scout to death with a Sonic lance, killed the Cyber-Controller at close range with a Cyber-gun, (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*) seemed unperturbed after witnessing two men fall to their death in an acid bath, (TV: *Vengeance on Varos*) smothered Shockeye to death with a cyanide rag in self-defence, (TV: *The Two Doctors*) and shot out a Renegade Dalek's eyestalk. (TV: *Revelation of the Daleks*) He was also willing to allow a few deaths if it would protect the majority from harm, such as destroying the Vervoids to stop them from dooming the human race, although he felt regretful with his actions. (TV: *Terror of the Vervoids*)

However, the Sixth Doctor also had a more emotional and caring side, determined to not let people die "if [there was] a chance of saving them". (TV: *The Mysterious Planet*) He was ashamed with himself when he learned he had attacked Peri in his post-regenerative trauma, (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*) worried what would become of Flast after he exposed her to warmer conditions, (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*) commanded Peri to save herself instead of him when being carted away by the Rani's miners, (TV: *The Mark of the Rani*) comforted a mutated man as he died, was outraged by Davros's disregard for life, offered to find a way to avoid Orcini needing to sacrifice his life, and then agreed to honour his last request. (TV: *Revelation of the Daleks*) He also claimed he would begin a "vegetarian diet" after almost transforming into an Androgum. (TV: *The Two Doctors*)

He also mourned for Azmael, (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*) Gustave Lytton, (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*) Luke Ward, (TV: *The Mark of the Rani*) Oscar Botcherby, (TV: *The Two Doctors*) Arthur Stengos, the DJ, (TV: *Revelation of the Daleks*) Dorf, (TV: *Mindwarp*) and Hallett. (TV: *Terror of the Vervoids*) He became grief-stricken when presented with evidence of Peri's untimely death, (TV: *Mindwarp*) and was most pleased when he discovered the evidence had been tampered with, and that Peri was alive. (TV: *The Ultimate Foe*)

The Doctor could be literal minded, checking Peri's back after she complained about her "heart being where [her] liver should be", and taking Lytton's "look around you" statement seriously. (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*) When Lord Ravensworth asked the Doctor what he and Peri did in the TARDIS, the Doctor answered with, "argue, mainly". (TV: *The Mark of the Rani*) On Ravolox, the Doctor misunderstood Peri's reluctance to enter an abandoned building as her stating their inability to find an entrance. (TV: *The Mysterious Planet*)

He also seemed unable to see his own faults, but would hypocritically criticise those that showed them, particularly the Valeyard. (TV: *The Ultimate Foe*) He accused Peri of being an "egotistical young lady", (TV: *The Caves of Androzani*) and of being overweight. (TV: *Revelation of the Daleks*) He also rebuked Balazar for boasting about his knowledge. (TV: *The Mysterious Planet*) He did, however, admit he had misjudged Lytton following his death and their defeat of the Cybermen, feeling bad even after they had kept Earth safe and the timeline intact. (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*)

Immediately after his regeneration, the Doctor saw his new body as an improvement and felt that the Fifth Doctor had "a feckless charm that simply wasn't [him]". (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*)

The Sixth Doctor did not suffer fools gladly, and sometimes seemed to endure the presence of others more than he enjoyed it. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*, *The Two Doctors*, *Timelash*) However, he enjoyed his companions' company, saying that Peri was important to him, and assuring her he wouldn't abandon her, (TV: *The Mark of the Rani*)

While suffering from post-regeneration trauma, Peri Brown called the Doctor a "manic depressive paranoid personality", while Mestor described him as "egocentric, wilful and quite mad". (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*) On Thoros Beta, King Yrcanos noted that the Doctor thought like a warrior but did not act like one. (TV: *Mindwarp*)

### Habits and Quirks

Commonly, the Sixth Doctor would overreact with rage when questioned about his methods, repeating a single word from the criticism, often getting louder as each repeat went on. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*, *Attack of the Cybermen*, *The Mark of the Rani*, *Timelash*) He also had a taste for poetry and literature, often reciting bits of them. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*, *The Mark of the Rani*, *Terror of the Vervoids*, *The Ultimate Foe*)

The Doctor, when concerned with his appearance, often asked his companions how he looked in an act of vanity. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma, The Mark of the Rani*, *Revelation of the Daleks*)

The Doctor was prone to saying, "Mmm, I wonder...", when thinking aloud, and then exclaiming, "aha!", when his suspicions were proved correct. He was also known to let out an annoyed, "doh", when dismissing someone. (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*, *Timelash*, *The Ultimate Foe*, *Destination: Holocaust*)

For good luck, the Doctor would stroke his cat brooches before attempting something risky. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*, *Attack of the Cybermen*, *Vengeance on Varos*)

Much like his previous incarnation, he would also stand with his hands in his pockets, also while flicking the long tails on his frock coat back. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*, *Attack of the Cybermen*, *Vengeance on Varos*, *The Mark of the Rani*, *The Two Doctors*, *Timelash*, *Revelation of the Daleks*, *Terror of the Vervoids*, *Destination: Holocaust*) When not in his pockets, he would keep his hands hovering above his waist, wringing his fingers together. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*, *Attack of the Cybermen*, *The Mark of the Rani*, *The Two Doctors*, *Timelash*, *Revelation of the Daleks*, *The Mysterious Planet*, *Mindwarp*, *Terror of the Vervoids*)

When relaxing, the Doctor would go fishing, especially for Gumblejack, which he considered amongst the tastiest fish in Mutter's Spiral. (TV: *The Two Doctors*)

On occasion, the Doctor would carry a multi-coloured umbrella that matched the clashing colours of his clothing. (TV: *The Two Doctors*, *The Mysterious Planet*, *Time and the Rani*)

### Skills

The Sixth Doctor was highly deductive, able to understand a situation based on small details that others overlooked, (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*, *Vengeance on Varos*, *The Two Doctors*, *Terror of the Vervoids*, *The Ultimate Foe*) and identify his location by studying his surroundings. (TV: *The Two Doctors*)

Despite his larger build, the Doctor still possessed the fighting skills of his predecessors, being able to overpower Azmael, (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*) one of Gustave Lytton's fake policeman, Russell, (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*) Maldak, (TV: *Vengeance on Varos*) a wounded Stike, (TV: *The Two Doctors*) one of the Borad's androids, (TV: *Timelash*) Davros's guards, (TV: *Revelation of the Daleks*) and a Cyberman. (TV: *Destination: Holocaust*)

The Doctor was also a skilled hypnotist, able to put an erratic Jamie McCrimmon into a trance in order to extract information from him. (TV: *The Two Doctors*) He was later able to use hypnotism to calm a violent mutant human, but the mutation rendered the man unable to remain calm for long. (TV: *Revelation of the Daleks*)

The Doctor had great mechanical skills, being able to briefly repair the TARDIS's damaged chameleon circuit. (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*)

He was also shown to have great acting skills, (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*, *Mindwarp*, *The Ultimate Foe*) as well as being a decent organ player. (TV: *Attack of the Cybermen*)

## Appearance

Physically, the Sixth Doctor was identical in appearance to an incarnation of the Time Lord Maxil that the Fifth Doctor met with Nyssa, (TV: *Arc of Infinity*) being a tall man, with bouffant, curly, blond hair. (TV: *The Caves of Androzani*) Over time, the Doctor gained weight and his hair significantly grew out. (TV: *The Mysterious Planet*) Consequentially, Melanie Bush thought him overweight and forced him to undergo a vigorous fitness program, which he found annoying, taking every available opportunity to deviate from it behind Mel's back. (TV: *Terror of the Vervoids*)

Upon first seeing his reflection, the newly regenerated Doctor was pleased with his new face, describing himself as having "a noble brow," as well as "a firm mouth, [and] a face beaming with a vast intelligence". (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*)

Dibber described the Doctor as "a dilly in a long coat", (TV: *The Mysterious Planet*) and Sabalom Glitz described him as a "flashy, fair-haired person". (TV: *The Ultimate Foe*) The Third Doctor described him as being "a patchwork jester" (TV: *Destination: Holocaust*), and Death called him "the colourful jester". (TV: *Love and War*)

### Clothing

#### Main Attires

Much like his fourth and fifth incarnations, the Sixth Doctor wore a plain white shirt with cherry question marks embroidered on the collar, (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*) and braces adorned with question mark symbols. (TV: *Vengeance on Varos*) He took to wearing a set of royal yellow trousers with black stripes, and his generally preferred footwear was a pair of royal orange spats over forest green ankle boots. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*) Sabalom Glitz confused his spats with "ankle armour". (TV: *The Ultimate Foe*)

Most distinctive of the Sixth Doctor's attire was his patchwork frock coat, which had cuffs the same colour as his trousers and featured patches of crimson tartan, scarlet, green, pink and maroon felt, peach wool, a woven back piece, checked collar and amber and pink lapels. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*)

The Doctor also included a range of waistcoats, oversized bow-tied cravats, and fob watches with coloured chains to accompany his patchwork coat, each possessing a different colour scheme and design. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*, *The Mysterious Planet*, *Terror of the Vervoids*) He first wore a knitted waistcoat that was dark brown, orange and purple in colour and featured dark green buttons, along with a dark green metal watch chain and a turquoise cravat. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*) Later, the Doctor's prominent waistcoat became a red and white gingham waistcoat with bear face buttons, with which he wore both his original cravat and a new neon green plastic watch chain, before replacing his turquoise cravat with a plain red polka-dot one and his green watch chain with a bright pink plastic one. (TV: *The Mysterious Planet*)

During his travels with Mel, the Doctor wore both a pink, purple and green waistcoat with red ladybug buttons, a yellow cravat decorated with a starfield pattern and a plastic watch chain that was a half neon green and half bright pink. (TV: *Terror of the Vervoids*)

The Sixth Doctor's coat was the subject of much ridicule, with people often mocking it. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*)

Due to his fondness of cats, the Doctor always wore one of a number of cat-shaped pins or brooches on his left lapel. (TV: *The Twin Dilemma*, *The Mark of the Rani*, *The Two Doctors*, *Revelation of the Daleks*, *The Mysterious Planet*, *Time and the Rani*, *Destination: Holocaust*) On occasion, the Doctor would carry a multi-coloured umbrella that matched the clashing colours of his clothing. (TV: *The Mysterious Planet*, *Time and the Rani*)

#### Other Costumes

While confronting the Sontarans in Seville, Spain in 1985, the Doctor removed his coat, left his cravat-less shirt unbuttoned, and replaced his usual waistcoat with a Hawaiian-styled one. (TV: *The Two Doctors*)

On Necros, the Doctor briefly wore a large and eloquent royal blue cloak with gold trim over his usual attire as a sign of mourning for the death of Professor Arthur Stengos. (TV: *Revelation of the Daleks*)

## Behind the Scenes

### Casting

In 1983, Sylvester McCoy put his name forward in consideration for the Sixth Doctor. He would later be cast as the Seventh Doctor and briefly played the Sixth Doctor in a regeneration sequence. Other names slid around, like John Hurt, but it was decided on Colin Baker.

## Appearances

### Season 22

* Attack of the Cybermen
* Vengeance on Varos
* The Mark of the Rani
* The Two Doctors
* Timelash
* Revelation of the Daleks

### Season 23 (The Trial of a Time Lord)

* The Mysterious Planet
* Mindwarp
* Terror of the Vervoids
* The Night of Ice
* The Ultimate Foe
* The Trial of a Time Lord