I didn't know that about The Tripods. I was gutted when that got axed as a kid.

Does anyone remember Grade going on Room 101 and slating Who big time? He really showed his hatred for the show on that one!

I remember that, though I am pretty sure he failed in his attempt to get it put in to room 101!

Did he?! I can't remember now, remember him definitely giving it a good kicking though.

Personally think Grade himself should have gone in Room 101. I'm sure most Who fans would've voted yes for that!

Colin is - in a way - the best Doctor we never had. If you pick up his Big Finish material you really get a taste for what we missed out on. He's a superb Doctor!

In particular, try "The One Doctor" which is just comedy gold. Failing that, go for The Lost Stories which consists of many of the 6th Doctor/Peri stories which were written or prepared to some extend but were dropped during the 1985/86 hiatus.

He's currently in the middle of a trilogy of stories with Jamie which are just great.

Actually i just checked and according to wiki he succeeded dammit!

Here are some of his comments and a very fair rebuttal from Saward...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael...81st_period.29

Thanks for that Muttley.

Yes, I think Saward was right. Why didn't he give the show more money?

There again though, I didn't know he was dating Lisa Goddard at the time. This was more than likely to have influenced his decision. As someone has said it was a very unprofessional decision and he denied us what I think was a potentially good Doctor who would have gone onto to star in the show a good deal longer than he did, as Colin Baker himself has stated he'd love to beat Tom Baker's record.

So he was one of those comparing it to the movies!!!!!

I have seen that room 101 thing that he was on....but cannot remember if I saw it on the TV or on YT after becoming a fan....


well by having a look I have found this short interview with him....still p*ssing on the Classic series...comparing it to the movies....but being very kind to the new series....yet not mentioning that the movies today can still make the current show look shoddy in its effects...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaIxgS19hAc


So funny what the american fans sent him!!! And no....we still don't like you Mr Grade

That ass still looks less of an ass than Michael Grade does! Lol! It is funny and I agree, I still don't like him!

As much as I like Baker, I like McCoy more so I think my Doctor Who life would have been worse had he not been so unfairly pushed. In terms of a favourite moment, I still get a childish glee from his use of an umbrella to defend himself from the rocks in the first bit of Trial of a Timelord.

Actually, now I think about it, I've also always thought that effects shot at the start of Trial of a Timelord is cinematic quality for its era.

It's an interesting thought but do you think we'd have got some stories like Paradise Towers etc if Baker had stayed The Doctor into Season 24? Would it have been better?

With Andrew Cartmel in charge of the scripts, what sort of Sixth Doctor would we have seen?

Really?? When did he do that? I would love to see that!

Anyone remember what Chris Morris said about Grade?

Enough said...

Don't know if anyone has seen much of this video, but just watched the Russell Harty interview with Messrs Davison and Baker on You Tube. Been looking for it for ages and only just found it. Apparently it isn't on the extra's of any DVD release so far. It's from the period betwen the regeneration of the Fifth Doctor into the Sixth.

I don't think what I've put below is a link as I've not done it before. So if it doesn't come up as one after I've submitted the post, it's the title you're looking for on youtube.



Russell harty interviews Peter Davison and Colin baker 1984

here you go!!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G7Ou3-k_uA

The BBC systematically destroyed Doctor Who as Michael Grade hated it. They had a golden opportunity to increase the budget to compete with the opposition, but instead starved it of cash and then plonkedd it opposite Coronation St, which in those days would kill any show. Grade should have overcome his prejudices, but couldn't, which was a shame as otherwise he was a very good controller.
However, I have always said this, bashing Doctor Who and its fans has always been some kind of sport for some people. I notice if you insult dear old Corrie, then its fans go ballistic as somehow this is beyond criticism but Doctor Who, which has been around nearly as long, is an easy target.

'Do you always get the priest parts?'

Nice one Crazzy, could see that Cyberman was well excited by his win!

Also, there's something weird about seeing an older Colin Baker in his Doctor's coat....

I'd say most sci-fi/fantasy fans are usually the point of most ridicule...so I am not suprised that we are an easy target too.....not saying its right...but just something I am aware of being a sci-fi/fantasy fan....

Lol yes...loved that!!!


Weird and sweet....despite the cr*p he put up with, he definitely has never waverd in his loyalty to the show...

That makes me particularly sad. He always loved Dr Who, and a lot of people on here confirmed that he is lovey to fans as well. Shame, he probably was the best Dr Who that never was.

The audios are a definite must to keep his Doctor truly well and alive!!!!

Agreed. I love the Sixth Doctor. I loved him at the time but BF have really given Colin Baker the chance to shine.

He was always great but the scripts and storylines let him down. Personally, I think JNT and Saward were the worst combination the BBC ever flung at the series and I blame them for Doctor Who's shameful reputation in the 80s and 90s.

Saward had no idea of what made the programme special, no inkling of how to tap its potential and no vision of its progression. For me, he just thought it was "action/sci-fi". To be fair to him, he knew enough to realise that the show was unique - ie., you couldn't just adapt a "Blake's 7" script and expect it to flow in a new format - but he didn't have the writing or editing talent to make the series special. When it transcended his talent, it was due to the directors or writers like Robert Holmes or Christopher Bailey. He's blamed JNT for all the faults of 80s Who (so has Ian Levine so who knows?) but Holmes and Terrance Dicks managed to rustle up a consistent string of stories as script editor so why couldn't he?

At the time, I loved the series, but no-one else I knew did. I was regarded (fondly, I have to admit - this isn't a tragic tale of my misguided life as a teenage anorak) as an oddity, clinging to a series well past its prime and cinging to its place in the schedules by its fingernails.

TV "Sci-fi" was a dirty word back then, full of men and women in lycra and capes spouting unspeakable dialogue and the director's cousin pretending to be a robot. It was awful.

But enough about "Timelash".



Doctor Who was deeply unfashionable and totally out of kilter with its contemporaries. Its cancellation in 1985 and the subsequent media furore was more a reflection of its cultural significance than its contemporary significance, as far as I'm concerned.


I'm fiddling with your comments here, Crazzy, but I have forgiven Mr Grade.

My, how magnanimous of me!

As a naive fanboy, I despised him (I still do for practically forcing me to purchase the 12" vinyl of "Doctor in Distress", the swine. Oh, the shame) for not realising that Doctor Who was amazing but he has eaten his words so... let him live. Call off the dogs!


The scripts were planned with the Sixth Doctor in mind, weren't they? Not so sure about "The Flight of the Chimeron" (Delta) and "The Pyramid's Treasure" (Dragonfire) but "Strange Mattter" (Time and the Rani) and "Paradise Towers" were. I'd have loved to have seen Colin Baker in Season 24; the scripts were so much fresher and experimental under Cartmel. I'm not saying that they'd have been any better with the sixth incarnation but... if wishes were changes...


At the time, fanzines used to foam at the mouth that the series "brought in more money from sales than it cost to make!!!" but, if you were in charge of BBC1 and were seeing desperately old-fashioned scripts by Pip and Jane Baker being wheeled out on a Monday night by the Doctor Who production team, would you have doubled the budget? Would you have cared enough about the series to have thought it could improve in any way?

I think Jonathan Powell was, at the time, quite right. I hated him as much as Grade but Doctor Who became a niche show for a dwindling audience and was making no attempt to broaden its reach. It should have went back to basics - even Sydney Newman tried to tell that to the BBC.


I think times have changed. People still slag me off for my love of Who but, as they all watch Lost, Heroes, True Blood, etc, I'm not viewed as a total anorak. "Genre" isn't the sad little insular world it used to be.

I know so many ladies/girls/wummen now who love the Doctor yet, back when it was "Classic" I knew absolutely none. I worked with a female sci-fi geek in the early 90s but she loved *spit* Star Trek TNG and thought Who was for spotty anoraks.

I stuck pins in a voodoo doll of her for months and months afterwards.


I met him once and he took the p*ss out of me. My second favourite Doctor, too! The bounder.

Mind you, after "The Twin Dilemma", I sent him a rambling teenage fan letter, asking him a thousand and one daft questions and... he replied, with a signed photo, and a letter answering every single one of my silly queries! Gent.

Eric Saward is another person on my list of shame when it comes to the treatment of Colin Baker. According to the Sixth Doctor Handbood he thought he was miscast and was therefore not inspired to come up with ideas for his Doctor. Shows again with the right team behind him how good he could have been and Saward did rewrite most of The Twin Dilemma. Enuff said!

I will have to get them as soon as I have a bit more money.


I kind of agree with a lot of what you say, although my experience comes from being the only girl who liked Who during the Sylvester McCoy era! (you see some girls do like who).

The bit in bold, that's exactly what I like about Colin Baker (apart from the fact that I enjoyed all of the the stories I caught up with so far (including the twin dilemma and timelash). I think I will have to go to a Who convention just to meet him.