What do you like most about the Colin Baker era?

The way I'd rank the stories in the era:

1. The Two Doctors
2. Attack of the Cybermen
3. Timelash
4. Revelation of the Daleks
5. The Ultimate Foe
6. Terror of the Vervoids
7. The Mark of the Rani
8. The Twin Dilemma
9. The Mysterious Planet
10. Vengeance on Varos
11. Mindwarp

Commander Maxil wrote:The way I'd rank the stories in the era:

1. The Two Doctors
2. Attack of the Cybermen
3. Timelash
4. Revelation of the Daleks
5. The Ultimate Foe
6. Terror of the Vervoids
7. The Mark of the Rani
8. The Twin Dilemma
9. The Mysterious Planet
10. Vengeance on Varos
11. Mindwarp

My personal Col pecking order:

1. The Two Doctors
2. Revelation of the Daleks
3. Terror of the Vervoids
4. The Mark of the Rani
5. Attack of the Cybermen
6. The Mysterious Planet
7. Terror of the Vervoids
8. Timelash
9. Vengeance on Varos
10. Mindwarp
11. The Ultimate Foe

I know many consider Varos as the Best of Colin's era, but I've always found it a bit too bleak for my taste. same with Martin's sequel Mindwarp.

The Two Doctor's on the other hand is a lot of fun! it has Pat and Fraser of course, and one of my personal favorite villains of the 80's Shockeye o' the Quauncing Grig!

"Oh, what a fine, fleshy beast. Ha! Just in your prime, and ripe for the knife!"

"I promise you lord, no chef in the nine planets would do more to bring out the flavour of the beast!"

Attack is my absolute favourite Colin. Just love everything about it from the visuals to the performances and characters, the music, the wicked dialogue and nasty violence. I actually don't think Colin was ever better either - sublimely confident, snarky as fuck and willingly get his hands dirty when necessary. He's got the role of his dreams and he's loving every minute of it.  
Two Doctors is a strong second place.

iank wrote:Attack is my absolute favourite Colin. Just love everything about it from the visuals to the performances and characters, the music, the wicked dialogue and nasty violence. I actually don't think Colin was ever better either - sublimely confident, snarky as fuck and willingly get his hands dirty when necessary. He's got the role of his dreams and he's loving every minute of it.  
Two Doctors is a strong second place.

I don't think Colin ever looked more fit and healthy as he did during Attack.
Full of energy, vim and vigor. Compare that to how he looked during the trial season, he must have put on 5 stone during the hiatus and his hair is dreadful.

Attack is the perfect story to watch on a Saturday night with a fizzy drink and a bag of sweets. Action, big titties, humour and some gritty characters as well. Just the perfect entertainment.

bryanbraddock wrote:I know many consider Varos as the Best of Colin's era, but I've always found it a bit too bleak for my taste. same with Martin's sequel Mindwarp.

Varos is saddled with some really crap direction and quite a number of poor performances. The script itself is very good with some nice bits of humour.

I honestly haven't seen Mindwarp all the way through for ages. It seemed a bit tasteless to me to have the Doctor act in such a despicable way to Peri, even if it was a ploy.

Commander Maxil wrote:[It seemed a bit tasteless to me to have the Doctor act in such a despicable way to Peri, even if it was a ploy.

To be fair to Colin he went out of his way to understand the motivations of his character. He asked the director,the script editor and the writer for advice and they couldn't even tell him if it was false information from the matrix, the doctor having gone temporarily insane or if the Doctor was bluffing.

Maybe if those around him had actually helped him more he could have given a more nuanced performance in those scenes with Peri.
As it was for most of his era Colin was left adrift.

I still feel sorry for Colin and don't think he had a single break during his time on the show. He had an omnipotent producer with appalling taste, and no background in script writing, a hostile script editor who had no interest in either him or his character and a sixth floor that just wanted the show gone.

As bad as some people make him out to be, anyone would have failed in that environment.

bryanbraddock wrote: He had an omnipotent producer with appalling taste

I thought Philip Hinchcliffe had already moved on by then?

Ouch!

Commander Maxil wrote:

bryanbraddock wrote: He had an omnipotent producer with appalling taste

I thought Philip Hinchcliffe had already moved on by then?

Just for the record I've been defending JNT since the mid 80's, 5 of his 9 seasons as producer are among my favorites, but you can't deny aesthetically his taste left a lot to be desired? He even admitted that Colin's costume was a mistake and the whole question mark motif/costume instead of clothing was a mistep.

As for Philip Hinchcliffe having questionable taste I'm fascinated to know why you think that!

bryanbraddock wrote:you can't deny aesthetically his taste left a lot to be desired?

I personally saw nothing wrong with his taste. I actually like the costumes in his era the best. There's nothing cooler than Hugo Lang's outfit in The Twin Dilemma

Some of those Cryon actresses in Attack of the Cybermen looked really pretty underneath. Rost in particular had a lovely pair of eyes. This is what the actress who played her looked like back in the day without the Cryon make up:




She's also aged quite well: