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What Would Colin Baker Write if he Were Invited to Pen Doctor Who?

Sixth Doctor actor, Colin Baker has been rather candid about what he would do if he had the chance to go back in time. He was unhappy with some of the decisions made during his era, and rightly so, considering he was so unceremoniously dropped from the show when 1987 rolled around.

It is no secret that behind the scenes, there were problems with the production at the BBC, resulting in the show’s hiatus for 18 months in 1985 and the loss of an entire series of stories. Baker said that he would certainly go back and change one or two things:

“Let’s not be more specific than that. That would be kind of tempting, wouldn’t it?”

He also said cheekily that he would have stood by directors a little bit more and try to get cast in many other roles!

The chat then became a lot more light hearted and Baker went on to praise the writers of the new series. He said that it is hard to write a Doctor Who story, with all the time-travel elements and things you can and can’t do within those confines:

“I love the whole thing of time paradox because when it comes down to it in any Doctor Who story, if things are going badly, the Doctor can nip into the TARDIS, go back half an hour and do something different.

“Very often we kind of gloss over that because it would make it too easy, but in this story that we’re doing now we actually do engage the whole question of time paradox and I think it’s a brave story for that.”

“If I was a good enough writer to write a Doctor Who story, and you’ve got to be a pretty good writer to write one, I’d want to investigate all those possibilities.”

He seemed happy that the show nowadays didn’t do that and he said it takes a brilliant writer to create stories that deal with those elements.

The Target Book
Target Book

But now, Baker has contributed his own story to the upcoming Doctor Who: The Target Storybook collection, and he will pen the opening story of the book.

The Target Storybook will feature stories from all the previous incarnations of the Doctor, as well as a brand new adventure for the Thirteenth Doctor. Baker will be joined by Doctor Who legends like Terrance Dicks, Mike Tucker, Matthew Waterhouse, Vinay Patel, Joy Wilkinson, Matthew Sweet, Jenny T. Colgan, Simon Guerrier, Jaqueline Raynor, Una McCormack, Steve Cole, George Mann, as well as newcomers, Susie Day and Beverly Sanford.

The collection is available to purchase on the 24th October 2019.

Jordan Shortman

What Would Colin Baker Write if he Were Invited to Pen Doctor Who?

by Jordan Shortman time to read: 2 min
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