10 Doctor Who Mysteries That Will NEVER Be Answered
2. Why Did The Sixth Doctor Look Like Maxil?
Doctor Who is littered with examples of guest actors going on to play more prominent roles.
If these characters are sufficiently different from one another – as was the case for Karen Gillan, when she made the leap from soothsayer to Amy Pond – the connection can go unacknowledged. But if the two characters do look similar, an explanation is usually contrived (hence why Adeola and Martha Jones were cousins, for example).
Likewise, the Twelfth Doctor’s resemblance to the man he’d saved from Vesuvius' eruption wasn’t a coincidence, but rather a deliberate move on the part of his subconscious, to remind him to save people.
So why on Gallifrey did the Sixth Doctor adopt the likeness of Time Lord Commander Maxil, a character also played by Colin Baker?
Was a similar force at play, with the Doctor’s subconscious helping to select his new face? If so, Maxil is a puzzling choice. He caused nothing but trouble for the Fifth Doctor, even going as far as to shoot him with a staser!
Perhaps the Doctor was trying to tell himself how not to behave. But even that’s a bit of a reach. Alternatively, could Maxil have been the Sixth Doctor all along, in some other guise? They certainly have a similar temperament.
We’ll probably never know for sure. And just as well!