20 Most Hated Characters In TV History
4. Doctor Who - The Sixth Doctor
Since the 2005 revival of the longest-running genre television show in history, there have been four Doctors - five, if you include John Hurt’s War Doctor. Every time that a new actor steps into the role, people raise the age-old debate all over again. Will he live up to the legacy of the men who’ve come before him? What kind of Doctor will he be? And will the one after be a person of colour, or - God forbid - a woman?
Back in 1984, that same question was being asked of Colin Baker’s Doctor… just by far less people, in those pre-internet days. While the first three Doctors had been popular, and made the show the success that it was, it was Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor and Peter Davison’s Fifth Doctor that had made it so wildly popular. Colin Baker - no relation - had large and impressive shoes to fill…
It turned out that, this one time, fans had cause to be concerned. The Sixth Doctor began his tenure with one of those ‘difficult’ regenerations in which he wasn’t quite in his right mind at first, trying to strangle Peri, his winsome young companion. Unfortunately, when he recovered himself, things didn’t get much better.
Irascible, mean-spirited, pompous and cold, the Sixth Doctor was a far cry from the cheerful, clear-eyed optimism of the Fifth, or the playfully gonzo eccentricity of the Fourth. To make matters worse, he dressed in the most flamboyantly bizarre clothing: he was a preening, uptight, grouchy harlequinade of a man, the colours of his coat and trousers a weird counterpoint to his cranky, obnoxious persona.
The fans weren’t the only people who didn’t take to him - famously, BBC Controller Michael Grade placed the show on a long hiatus after Baker’s two year run with the character, and Baker declined to return to film the regeneration scene that formed the link between Doctors Six and Seven.
However, Baker’s gone on record as saying that he was never given the time or the chance to properly dig into the character and prove that there was more to the Sixth Doctor than initial appearances suggested. He’s borne out by the response to his work on the character in non-canon radio-style dramas since then, which have seen him voted the greatest Doctor of all the audio plays.