The Sixth Doctor’s era is short
OK, so that much is obvious. But because the Sixth Doctor debuted with a full story at the end of Fifth Doctor Peter Davison’s final season in spring 1984, and saw his final episode air just before Christmas 1986, it’s easy to imagine that the intervening two and a half years were packed with an abundance of ‘Doctor Who’ episodes. Colin’s first full season feels a breeze to get through because the episodes are deceptively double-length, running to 45 rather than the standard 25 minutes. So that’s only thirteen episodes! His second season is back to 25-minute episodes, but there are only 14 of them. Short seasons, and an unprecedented eighteen months between them (fans call this the ‘hiatus’), mean that the Sixth Doctor’s era is fleeting and over rather abruptly.
