Colin Baker has revealed that having access to bigger budgets has "magnificently" expanded the scope of Doctor Who ahead of the upcoming 60th anniversary specials.

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The Sixth Doctor actor revealed during an interview with Film Stories that he had seen the first of the three upcoming episodes at a recent preview screening – and although he didn't give anything away he said he was "blown away" by what he saw.

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He added that although the dramatic increase to the budget could have ended up hampering the show in some ways, that didn't appear to be the case at all.

“Doctor Who now has a budget… boy it has a budget – and that could kill the programme," he said.

"Too much money, for something like Doctor Who, you could kill it. But it hasn’t. What he’s done is enabled them to do the things they could only hint at before and do them credibly, wonderfully, and magnificently.”

In the same interview, Baker also sang the praises of both returning showrunner Russell T Davies and star David Tennant, who is set to play a different incarnation of the Doctor than the one he made famous in his previous stint on the show.

Colin Baker as the Doctor and Terry Molloy as Davros in Revelation of the Daleks (© RadioTimes Archive/Don Smith)
Colin Baker as the Doctor and Terry Molloy as Davros in Revelation of the Daleks.

“David has grabbed it with both hands and anyone who doesn’t see it has my sympathy. I might not have watched it, I don’t know… But I’m so glad I did. And now I’ll probably watch all the others. Disney is involved, but it hasn’t been Disneyfied. It’s been Russell T Davies-ified! And that’s a good thing," He said.

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Davies himself recently teased that some of the upcoming specials would be "dark" and "weird" – adding that he wanted the first of the three to be more family-friendly before ramping up the scariness slightly in future instalments.

"The second one... darker and weird," he said, adding: "It's not super scary, it's just weird. It's genuinely weird, it's really nice – that stretched the whole design team as to how to make it and how to get this stuff on screen."

Doctor Who is available to stream on BBC iPlayer. Classic episodes are available on BritBox – you can sign up for a 7-day free trial here.

Check out more of our Sci-Fi coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on.

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Authors

Patrick Cremona, RadioTimes.com's senior film writer looking at the camera and smiling
Patrick CremonaSenior Film Writer

Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.

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