It would not have occurred to me, years ago, to think that my view of a character might change depending on what I learned of the personality of the actor or actress depicting said character. As a society, we tend to bombard ourselves with minutiae about celebrities, so much so that even someone like me—who doesn’t particularly care about the private lives and lies of “the rich and famous”—can’t help but learn a few things. But more often than not, neither the dirty little secrets nor the heartwarming anecdotes had much impact on me.

More recently, though, I’ve dipped rather thoroughly (at least for me) into the stream of pop culture via Twitter, and from there peripherally via tumblr. The pop culture I view is heavily skewed toward Doctor Who, as one might expect, so I hear a lot of things about—and from—folks who are involved with the program in one way or another. One of the things I learned, to my own surprise though perhaps no one else’s, is that how these people interact with fans really sways how I view them.

To take a case in point on the negative end of the scale, a couple of years ago, one of my Twitter friends (a self-proclaimed feminist) objected to some tweets that Simon Pegg made from San Diego Comic-Con regarding women cosplayers. Specifically, she called him out for implicitly comparing a group of slave Leia cosplayers to food (with a Homer Simpson/doughnuts comment). I won’t go through the entire exchange, but suffice to say, he reacted badly and didn’t do anything to curb the abuse his fans subsequently heaped on her. Now I can barely watch scenes in The Long Game in which Pegg appears (though he’s a baddie there, so that helps), and get pulled out of the narrative whenever Scotty is on screen in the new Star Trek films. So bummer.

I’m happy to report, though, that it works the other way, too. For instance, although I had quite a fondness for the Eighth Doctor before attending my first Gallifrey One two years ago, it was meeting Paul McGann in person, and listening to him in the panels to get a sense of his personality that cemented him as my favorite Doctor. My experiences with him at this year’s Gally only furthered my esteem. Seeing someone so genuinely glad to interact with their fans (like Katy Manning—oh, my word! that woman is a ball of energy) makes it even easier to enjoy their character.

Then there’s Colin Baker. I’ve admitted before that it took me a long time to warm up to “Ol’ Sixie.” His brashness and the way he was constantly bickering with Peri initially turned me off. But I learned to see through that, and to love how Colin worked with the scripts he’d been given (poor as I found so many of them). So Six was still far from my favorite, but the gap between him and some of the others began to narrow.

Having heard that the man himself was an absolute sweetheart, then, I was intrigued at the opportunity to get to know him a bit at this year’s Gally as I had Paul two years ago. And the magic happened again. I was absolutely charmed with how warm and self-effacing Colin is, and how generous. During one panel, I heard someone preface her question to him with, “I hate Michael Grade [the BBC exec responsible for the 18-month hiatus during Colin’s tenure on the show, and ultimately for firing Colin]…” But she got no further before Colin cut her off. “No. Don’t hate Michael Grade. He was just doing his job, in the best way he knew how at the time.”

Given that nearly thirty years have now passed, it makes a certain amount of sense that Colin would have learned to forgive Grade for his role in what must surely have been a very unpleasant period of Colin’s life, but I still found myself surprised at how strongly he defended Grade to the fanbase. That reaction indicates to me a serious strength of character that has subsequently given me a further fondness not only for Colin himself, but by extension also for Six.

As the line of DVD releases trickles to an end, then, I may just find myself spending that cash on Big Finish audios instead. (Because who needs disposable income, right?) Besides, I’m jonesing to get acquainted with the softer side of Ol’ Sixie; he keeps making it harder and harder to decide how to rank my favorites.