Second Doctor

Second Doctor
Main aliases:	Doctor Mason Doctor von Wer Doctor John Smith
Place of origin:	Gallifrey
Appearances:	Full List of Appearances
Main actor:	[[actor::Patrick Troughton|Patrick Troughton]]

"...the comedian, but a capable comedian, too; not quite the clown he looks, this one!"

—The Master (Destiny of the Doctors)

Biography

Known adventures

New life

This incarnation's life began his life when his old body finally wore out during an encounter with the Cybermen and he regenerated. (DW: The Tenth Planet).

The Doctor found himself suspected as an imposter by his companion Ben Jackson and thrown into a battle with his old enemies, the Daleks, at the Earth colony on the planet Vulcan. The fact that the Daleks recognized Ben as their enemy convinced him of the Doctor's credentials and by the end of this adventure, the Doctor had won over the trust of Ben and Polly. (DW: The Power of the Daleks)

New companions

Shortly, the trio met Jamie McCrimmon, in 1746 Scotland and let him come along on their travels. (DW: The Highlanders)

Together, on the Moon, they would fight a new, more machine-like form of Cyberman. (DW: The Moonbase)

Ben and Polly decided to stop off together on 1966 (DW: The Faceless Ones). The Doctor found themselves transported abducted back to 1867. Two 19th century Human scientists, Edward Waterfield and Theodore Maxtible, trying to isolate the Human Factor. Jamie and the Doctor befriended Waterfield's daughter, Victoria. Waterfield now having died and the introduction of the Human Factor having instigated a war on Skaro, the Doctor and Jamie left with Victoria. The Doctor believed at the time that the Daleks had truly destroyed each other, forever. (DW: The Evil of the Daleks)

Cybermen, Yeti and Ice Warriors

With Jamie and Victoria alongside him, the Doctor forced back the Cybermen back to their ice tombs on Telos and first encoutnered the Cybermats (DW: The Tomb of the Cybermen. On Earth had their first known encounters with the Yeti and the Great Intelligence (DW: The Abominable Snowmen) and the Ice Warriors (DW: The Ice Warriors).

During a second battle with the Great Intelligence and the Yeti, the Doctor met for the first time, then-Colonel Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart (DW: The Web of Fear).

Lethbridge-Stewart would later found UNIT and play a significant roles in some of the Doctor’s greatest adventures.

The Menoptera, the Veltrochni and Koschei

The TARDIS landed once more on Vortis (MA: Twilight of the Gods). On Doctor met, once again, Near Darkheart, they encountered the war-like Veltrochni and Koschei, an old friend from Gallifrey, possibly sent by the Time Lords to retrieve him. (MA: The Dark Path).

Craving peace and quiet, Victoria left the TARDIS crew to live with the Harris family. (DW: Fury from the Deep).

Cybermen, Quarks and Ice Warriors

The Doctor and Jamie discovered a Cyberman plot involving a space station and picked up one of the space station's crew, Zoe Heriot. To make sure that she really wanted to come with them, the Doctor showed her a mental projection of his last adventure with the Daleks in the year 1966. (DW: The Wheel in Space)

On the planet Dulkis, the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie first fought the Quarks. (DW: The Dominators). Shortly after an adventure in the Land of Fiction (DW: The Mind Robber) the travelers landed on Earth where they learned that Lethbridge-Stewart, now a Brigadier, headed a new alien defense organization named UNIT. Alongside UNIT, they defeated Tobias Vaughn and the Cybermen (DW: The Invasion)

Late they once more battled the Ice Warriors. (DW: The Seeds of Death)

Trial and its aftermath

The Doctor discovered a former friend, Magnus, now calling himself the War Chief, who had given spacetime vessel technology to the War Lords, a race planning to use Human soldiers as an army to conquer the galaxy. The Doctor was forced to betray his location to the Time Lords in order to return the many soldiers kidnapped from various periods of Earth history. (DW: The War Games)

The Doctor was captured and placed on trial for violating the cardinal rule of the Time Lords, never to interfere. His sentence would consist of exile on Earth in the 20th century and a forced regeneration. (DW: The War Games)

The Celestial Intervention Agency had stepped in, secretly, to intercede and prevent the Time Lords from executing the Doctor. (DW: The Deadly Assassin) Reluctantly, the Doctor then worked for them. (DW: The Two Doctors, PDA: World Game)

At an unknown later time, the Doctor did regenerate and the Doctor's exile commenced.

Unrecorded adventures

• Probably the Doctor and Jamie had least one other adventure together.

• Not exactly an unrecorded adventure, a future incarnation of the Doctor, along with an older Jamie fought the Cybermen on Marinus, (DWM: The World Shapers). Later (from the Cyber-Planner's point of view), the Cyber-Planner would refer to this. (DW: The Invasion)

Strangely, the Doctor later recalled the Cyber-Planner saying this (DWM: The World Shapers), even though he could not possibly have heard.

Characteristics

Appearance

The Doctor dressed similarly to his earlier self, though in far less natty fashion, the trousers now clownishly large and the cravat replaced with a bow tie. He quickly abandoned the blue signet ring as it no longer fit him. In his first adventure on Vulcan he possessed a tall stovepipe hat. (DW: The Power of the Daleks). Later, Bernice Summerfield posing as a Dr. Seuss-like "famous hat collector", would take this hat, still in the Doctor's pocket, in the Land of Fiction. (DWM: Time & Time Again).

He had longish, rumpled hair and blue eyes. In later years, his dark hair began to gray. (DW: The Two Doctors)

Psychological profile

Personality

The Second Doctor was a complete change of pace from his predecessor; whimsical, buffoonish and witty. The Doctor was no longer a grandfather figure, but rather more of a favourite uncle. Indeed, the slow transition of the First Doctor from a reluctant travelling companion to a more kindly compatriot was completed here, as the Second Doctor very much enjoyed embroiling himself in adventures with his assistants. Despite this Doctor's almost childlike recklessness, it was always clear to his allies that a keen, deliberate intellect lurked behind every action. Although the Second Doctor frequently gave the impression that he never knew what he was doing, this was simply an affectation: an act put on to fool those who would underestimate him. He also had a warmer, more gentler way about him than in his earlier incarnation.

Paradoxically, he had a deep streak of ruthlessness, particularly when dealing with a known adversary, such as the Cybermen, wiring the Tomb doors to fatally electrocute anyone trying to open them (DW: The Tomb of the Cybermen) or ensuring that a relatively helpless party of Daleks would all die. This action alienated Victoria, who felt disturbed to see this side of him. (DWM: Bringer of Darkness).

Skills and abilities

This version of the Doctor had a knack for playing the recorder. (DW: The Power of the Daleks, The Underwater Menace, The Three Doctors)

More seriously, he had a gift for diplomacy and winning others over to his side, which would explain his mission to Space Station Chimera to persuade Dastari to discontinue his time travel experiments (DW: The Two Doctors) This particular facet of his personality enabled him to trick others into what he wished, for the Daleks, for instance to get Jamie to go through a series of test designed to isolate the Human Factor, and, in turn, to trick the Daleks themselves into giving the Human Factor to test subject Daleks and finally to administer the Dalek Factor to the Doctor himself, which he knew would only work on Humans (DW: The Evil of the Daleks). In a similar way, he convinced the War Chief to regard him as an ally. (DW: The War Games) and pretended to go along with the Great Intelligence's brain transference operation (DW: The Web of Fear).

Combined with his skill for improvisation, we can clearly see why the Doctor considered himself a "genius" (DW: The Seeds of Death).

Habits and Quirks

While in the Land of Fiction he wore it again and gave it to Bernice Summerfield, who needed it to complete the second Key to Time. (DWM: Time & Time Again)

He also possessed a recorder which he played to concentrate or while under stress. (DW: The Power of the Daleks onwards.)

In Scotland, he posed as a German physican, calling himself Doctor von Wer (DW: The Highlanders) and in Atlantis he dressed as a strange, gypsy-like musican (DW: The Underwater Menace). In most of these instances, he seemed as much motivated by the fun of doing it as much as for any practical purpose.

The alias "Doctor von Wer" translates, roughly in English to "Doctor Who".

Taking events more seriously, he impersonated the murdered Earth Examiner (DW: The Power of the Daleks). Against his will, he also impersonated Salamander, the Doctor's physical double. (DW: The Enemy of the World). On the Wheel in Space, he adopted for the first time the alias of Dr. John Smith. (DW: The Wheel in Space).

This Doctor introduced several qualities later picked up upon by future incarnations. The Doctor first showed an interest in Tibetan Buddhism in this incarnation (DW: The Abominable Snowmen). He also first revealed to his companions the Five Hundred Year Diary (DW: The Power of the Daleks), and his sonic screwdriver (DW: Fury from the Deep). He had the ability to pull almost anything out of his pockets. (DW: The Five Doctors)

Mysteries and Discrepancies

• How did the Daleks on Vulcan recognize the Doctor? (DW: The Power of the Daleks)

The Daleks could have come from further ahead in the Doctor's personal timestream. Otherwise, they may simply have deduced his identity without having encountered this incarnation before.

• The Doctor showed a certain familarity with the Cyberman tombs on Telos (DW: The Tomb of the Cybermen).

Key Life Events

• The Doctor regenerates. (DW: The Tenth Planet, The Power of the Daleks)

Since there are no apparent references to the Doctor having a second heart before the regeneration - indeed on at least one occasion the First Doctor is clearly depicted as having a single heart - it has been suggested that the Doctor grew his second heart as part of his regeneration.

• First meeting with Jamie McCrimmon, who goes off with him in the TARDIS (DW: The Highlanders)
• While fighting the Yeti together, the Doctor meets Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart for the first time. (DW: The Web of Fear)
• The Time Lords put the Doctor on trial for breaking the non-interference policy and separate Jamie and Zoe from him. (DW: The War Games)
• The Celestial Intervention Agency uses the Doctor as an agent and sends him on the first of several missions, this one with Lady Serena (PDA: World Game). At least one of these missions will involve Jamie (DW: The Two Doctors)

See Season 6B for more information.

• Encounters the Sontarans for the first time (DW: The Two Doctors)

In terms of televised stories, the Third Doctor was the actual first to meet the Sontarans, in The Time Warrior.

• Encounters his first and third incarnation on at least two occasions, his fifth incarnation at least once, and his sixth incarnation also at least once. (DW: The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors, and The Two Doctors)
• The Doctor regenerates (Mentioned DW: Spearhead from Space)

Incarnations of the Doctor
Widely accepted
Others / unplaced incarnations
More ambiguous