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The Second Doctor was the second incarnation of the Time Lord known as the Doctor. Though outwardly warm, bumbling, and somewhat clownish, this version of the Doctor had a darker, more cunning aspect to his personality — one which he usually kept hidden in order to better carry out his plans.
- You may be looking for the clone of the Second Doctor.
He travelled with a number of companions. He had several adventures with his previous incarnation's last companions, Ben Jackson and Polly Wright, before adding Highland Scot Jamie McCrimmon to the mix. After a while, Ben and Polly left, to be replaced by Victoria Waterfield, a woman orphaned by the Daleks. In time, she too left, and the Doctor made a new friend in the mentally gifted Zoe Heriot. At some point he also travelled with his grandchildren, John and Gillian.
His adventures came to an end when he at last called on his people for help with the evil machinations of the War Lord. Though the Time Lords did indeed render assistance, they also condemned him to exile on Earth and a new body. The Celestial Intervention Agency was able to stay the execution of this sentence for a while. During these later years of his life, the Second Doctor variously carried out covert operations for the CIA and lived in luxury and fame in the heart of 1960s London. Eventually, though, Time Lord justice reasserted itself, and the Doctor was indeed forced to regenerate into his third body.
Biography
New life
When the First Doctor's body "[wore] a bit thin" after defeating the Cybermen, he regenerated. (TV: The Tenth Planet) Referring to it as a "rejuvenation", the Doctor found himself suspected as an impostor by his companion, Ben Jackson. His other companion, Polly, seemed more ready to believe that he was in fact still the Doctor. They were thrown into a battle with the Doctor's old enemy, the Daleks, at the Earth colony on the planet Vulcan. The fact that the Daleks recognised the Doctor as their enemy helped to convince Ben of his credentials (TV: The Power of the Daleks)
Travels with Ben and Polly
Soon after regenerating, the Doctor met Lilith on Kirith, when the Timewyrm had been recuperating in his mind since his regeneration. However, the Timewyrm passed from the Doctor to Lilith, leading to trouble for the Doctor in the future. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Apocalypse)
The new Doctor, Ben and Polly subsequently travelled for three weeks, when they encountered Cat-People and Euterpians in 1994 (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People) and Selachians in the Hotel Galaxian. (PROSE: The Murder Game)
Travels with Ben, Polly and Jamie
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Soon, the trio met Jamie McCrimmon, in 1746 Scotland. They invited him to come along on their travels. (TV: The Highlanders) They travelled to Atlantis (TV: The Underwater Menace) and together on the Moon fought a new, more machine-like form of Cyberman. (TV: The Moonbase) They encountered the Macra on an Earth colony. (TV: The Macra Terror)
Next, the group met and defeated the Chameleons at Gatwick Airport. After realising that they had arrived home on the same day they had originally left, Ben and Polly decided to end their travels with the Doctor and remain on Earth in 1966. (TV: The Faceless Ones). Afterwards, the TARDIS was carted off on the back of a truck.
Adventures with Victoria and Jamie
The Doctor and Jamie found a Time corridor and were transported back to 1866 where they found 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. After Edward Waterfield died, and the introduction of the Human Factor into some Daleks having instigated a civil war on Skaro, the Doctor and Jamie left with Victoria. At the time the Doctor believed that the Daleks had truly destroyed each other, forever. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks)
With Jamie and Victoria alongside him, the Doctor saw an archaeological team on Telos open a Cyber-tomb. Eric Klieg awakened the Cybermen and the Cyber-Controller from their five-hundred year slumber, but the Doctor and Jamie sealed them away again. The Doctor electrified the entrance, the hatch leading to the tombs and the Symbolic Logic controls to prevent anyone else from entering. (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen) On Earth, they had their first known encounters with the Robot Yeti, the Great Intelligence, (TV: The Abominable Snowmen) and the Ice Warriors. (TV: The Ice Warriors)
The Doctor next met a double of himself in Ramón Salamander. (TV: The Enemy of the World) During a second battle with the Great Intelligence and the Yeti, the Doctor met Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart for the first time. (TV: The Web of Fear)
Meeting an old friend and losing a new one
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The Doctor later befriended Stuart Mallory, a distinguished naturalist, with whom he and his two companions later took dinner. (PROSE: The Last Emperor)
Returning to 1960s London weeks after the Yeti invasion, the Doctor discovered a robot duplicate of Edward Waterfield had been created by the Daleks to exact revenge on him for destroying them in the 19th century. Even thought the Doctor defeated the robot, the trauma of fighting her own father fuelled Victoria's determination to stop travelling with him as soon as she found peace for herself. (PROSE: Father Figure)
The Doctor next investigated a number of dissapearances at the New York Supplementary Education Institution and sent Jamie and Victoria undercover. He was reunited with a younger version of Edward Grainger, who's god-daughter and husband had also gone missing. The Doctor discovered a slave race called the Virtors had been transporting students back to their homeworld of Virtus. He prevented them from capturing Victoria, Jamie and Edward. But accidentally fell into their portal to Virtus himself.
Trapped on Virtus for a long period of time, the Doctor led a slave rebellion and, eventually, led the aging humans back home, merely seconds after he had originally left from Earth's prospective, and he reunited Edward with his, now much older, god-daughter. (PROSE: The Lost)
After the TARDIS landed once more on Vortis, (PROSE: Twilight of the Gods) the TARDIS crew travelled near the Darkheart. They encountered the war-like Veltrochni and Koschei, an old friend of the Doctor's from Gallifrey, travelling with Ailla. Koschei was possibly sent by the Time Lords to retrieve the Doctor. However, the temptation posed by the Darkheart device proved too much for Koschei, and the revelation that his companion Ailla was a spy killed the last traces of good in him, and he became the Master. The Doctor trapped him in a black hole. After being tempted by the Master to turn to the dark side, Victoria decided that at the next opportunity, she would settle down and leave the TARDIS. (PROSE: The Dark Path)
Craving peace and quiet, Victoria left the TARDIS crew to live with Frank and Maggie Harris after an adventure on a Euro Sea Gas station with a Weed Creature. (TV: Fury from the Deep)
Encounters with Jamie and Zoe
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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 to show her just what she was letting herself in for. (TV: The Wheel in Space)
On the planet Dulkis, the Doctor, Zoe, and Jamie first fought the Quarks. The Doctor was nearly killed when he carried a live bomb into the Dominator ship. (TV: The Dominators)
By this time, the Doctor considered Jamie to be the most reliable friend that he had ever had. (AUDIO: The Jigsaw War)
After an adventure in the Land of Fiction, (TV: The Mind Robber) the travellers landed on Earth, where they learned that Lethbridge-Stewart, now promoted to Brigadier, headed a new alien defence organisation called UNIT. Alongside UNIT, they defeated Tobias Vaughn and the Cybermen, with the assistance of the Brigadier and Corporal Benton. (TV: The Invasion)
Defending against Omega
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After this encounter with UNIT and the Cybermen, the Doctor, Zoe and Jamie briefly returned to the Land of Fiction. During their stopover, the Doctor again encountered Lemuel Gulliver. Upon closer examination, the Doctor discovered that it wasn't Gulliver at all, but rather a Time Lord named Goth, whom the Doctor remembered had presided over meetings of the Celestial Intervention Agency. Goth claimed a great crisis was about to befall Time Lord civilisation. He persuaded the Doctor to help his successor stop Omega from ripping reality apart. (PROSE: Future Imperfect)
Reunited with his friends from UNIT, the Doctor also encountered a future travelling companion, reunited with Sergeant Benton and traded barbs with his future self. Ultimately, the two incarnations of the Doctor were able to work together, despite their differences, and successfully eliminated Omega — but the price was the loss of his recorder. (TV: The Three Doctors)
Although his memories of meeting his future self quickly faded, the Doctor did remember that he had lost his recorder, and went to a music shop on Amber Station to get a new one. (PROSE: Briefly Noted)
Further adventures
Later they once more battled the Ice Warriors. (TV: The Seeds of Death) They also encountered the Krotons, and freed the Gonds from them. (TV:The Krotons)
The group landed at Frenko Bazaar, a famous shopping center where one could buy "just about anything." There, Jamie was captured by a group of Voraxx traders, who wanted to sell him on the black market as a slave. Using a T-Mat, the Doctor and Zoe were able to teleport on to he slave ship and rescue Jamie, as well as free all of the prisoners. As the trio teleported back to the shop, the Doctor was shocked to find his companions missing, having been captured by an entity. (COMIC: Prisoners of Time)
Trial
The Doctor encountered another Time Lord, whom the War Lords referred to as the War Chief. He had given space-time vessel technology to the War Lords, a race planning to use human soldiers as an army to conquer the galaxy. Unable to return all the many soldiers kidnapped from various periods of Earth history to their correct places in time and space, the Doctor had no choice but to seek help from the Time Lords, thereby betraying to them his location.
The Time Lords captured the Doctor and placed him on trial for violating the cardinal rule of the Time Lords - that of non-interference. Jamie and Zoe were taken away from him and had their memories of the time they spent travelling with him removed. After showing that his interfering with time actually helped prevent evils such as the Daleks and Cybermen from gaining significant power, his sentence was handed down. He was to be exiled on Earth in the 20th century with a forced regeneration. He was given a choice of new appearance, but rejected all of the choices. At wits' end, the Time Lords chose his new face for him and sent him away to begin his exile. (TV: The War Games)
Working for the CIA
Before the sentence could be carried out, the Celestial Intervention Agency interceded, turning the Second Doctor into their "hired gun". In his first mission he met the Players, an experience that left his hair temporarily grey.
Using the death of his temporary companion Serena as blackmail, the Doctor convinced the Time Lords to let Jamie travel with him again. They conceded, altering Jamie's memory to believe Victoria was away studying graphology. (PROSE: World Game)
Jamie accompanied the Doctor on a diplomatic mission to Space Station Chimera. Here, Jamie believed he saw the Doctor killed in a massacre by Sontarans. In reality, he had not died but had been taken to Seville. Jamie met the sixth incarnation of the Doctor and his companion, Peri, who agreed to help find the Doctor. In Seville the Second Doctor was turned into an Androgum but luckily this was temporary. (TV: The Two Doctors)
The Doctor and Jamie then had further adventures, including one where they investigated Helicon Prime and the murderous Mindy Voir. (AUDIO: Helicon Prime)
They next travelled to Earth in 54,010 and rescued a tribe of Stone Age humans from a bio-dome. (PROSE: All of Beyond)
After Jamie was returned to his own time, the Doctor travelled to a rundown housing estate on Earth and joined forces with a gang of teenage outcasts to stop the awakening of a golem. (PROSE: Golem)
The Doctor next helped Jovain Pallis investigate a murder on human colony on Mars, only to discover that Jovain was the murderer. (PROSE: Dust)
Whilst hunting a troubled women who had the ability to make others feel her pain and loneliness, the Doctor met an American teenager called Nanci Cruz, who helped him to stop the women. (PROSE: Mother's Little Helper)
Recruited by the Brigadier and UNIT, the Doctor was sent undercover at a film production which featured the Cybermen. He managed to keep UNIT's best kept secrets a secret and drove the Cybermen away from Earth. (PROSE: Scientific Adviser)
A trip with the Brig
On another occasion, while visiting Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart at a UNIT reunion party, the Doctor and the Brigadier were kidnapped by Borusa and taken to the Death Zone. They had to escape from a squad of Cybermen, encounter a Yeti and face illusions of Jamie and Zoe. In the Dark Tower he met his first, third and fifth selves and a future Master. After Borusa was turned to stone, the Second Doctor was returned to his timezone. (TV: The Five Doctors)
Captured by the Master
The Doctor was at some point during his post-World Game adventures captured by the Tremas Master, who wanted to pull all seven of the Doctors out of time for revenge. The Graak helped free him.
The test to free the Second Doctor was like one of his past adventures, in which Yeti were set free to roam around the TARDIS and a London Underground-like domain, with his Stattenheim remote control taken from the him. When the Master was captured, all Doctors were freed. (GAME: Destiny of the Doctors)
Trapped on Earth
Later the Doctor took up residence on Earth, living out of the posh Carlton Grange Hotel in London. During this period, he enjoyed considerable luxury and press attention. People from around the world brought their problems to him. (COMIC: Action in Exile - The Night Walkers)
The Doctor was eventually captured and shot by servants of the Time Lords who appeared to be scarecrows. They then dragged him to his waiting TARDIS, where they forced him to regenerate. During the process, the scarecrows programmed the TARDIS for a final flight, then left. The TARDIS travelled to an English field, where it was found, along with the newly-regenerated Doctor, by UNIT. (COMIC: The Night Walkers, TV: Spearhead from Space)
Unrecorded adventures
- At some point before his reunion with the Brigadier, the Second Doctor had an encounter with the Terrible Zodin. (TV: The Five Doctors)
- The Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria travelled to Venus, where the Doctor learned Venusian aikido. (AUDIO: Voyage to Venus)
- The Second Doctor also travelled to Draconia, during the reign of the Fifteenth Emperor, and cured a local plague, which earned him a nightingale as a Noble Draconian. (PROSE: The Dark Path) Holding a title on Draconia later helped the Third Doctor. (TV: Frontier in Space)
- River Song was offered 'this cool place on Telos' by the Second Doctor, but according to her diary she "saw right through that (and I hope he chokes on that recorder.)" As with all the former incarnations of the Doctor she interacted with, she wiped his memory with mnemosine recall-wipe vapour so as to not contaminate the timeline. (GAME: The Eternity Clock)
- During a brief trip in the TARDIS with the Brigadier, the Doctor was trapped in the event horizon of a black hole. (AUDIO: The Three Companions)
Psychological profile
Personality
This incarnation was a complete change of pace from his predecessor - whimsical, somewhat buffoonish, yet still witty. The Doctor was no longer a grandfather figure, but rather more of a favourite uncle. Indeed, the slow transition of the first incarnation from a reluctant travelling companion to a more kindly compatriot was completed here, as the second incarnation very much enjoyed embroiling himself in adventures with his assistants.
Despite this incarnation's almost childlike recklessness, it was always clear to his allies that a keen, deliberate intellect lurked behind every action. Although the second incarnation frequently gave the impression that he never knew what he was doing, this was simply an affectation and an act put on to fool those who would underestimate him. He also had a warmer, gentler way about him than his earlier incarnation.
Paradoxically, he had a deep streak of ruthlessness when needed. When dealing with a known adversary such as the Cybermen, he wired the tomb doors to fatally electrocute anyone trying to open them. (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen) He steered an Ice Warrior fleet into the sun, (TV: The Seeds of Death) and ensured that a relatively helpless party of Daleks would all die. This action alienated Victoria, who was disturbed to see this side of him. (COMIC: Bringer of Darkness)
The second incarnation was also painfully aware of the need to see the "bigger picture". He knew that it was entirely proper to sacrifice a few lives if it would save millions. (TV: The Power of the Daleks)
The Doctor also had a noticeably antagonistic relationship with his next incarnation on the occasions that they co-existed. Their relationship was so rocky and their personalities so different that they seemed incapable of working together without the authoritative presence of their first incarnation. (TV: The Three Doctors, TV: The Five Doctors)
Skills and abilities
This incarnation of the Doctor had a knack for playing the recorder. (TV: 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. This may have been the reason why he was sent by the Time Lords to Space Station Chimera to persuade Dastari to discontinue his time travel experiments. (TV: The Two Doctors) This particular facet of his personality enabled him to trick others into doing what he wished. For example, he tricked Jamie into going through a series of tests designed to isolate the Human Factor. He was also able 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. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks) In a similar way, he convinced the War Chief to regard him as an ally (TV: The War Games) and pretended to go along with the Great Intelligence's brain transference operation in order to short-circuit the disembodied being. (TV: The Web of Fear)
The Doctor considered himself a "genius". (TV: The Seeds of Death)
He possessed telepathic ability, including being able to sum up knowledge into a physical cube and communicate it to the Time Lords. (TV: The War Games) He was also able to use this ability to show Zoe Heriot his previous adventure with the Daleks via mental projection, (TV: The Wheel in Space) but found the process tiring. (TV: The Dominators)
Habits and quirks
The second incarnation possessed a recorder, which he played to concentrate or while under stress. (TV: The Power of the Daleks onwards)
In Scotland, he posed as a German physician, calling himself Doktor von Wer (TV: The Highlanders) and in Atlantis he dressed as a strange, gypsy-like musician. (TV: 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 "Doktor von Wer" translates in English to "Doctor of Who".
Taking events more seriously, he impersonated the Examiner, who had been murdered. (TV: The Power of the Daleks) Against his will, he also impersonated Salamander, the Doctor's physical double. (TV: The Enemy of the World)
This Doctor introduced several qualities later picked up by future incarnations. The Doctor showed an interest in Tibetan Buddhism in this incarnation, although he referred to having made at least one prior visit to a Tibetan monastery centuries before (which of his first two incarnations made that visit was unstated). (TV: The Abominable Snowmen) He also first revealed to his companions his Five Hundred Year Diary (TV: The Power of the Daleks) and his sonic screwdriver. (TV: Fury from the Deep) He had the ability to pull almost anything out of his pockets, much like later incarnations. (TV: The Five Doctors)
Appearance
The second incarnation dressed similarly to his earlier incarnation, though in far less natty fashion. The trousers were clownishly large and the cravat was replaced with a bow tie. He quickly abandoned the blue signet ring as it no longer fitted him. In his first adventure on Vulcan he possessed a tall stove-pipe hat. (TV: The Power of the Daleks) He switched between a plain white shirt and a bright or dull blue shirt quite often. (TV: The Five Doctors, TV: The Two Doctors, TV: The Two Doctors) He also early on expressed a liking for hats in general, stating about different head gear that he "would like a hat like that!" (TV: The Highlanders) He also occasionally wore an over-sized fur coat. (TV: The Abominable Snowmen, TV: The Ice Warriors, TV: The Five Doctors) In the 2000s, Polly described him as "a bit sartorially challenged" to the Brigadier and compared his hairstyle to those worn by the Beatles, (AUDIO: The Three Companions) as did John Benton (AUDIO: The Hexford Invasion) and Isobel Watkins. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)
The second incarnation had longish, rumpled hair and blue eyes. Alternate accounts described his eyes as being 'soft chestnut brown' (PROSE: Pluto) and later they appeared to change colour several times alternating between blue, grey, and green. (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People) After going on a stressful mission for the Time Lords where his new companion died, his dark hair turned to grey. (PROSE: World Game, TV: The Two Doctors)
Behind the scenes
The Brilliant Book 2011
According to The Brilliant Book 2011 (a non-narrative based book), the Second Doctor met Winston Churchill in 1882, giving him lessons in Latin, including how to address a table in Latin.
Other matters
- Rupert Davies, Valentine Dyall (later to play the Black Guardian and Slarn), and Michael Hordern were all approached for the role of the Second Doctor. All declined, as they didn't want to commit to a long-running series.
- Matt Smith, in preparation for his role as the Eleventh Doctor, watched the Troughton serial The Tomb of the Cybermen, and fell in love with it. He describes Troughton as "rather wonderful" and as being his favourite Doctor. Smith's costume and mannerisms are reminiscent of Troughton's.
- Unfortunately, most of the episodes from the Second Doctor's era have been lost, leaving only six of Patrick Troughton's 21 TV stories still fully intact (excluding his appearances in multi-Doctor specials). Two further incomplete stories have been released commercially, with specially-created material to bridge the missing episodes. Surviving "orphan" episodes and footage have been released on the Lost in Time DVD collection.
- The Second Doctor was the first incarnation to directly work with four of his other selves on television, though that turned out to be a number also attained by the Fifth Doctor by virtue of Time Crash. If one includes a story this wiki generally doesn't — Dimensions in Time — then it could be said that the Third and Sixth Doctors were on the "four-timer" list, as well. However, there was no actual "interaction" between Doctors in Dimensions.
- Until Time Crash, the Second Doctor was the only incarnation to appear in all televised multi-Doctor stories. As of 2013, Troughton holds the record for working with the highest number of other incarnations, having directly interacted with four other Doctors: the First, Third, Fifth, and Sixth Doctors. Taking into account all performed media, however, the record-holder is Peter Davison. His appearances on audio with the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Doctors add to his totals from The Five Doctors and Time Crash, to give a grand total of eight other Doctors.
- The Second Doctor was the first incarnation to have his face integrated into the Doctor Who title sequence, beginning with The Macra Terror.
