The Second Doctor was the second incarnation of the Time Lord known as The Doctor. Though outwardly a warm, bumbling, almost clownish, buffoon, this Doctor had a darker, more cunning aspect to his personality, one which he usually kept hidden in order to better carry out his plans.
While continuing his travels with Ben and Polly, the Doctor met a new companion in Jamie McCrimmon, a young Scottish boy whom the Doctor had as his longest companion in this incarnation. After Ben and Polly decided to part company with the Doctor to pursue new lives, the Doctor gained a new companion in Victoria Waterfall, who left his company after a few adventures. He lastly gained Zoe Heriot as a companion and ultimately ended up finding multiple warriors from different times held captive.
Calling for the Time Lords' help caused the Doctor to lose Jamie and Zoe as his companions and a trial was held to show the Doctor how much he had interfered with the universe dispite the laws of the Non-Interference Policy. The Doctor protested that dangerous species such as the Cybermen and Daleks needed an equally intelligent enemy to stop them as they constantly attack earth. The Time Lords partially agreed on this and exiled the Doctor to the planet Earth in a new body as punishment.
Biography
New life
This incarnation began when the Doctor's first incarnation fell victim to old age after defeating the Cybermen and regenerated for the first time, referring to it as a "rejuvenation". (DW: The Tenth Planet) The Doctor found himself suspected as an impostor by his companion, Ben Jackson, although 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 recognized the Doctor as their enemy convinced Ben of his credentials. (DW: The Power of the Daleks)
Travels with Ben, Polly, Jamie and Victoria
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 and Jamie found themselves 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. 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)
With Jamie and Victoria alongside him, the Doctor forced the Cybermen back to their ice tombs on Telos and first encountered the Cybermats. (DW: The Tomb of the Cybermen) On Earth, they had their first known encounters with the Robot Yeti, 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 role in some of the Doctor's life.
The TARDIS landed once more on Vortis (MA: Twilight of the Gods) where the Doctor met, once again, Near Darkheart. They encountered the war-like Veltrochni and Koschei, an old friend of the Doctor's from Gallifrey, possibly sent by the Time Lords to retrieve him. (MA: The Dark Path)
Adventures with Jamie and Zoe
Craving peace and quiet, Victoria left the TARDIS crew to live with the Harris family. (DW: Fury from the Deep)
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. The Doctor was nearly killed when he carried a live bomb into the Dominator ship. (DW: The Dominators). Shortly after an adventure in the Land of Fiction (DW: The Mind Robber) the travellers landed on Earth, where they learned that Lethbridge-Stewart, now a brigadier, headed a new alien defence organisation called UNIT. Alongside UNIT, they defeated Tobias Vaughn and the Cybermen. (DW: The Invasion) Later they once more battled the Ice Warriors. (DW: The Seeds of Death)
Trial and its aftermath
The Doctor discovered a former friend, whom the War Lords referred to as the War Chief. He 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. He was given a choice of new appearance, but rejected all of the choices. (DW: The War Games)
The Celestial Intervention Agency may have stepped in secretly to intercede and prevent the Time Lords from executing the Doctor, in return for the Doctor then working for them. (DW: The Two Doctors, PDA: World Game)
At some point, the Doctor was exiled on Earth prior to his enforced regeneration, allowing him to enjoy considerable luxury and fame on Earth. (TVC: Action in Exile) The Doctor was eventually captured and shot by Scarecrows animated by the Time Lords, which then dragged him to his waiting TARDIS, where he regenerated into his third incarnation. (TVC: The Night Walkers)
Unrecorded Adventures
- At some point before meeting the Brigadier the Doctor had an encounter with the terrible zodin (DW: The Five Doctors)
- For a list of Second Doctor stories in the order in which he experienced them, see Second Doctor - Timeline.
Psychological profile
Personality
This incarnation 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 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 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), steering an Ice Warrior fleet into the sun (DW: The Seeds of Death), or ensuring that a relatively helpless party of Daleks would all die. This action alienated Victoria, who was disturbed to see this side of him. (DWM: 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, a moral determination which would be missing from many of his later incarnations (such as when the Ninth Doctor found himself unable to kill millions of humans in order to destroy the Daleks). (DW: The Evil of the Daleks, The Parting of the Ways)
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 the first incarnation. (DW: The Three Doctors, DW: The Five Doctors)
Skills and Abilities
This incarnation 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. This may have been the reason behind why he was sent by the Time Lords 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 doing what he wished. For example he tricked Jamie to go 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. (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, it is clear why the Doctor considered himself a "genius". (DW: The Seeds of Death)
He possessed telepathic ability, including being able to sum up knowledge into a physical box and communicate it to the Time Lords. (DW: The War Games) He was also able to use the ability to show Zoe Heriot his previous adventure with the Daleks. (DW: The Wheel in Space)
Habits and Quirks
The second incarnation 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 physician, calling himself Doktor von Wer (DW: The Highlanders) and in Atlantis he dressed as a strange, gypsy-like musician. (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 "Doktor von Wer" translates in English to "Doctor of 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)
This Doctor introduced several qualities later picked up upon 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). (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, much like later incarnations. (DW: The Five Doctors)
Mysteries and discrepancies
- The Daleks on Vulcan recognise the Doctor in his second incarnation. (DW: The Power of the Daleks) This could be due to both The Doctor and the Daleks being time travellers, and not all encounters were in sync with one another.
- The Doctor showed a certain familiarity with the Cyber-Tombs on Telos. (DW: The Tomb of the Cybermen)
- For unknown reasons, the Second Doctor's outfit was given to him during his regeneration. This is the only incarnation to date to gain his outfit in this way.
Appearance
The second incarnation dressed similarly to his earlier self, 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. (DW: The Power of the Daleks) He also early on expressed a liking for hats in general, stating about different head gear that he "would like a hat like that!" (DW: The Highlanders) He also occasionally wore an over-sized fur coat. (DW: The Abominable Snowmen, DW: The Five Doctors)
The second incarnation had longish, rumpled hair and blue eyes. Alternate accounts described his eyes as being 'soft chestnut brown' (ST: Pluto) and not long later they appeared to change colour several times alternating between blue, grey and green. (MA: Invasion of the Cat-People) At some point, his dark hair began to grey. (DW: The Two Doctors)
Behind the scenes
- 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 encounter five other incarnations (First and Third in DW: The Three Doctors; First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth in DW: The Five Doctors; and Sixth in DW: The Two Doctors.
- Until DW: Time Crash (in which the Fifth Doctor also met a fifth other incarnation), the Second Doctor was the only incarnation to appear in all multi-Doctor serials. Troughton and Peter Davison are also now tied for interacting with the most other actors canonically portraying the Doctor at 6: William Hartnell and Richard Hurndall, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, and Colin Baker.