Patrick Troughton played the Second Doctor – the quintessential ‘cosmic hobo,’ and one of the Time Lord’s most important incarnations.
In 1966, Doctor Who‘s future hung in the balance. William Hartnell, hindered by ill health, was unable to continue in the role, but the BBC was keen to keep the programme on the air. As a result, they cooked up the concept of regeneration to essentially allow them to swap one actor for another. At the end of ‘The Tenth Planet,’ William Hartnell literally morphed into Patrick Troughton, and a new era began – the reign of the Second Doctor.
To seasoned Doctor Who fans, this concept doesn’t sound so outlandish; we’ve had at least 16 Doctors so far (depending on how you count them) and the eponymous hero’s ability to regenerate is all part of the lore.
But in 1966, this was a risky move – a complete gamble. Doctor Who had become a worldwide success under the aegis of Hartnell. Would it continue to be a success without him? Would it still feel like Doctor Who? Would the public embrace the Second Doctor?
Certainly, the pressure was on for Patrick Troughton, and it’s important to remember that, if this experiment had failed, there probably wouldn’t be any Doctor Who around for us to talk about today.
But as we all know, the Second Doctor was a triumph, and this success is due in no small part to the talents of Patrick Troughton. He shamelessly made the role his own, channelling the character’s childlike whimsy and making him, in some ways, the complete opposite to Hartnell’s Doctor, who was an ‘older,’ more authoritative grandfather figure.
The Second Doctor didn’t strut along corridors with a walking stick, but a recorder, reminiscent of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Part of the charm of Troughton’s Doctor was that he would whip out his flute in the midst of danger and uncertainty; for example, when he’s captured in ‘The Abominable Snowmen,’ he passes the time in his cell by playing to himself, as if he were simply amused at the events unfolding around him.
The Second Doctor’s outfit, meanwhile, whilst evocative of his predecessor’s, was more akin to a hobo than an Edwardian gentleman. His trousers were baggy. His jacket was several sizes too big. His shirt was scruffy and undone. In the early days, the Second Doctor even donned a stovepipe hat, tapping into the wizard-like, fairytale aspects of his persona. There was more of a ‘magician’ about Troughton’s Doctor, and that made him exciting.
Certainly, this was a time of great change for the programme as a whole. The Second Doctor’s era is often referred to as the ‘monster era,’ and saw the end of the Time Lord’s purely historical outings and the beginning of grittier, SF-based stories. Many of Troughton’s adventures followed a simple formula: the Doctor and his friends would find themselves in some sort of ‘base under siege,’ and it was their job to battle against hoards of exotic alien creatures, such as the Yeti, the Ice Warriors and the Cybermen, to name a few.
This format gave rise to a whole host of iconic moments that typify the Second Doctor’s time, and may even be some of the greatest scenes in Doctor Who history. The Yeti’s invasion of the London Underground, for example, is iconic – as is the moment the frozen Cybermen break out of their ice tombs on Telos. And who could forget the moment the lizard-like Ice Warriors staggered through the snowy wastes of the near future.
Alas, a substantial amount of the Second Doctor’s time have been lost to history; the BBC had a policy of destroying its tapes shortly after transmission, so we have some large gaps in our Troughton collections.
In many ways, these lost elements elevate the Second Doctor’s mythos; they are somehow more impactful by virtue of the fact that we cannot see them, deferring to our imaginations to depict the twisting tentacles of the mysterious weed creature from ‘Fury From the Deep,’ and the hoards of screaming Daleks from Troughton’s debut tale.
Equally, there are so many stories that have now become the pride of many a Doctor Who fan’s collection. After being lost for many decades, the legendary ‘Tomb of the Cybermen’ resurfaced in a TV station in Hong Kong, and became an instant classic. The same is true for that other quintessential monster story ‘The Web of Fear,’ which was returned in 2013 (sans episodes three) finally giving fans the chance to watch Colonel Lethbridge Stewart take on the Great Intelligence.
One of the more unusual stories from the Second Doctor’s era is ‘The Enemy of the World‘ – a true outlier in his tenure, as it doesn’t feature any monsters, and neither is it historical. This is something of a dystopian political thriller set in the near future, centred around a crooked politician named Salamander who has his eyes set on world domination – who just so happens to look like the Doctor.
For many years, ‘The Enemy of the World’ was largely overlooked; it was represented by an oddball and slightly dry episode three, and many fans expected the complete adventure to be something of a bore. This perception was blown out of the water, though, when whole the story was recovered in 2013, at which point it was instantly raised to masterpiece status. It has to be seen to be truly appreciated. Go watch it now.
And so the next time you sit down and watch an episode of Doctor Who, spare a thought for the Second Doctor – particularly if the episode was made after 1966. Without Patrick Troughton, you could be staring at a blank screen.
What do you think is the most magical aspect of the Second Doctor’s era? And what is your favourite moment? Let us know in the comments below.
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