The Second Doctor
Portrayed by: Patrick Troughton
Years active: 1966 - 1969
Series: Classic
Companions: Polly Wright, Ben Jackson, Jamie McCrimmon, Victoria Waterfield, Zoe Heriot
When the First Doctor fell fall of old age after battling the Cybermen, the Second Doctor was born after the new process known as regeneration. A theme that would recur through some of the Doctor's companions, notably those who witness a regeneration, is the denial that the new Doctor before them is indeed the Time Lord from Gallifrey they've been travelling with, as seen with Ben for the Second Doctor, though Polly seemed more ready to accept the occurrence. However, when the trio were thrown into battle against the Daleks, who recognised the Doctor as their enemy, Ben seemed more convinced that the Second Doctor was the Doctor. In 1746, Scotland, the Doctor picked up another companion, Jamie McCrimmon, taking the TARDIS crew total to 4. It was Jamie who first coined the alias 'John Smith' for the Doctor, who would use it often when he wished to hide his identity. Ben and Polly departed the TARDIS, stepping on in 1966 in The Faceless Ones (Classic Series) before the Doctor and Jamie were transported back to 1866, where they met and befriended a 19th century scientists daughter, Victoria Waterfield, who left with the Doctor to join him on his travels. With Jamie and Victoria, the Doctor first encountered the Cybermats in The Tomb of the Cybermen (Classic Series), as well as the Robot Yeti and Great Intelligence from The Abominable Snowmen (Classic Series) and the Ice Warriors in The Ice Warriors (Classic Series). A second battle with the Yeti and Great Intelligence also occurred, where the Doctor met the then-Colonel, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart in The Web of Fear (Classic Series), who would go on to found UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce) and would play a significant role in the Doctor's life on Earth in later adventures.
Desperate for a bit of peace and quiet, Victoria left the TARDIS crew in Fury from the Deep (Classic Series) to live with the Harris family. In The Wheel in Space (Classic Series), the Doctor and Jamie met Zoe Heriot, a space station crew member, during battle with the Cybermen. Zoe joined the TARDIS crew, though to make sure she really wanted to go, the Second Doctor projected his last adventure with the Daleks from 1966 to her, to show her what life with him was like. The Second Doctor was nearly killed on the planet Dulkis when he carried a live bomb onto the Dominator ship in The Dominators (Classic Series), where he, Jamie and Zoe first fought the Quarks. Back on Earth, the Second Doctor found that Lethbridge-Stewart, now a Brigadier, was head of the alien defence organisation known as UNIT, which the Doctor assisted in defeating Tobias Vaughn and the Cybermen in The Invasion (Classic Series), and also battled the Ice Warriors once more in The Seeds of Death (Classic Series).
The Second Doctor was whimsical, buffoonish and witty, a complete change of pace from the First Doctor, and also changed from a grandfather figure to a favourite uncle, most likely due to the lack of granddaughter on board the TARDIS. The Second Doctor enjoyed his adventures much more than the First Doctor seemed to, embroiling himself with his companions rather than being the reluctant travelling companion that the First Doctor had been. Despite his keen and deliberate intellect that lurked behind ever action the Second Doctor made, he did have a childlike recklessness about him, though he kept the same tact of making his enemies underestimate him by giving the impression that he didn't know what he was doing. The Second Doctor was also warmer and gentler than his predecessor, though he also had a very deep streak of ruthlessness, usually when battling a known adversary such as the Cybermen or the Ice Warriors. The Second Doctor wired the doors on the Tomb in The Tomb of the Cybermen to fatally electrocute anyone who tried to open them, and steered an Ice Warrior fleet into the sun in The Seeds of Death. The Second Doctor also experienced a noticeably antagonistic relationship with his successor, the Third Doctor, who's personality was so different that they were incapable of working together without the authoritative presence of the First Doctor.
The Second Doctor had many gifts, including the ability to play the recorder along with the gifts of diplomacy and winning others onto his side, and is possibly the reason why the Time Lords sent the Second Doctor to the Space Station Chimera to convince Dastari to discontinue his time travel experiments in The Two Doctors (Classic Series). This particular gift also enabled the Second Doctor to trick Jamie into doing tests designed to isolate the human factor, convince Daleks to administer the human factor on test Dalek subjects, and to administer the Dalek factor to himself, knowing it would only work on humans in The Evil of the Daleks (Classic Series).
The Second Doctor considered himself to be a genius, which in many ways he was with his gifts and his ability to improvise well, as well as possessing telepathic abilities as well as being able to sum up knowledge into a physical box to communicate it to the Time Lords in The War Games (Classic Series). The Doctor played his recorder when under stress or wishing to concentrate, and often posed as other people when working undercover, such as Doctor von Wer in The Highlanders (Classic Series) and as a strange gypsy-like musician in The Underwater Menace (Classic Series). The Doctor also created the first Sonic Screwdriver, which would be used by numerous future incarnations as well as possessing a 500-year diary, an indication to the long life spans of Time Lords.
The Second Doctor dressed in a similar manner to that of the First Doctor, though far less natty in fashion. The trousers the Doctor wore were clownishly large, though the cravat was replaced by a bow tie, though he did not refer to bow ties as being cool like the Eleventh Doctor would. He expressed a fondness of hats, and occasionally wore an over-sized fur coat. His rumpled longish hair gave a much more youthful appearance to the Doctor than the First Doctor's greyish-white hair had done, though his dark coloured hair did begin to grey, no doubt due to stress.
In the Second Doctor's later stages, he was put on trial for contravening the Time Lords cardinal rule, never to interfere. The Doctor was sentenced to exile on 20th century Earth and a forced regeneration. He was given multiple appearances to choose from, though he rejected all of them. The Doctor was caught when a former friend, whom the War Lords referred to as the War Chief, had given spacetime vessel technology to the War Lords, who intended to use human soldiers to conquer the galaxy. The Second Doctor was then forced to betray his location to the Time Lords in order to free the kidnapped soldiers and return them to their various points in history. The Doctor was then trialled and found guilty, sentenced to exile on Earth with his forced regeneration into the Third Doctor.