The Doctor Who Real Time Marathon: A Troughton Era Overview

Having reached the end of the Troughton era it's time for me to cast an eye back on the Second Doctor and his adventures.

I have to be honest about this one; after three years of variety and experimentation throughout Hartnell's reign, I find the Troughton era a difficult one. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with either Patrick's performance (which would influence more than one actor to take on the role in the decades to come), the stories or the companions, but the era is very much one of transformation. In the space of three seasons it goes from being a family-orientated show to being one quite squarely targeted at a younger audience. Whilst there are still a number of stories which hark back to the days when there was something in there for everyone (and foreshadow the grittier take of the early 70s), this era is where the remit for the show being an adventure series with educational leanings comes to an end and it becomes an adventure series for children and young adults with a focus on monsters and tea-time scares.

But before I start looking at the developing series, let's have a look at the Second Doctor. Once the decision had been made to recast the part of the Doctor due to William Hartnell's failing health, the production team chose to completely reinvent the character so that this new version was clearly not just a younger version of the man who had gone before but an individual exhibiting an entirely different personality. It was a brave and ingenious move which many have explored before, so I won't bother with that here, and over the first few serials you see the new Doctor slowly evolve into the character which would eventually be described as the 'Cosmic Hobo'. In those first few stories, though, the Doctor is a far cry from what fans would normally recognise as his second incarnation. Throughout 'The Power Of The Daleks', 'The Highlanders' and much of 'The Underwater Menace' he's much darker, distant and alien than in the rest of the era. You first get glimpses of the playfulness of the character in the latter which brings his lighter side out due to the comedic nature of the script. The discovery of Episode Two helped indicate this no end allowing us to see Troughton's physicality in his scenes with Professor Zaroff and the aspects of slapstick which he brought in. It's a shame that neither of his first two serials exist on film, as animation and telesnaps can never truly recreate how... er... animated this version of the Doctor is. 'The Moonbase', however, is where the character becomes more recognisable as the man we would see facing off against Ice Warriors and Yeti in the years to come. Season Four sees the new Doctor become more personable and, at the same time, more devious. Troughton retains the strong feeling of justice which Hartnell developed, but while Hartnell carried authority, Troughton deliberately portrays the Doctor as bumbling and foolish as a mask to his keen intellect. Scenes such as his sabotage of the controls to the lab where Polly is being turned into a Fish Person echo on through to his encounter with the archaeological party uncovering the Cybermen's tombs, his pratting about aboard the Dominators' spaceship, and right up to his manipulation of the alien Scientist in 'The War Games'. The Second Doctor is incredibly intelligent, but spends a lot of time acting like a child. This brings into sharp relief his regular trouncing of the villains – whilst Hartnell was a force to be reckoned with, Troughton tricks his opponents into thinking he's an imbecile so that, by the time they realise he isn't, it's too late. He isn't the only Doctor to have used these tactics, but he is the first and uses them most frequently.

So it isn't Patrick Troughton's portrayal which I have an issue with, even though he isn't a patch on Hartnell. The series' format, however, does play a part in what makes this era less enjoyable to me than its predecessor.

Season Four is the most experimental and, to me, the most fun of Troughton's three series. It comes as no surprise to me that its closest cousin in the show's history is the recently transmitted Series 11. Both consist of stories which stretch the show's format, exploring what works with the new Doctor and their new companions. We have two encounters with the Daleks which contrast starkly with each other, the first being political Science Fiction, the second a more structured adventure through different times and places but both of which portray the Daleks as more devious and manipulative than ever before; we have the final Historical for sixteen years, Flash Gordon-esque comedy capers, two encounters with the Cybermen, a weird mix of 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' and 'The Prisoner' with giant crabs and an 'Avengers'-style thriller at Gatwick Airport. Each one tests different ground, different approaches and different ideas. Some succeed ('The Moonbase' becomes the template for Season Five) and some just don't. But all are good fun, just like Jodie Whittaker's debut series which gave us traditional monster stories, epic Space Opera, out and out weirdness, featured not one but two stories (back to back!) with NO ALIENS (the first the closest the show has got to having an Historical since 1982), and returned the idea of using the show to educate its viewers with stories about Rosa Parks and the Partition of India.

And like Series 11, Season Four features a TARDIS teeming with companions. Unfortunately, also like Series 11, this doesn't always pay off. Four travellers on the TARDIS worked well in the early Hartnell era, but that's mostly because of the way they were used – usually being separated into pairs or individuals to deal with different plot strands of the same story. Season Two demonstrates this impeccably, with several stories seeing the Doctor and Vicki bugger off and have fun exploring where they are ('The Romans', 'The Web Planet', 'The Crusade') while Ian and Barbara get the drama. The problem with three companions in Season 4 is the absolute lack of any need for Jamie to be around. Granted, Fraser Hines was brought on board as a regular because the upper management at the BBC liked his character, and granted his first three stories crowbarred him into already scripted Doctor/Polly/Ben storylines resulting in him either being absent for most of the story or sharing lines with Ben, but the dynamic between the four characters rarely has any drive. Jamie mostly ends up being a fifth wheel until they write Polly and Ben out early in 'The Faceless Ones' to centre on Jamie (and Polly's prospective replacement). Jamie (to be frank) isn't even a particularly memorable character in 'The Highlanders', and only 'The Macra Terror' seems to succeed in any way in utilising the new TARDIS crew in a progressive and evenly distributed way (largely by having Ben turn brainwashed traitor). Series 11 had the same problem, often sidelining Yaz in favour of the more rounded characters of Graham and Ryan. Were the stories to take an approach akin to that of Season 2, we might have seen Yaz emerge more as an interesting character, but too often she ended up looking like a spare part.

But enough of Series 11. Season 5 saw a massive overhaul in the series format. Not only did the stories become longer (to ease the demand on the budget) but literally all but one was about a Base Under Siege from Monsters. While this understandably sits with great affection in the minds of many fans who viewed this series as children, each month and a half bringing a new terror, I quickly found this pretty dull. Peter Bryant, Victor Pemberton, Innes Lloyd and Derrick Sherwin do a great job of varying the tone of the stories and thankfully shove a brilliant monster-free espionage tale into the middle of the series, but on the whole you're left with stories which feel a lot less than the sum of their parts. By the time I reached 'Fury From The Deep', my marathon had become a chore – 'Enemy' had been great, 'Web' was gripping due to its familiar location, but 'Fury' with it's vapid characters and stereotypes, with the Doctor fighting a foamy plant at an oil refinery for SIX WEEKS was almost the nail in the coffin. 'The Wheel In Space' being the first story since the season opener not to be set on Earth was a blessing and as a result I probably have more affection for that story than it deserves.

Compounding my low regard for Season 5 is the TARDIS team. Apologies to Victoria's fans, but fuck me she was annoying! Deborah Watling once said in an interview that she screamed her way into the series and screamed her way out. She absolutely nails her character in that statement. I'll admit that Victoria has some great scenes and some good qualities, but with her arrival the tone of the show becomes decidedly Enid Blyton. Gone are the days of the Doctor leading his travelling companions into adventures and solving everything – now we have three child-like chums travelling the universe (well, Earth mostly) and battling alien invaders and overcoming the problems posed by the clueless idiots in charge of the bases/expeditions/etc they visit. It's a very cartoonish set up and not one of which I'm a fan. Only 'The Enemy Of The World' truly shakes this veneer of boy's own adventures by pretending to be a Bond-cum-Avengers thriller. I wasn't sad to see Victoria stay with the Joneses but her departure is undoubtedly one of the very best the show has had – I'd even go as far as to say it's the best of the 'Classic' run – but her replacement was a million times better.

That said, whilst Season 6 sees an improvement in the TARDIS team, I can't say the same about the stories. The introduction of Zoe brought a fresh new dynamic to the leads. Zoe is smart, interesting, brave, funny and pretty much both the opposite of Victoria and a prototype for Liz Shaw. She and the Doctor share some absolutely wonderful scenes – just look at 'The Wheel In Space', 'The Invasion', 'The Krotons', 'The War Games' and you see them bounce off each other in a way that you wouldn't see again until Lalla Ward took over as Romana. She's no idiot and the Doctor knows that; and both of them know that Jamie, well, is. And that's another thing which makes this team work so well. Jamie is the Doctor's mate. In fact, he's his best mate. By the time they meet Zoe they've been travelling quite a while and seen quite a lot. But Jamie is the Doctor's sidekick. They work well together (mostly) but without a strong personality to offset that their friendship remains rather bland. Just as Harry would enliven the Doctor's relationship with Sarah Jane, Zoe gives life to the Doctor's friendship with Jamie. Jamie is still the Doctor's bestie, but with Zoe around the Doctor has an equal to play off.

It's just a shame this team didn't get a great run of stories. Crucify me if you like, but 'The Mind Robber' episodes 2-5 are awful. It's Doctor Who for children at it's very worst. Why? Because the 'clever' wordplay and allusions to popular fiction is so rudimentary that even a five year old would find it insulting. The literary references have some small kitsch value, but the elements that make up the second episode with the 'Adam and Eve and Pinch me' sequence, the drawn out scene where pictographs reveal Jamie is okay, and the introduction of various fictional characters is mind-bogglingly dull. Not to mention the middle section of the story where the plot grinds to a halt with Shit! It's a Unicorn! Oh, no. It's not real. Shit! It's a Minotaur! Oh, no. It's not real. Shit! It's Medusa... you get the picture. The story has gone down in history as being an out and out classic, but this sits solely on Derrick Sherwin's incredible padding when 'The Dominators' went tits-up. Episode One shows exactly how right for the job Sherwin was. It draws you in and is spectacularly creepy, brilliantly paced, cleverly written and has some stunning visuals. Unlike Episodes 2-5.

Elsewhere in Season 6 we have some understandable classics. 'The Invasion' brings the Cybermen to modern day Earth (at last) and is possibly the most 60s story the show's ever had. It's the Sergeant Pepper of Doctor Who which single handedly shows Jamie and Zoe at their best, gives Troughton some of his best scenes, brings back Lethbridge-Stewart, introduces Benton and UNIT, references Professor & Anne Travers, looks like 'The Avengers' and sounds like The bleeding Ipcress File! Plus it has Kevin Stoney outdoing his Mavic Chen and gives us the best design of Cybermen in the entire series (okay, I may like the Wheel In Space versions just as much, but that's probably only me). 'The Invasion' more than makes up for the ten weeks that preceded it, but it would be followed by a rarefied bunch of scripts which would be excellent and awful often within the same story. 'The Space Pirates', for example, really isn't as bad as its reputation. On the whole it's an engaging story with some decent characters most of which are badly portrayed but featuring excellent model work, great music and an intriguing (if flawed) plot in a very well drawn future society. 'The Seeds Of Death' is a dull plodder which turns the Ice Warriors into generic bad guys but has some well acted characters, nice interplay between the leads and some decent visuals. 'The Krotons' is about as average as you can get for Doctor Who – it isn't spectacular but features some incredibly good direction and some truly amazing dialogue for Troughton, Padbury and Hines (the former two in particular), trippy visuals, bland aliens and semi-successful monsters (great from the waist up, basically). It's great to have so much variety after the highly repetitive Season 5, but whilst that series was 'same-story-different-monster', Season 6 is all over the place.

It's testament to the writing abilities of Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks that the last ten weeks are so gripping. 'The War Games' brings not only Season 6 but the entire series thus far to a satisfying conclusion. Unlike 'The Dominators', which could barely sustain 5 episodes, this lasts twice as long but doesn't get boring at any point. It's gutsy, gritty and grim with the stakes at their highest. It's basically the season finale to end all season finales and it revels in this fact. The final episode which sees the introduction of the Time Lords, Jamie and Zoe having their memories wiped and the Doctor forcibly regenerated and exiled to Earth is the most ingenious way of leaving the series open for whatever comes next. Had the show not been recommissioned it would have been a shocking ending but certainly ripe for a reboot at some point. I can imagine an alternate universe where Season 7 never happened and 2019 saw the BBC looking back to old shows which it could bring back – cue Doctor Who: an alien who's spent the last fifty years living on Earth unaware that they're an alien Time Lord who can change their appearance and save the world from invasion. Fortunately we only got a six month break followed by five years of Pertwee, but it's an interesting thought.

So. The Patrick Troughton Era...

My main problem with it would seem to be that it's a mixed bag. Each season is radically different and not in a fluid way like its predecessor. Season 4 is experimental and innovative. Season 5 features 2 storylines, one of them repeated six times. Season 6 is all over the place and doesn't seem to gel. And as much as I appreciate Troughton's take on the character, I just don't much like the pratting around. As for the companions, Polly and Ben win out without question, but they just don't get the time or stories they deserve as characters. They're the most down-to-Earth, grounded companions the show had seen – even more so than Ian and Barbara through simply being representative of the twenty-somethings of the time: Polly a posh 60s It Girl, Ben a working class sailor – but their time on the show was interrupted by the introduction of Jamie who drew focus from a pretty good dynamic. If they'd chosen to reintroduce him toward the end of the season as Anneke and Michael left it may have worked better, but as it stands for the most part Season 4 features a great TARDIS team with a largely annoying cling-on. Whilst I like Victoria on one level, she just brought nothing to the series and the introduction of Zoe brought the zest required for Troughton's last year.

But it was all too much of a mess.

Whilst the Troughton era sees the cementing of many ideas which would continue until the present day, it also saw the slow unravelling of the show and its establishing concepts. It makes the transition from educational family show to an adventure series for young adults and children but does so by accident more than by design. Season 5 feels like the Producers have latched onto the simplest concept from the previous series in order to deal with the minimal budget, and Season 6 feels like a reaction to the realisation that Season 5 was so repetitive. Ultimately, I think my main problem with this era is that the cast seemed to be having a lot more fun making the show than I had watching it. And given Troughton's reasons for leaving, I know that isn't entirely the case.

So don't get me wrong; the Troughton era was interesting and fun, but it was more a rollercoaster ride with major highs and major lows in comparison with the Hartnell era, and too often left me down-hearted about what the show had become. Nevertheless, greater things lay just around the corner – much to my surprise!