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Doctor Who: Season 6B – what is it, and should we embrace it?

By James Aggas

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The War Games was the final story we saw of the Second Doctor. But was that really the end…?

(Photo credit: Doctor Who/BBC.

Image obtained from: BBC.)

Today, we look at the popular Doctor Who fan theory “season 6B”, specifically how it relates to the Second Doctor, and if it’s a theory that we should embrace into canon.

A few days ago, fans were able to watch The Two Doctors on Twitch. For many fans, this was a great chance to watch this classic story for free. It was also a great chance to see Troughton’s Doctor again.

However, perhaps some of you noticed more than a few continuity errors. Some of them were purely cosmetic. These included the TARDIS control room for the Second Doctor looking noticeably more advanced than the one he had in his own era. Or the Sontarans looking considerably taller than usual.

But some of these errors extended to the plot, too. The most notable of which was the Second Doctor and Jamie working for the Time Lords.

What makes this so problematic? Well, aside from the fact that the Time Lords weren’t even mentioned before The War Games, Patrick Troughton’s final story as the Doctor. There’s also the problem that Jamie hadn’t even heard of them in that same story, either!

That’s not the only discrepancy, either. In The Five Doctors, the Second Doctor and the Brigadier come across Jamie and Zoe. They’re trapped behind a force field, and if the Doctor and the Brigadier don’t turn back, they’ll be killed.

However, the Doctor soon realizes that Jamie and Zoe couldn’t possibly recognize them, as they were sent back home with their memories erased. So how could they remember-

Wait, what?

Considering that supposedly happened right before the Doctor regenerated, there’s no way that the Second Doctor could remember that. And yet somehow, he did. How is that possible? And how could he and Jamie have worked for the Time Lords when Jamie didn’t even know who they were until The War Games?

The answer, according to the season 6B theory? Because The War Games wasn’t the end.

After the end

Season 6B was a way of fans explaining these major discrepancies with a huge retcon. It was originally created in The Discontinuity Guide by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping.

The theory was that, since we didn’t see the Second Doctor completely regenerate at the end of The War Games, then it’s quite possible that it wasn’t the end of his story.

Instead, the Time Lords had sent the Second Doctor to complete some missions for them, before they imposed his exile. They brought back Jamie and Victoria to aid him on his travels, even restoring Jamie’s memories to help the Doctor on his way.

Then, at some point, the Time Lords sent Jamie and Victoria back home. Sometime later, they also caused the Doctor to regenerate, and sent him to Earth to live in exile.

For resolving two major discrepancies, it does sound pretty neat. When I first heard of it many years ago, it sounded really interesting and mysterious that there was this huge gap in the Doctor’s life that we didn’t even know about.

Even cooler, Terrance Dicks himself wrote a novel, World Game, that actually took place inside that gap. So fandom and even one of the show’s original writers had fully embraced the idea. And for a long time, I was a big supporter of the theory.

What changed? Actually seeing The War Games.

The Second Doctor, Jamie and Zoe face their final adventure together in The War Games.

(Photo credit: Doctor Who/BBC.

Image obtained from: BBC Press.)

A big finale

For a long time, The War Games had this reputation of being a serial that had an OK story for the first nine episodes, and a really cool one at the end. As anyone who’s seen it will know, this is actually far from the case.

The War Games is an incredibly epic and ambitious story. Yes, even the writers have admitted that it’s far too long, and that they mainly continued to write it because they weren’t able to make an additional serial that they had planned.

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But despite all of that, it’s still quite possibly one of the best regeneration stories. It’s big, it’s epic and told on a surprisingly huge scale.

It’s also a story that gives us a huge number of twists and revelations, particularly concerning the Doctor. After six seasons, we finally got the name of the Doctor’s race, and even a reason why he ran away from home.

But more than that: it’s really emotional, too. Especially when we reach that final episode. Jamie and Zoe’s goodbyes are heartbreaking to watch. Especially one of Jamie’s last lines to the Doctor:

"I won’t forget you, you know."

And then comes the regeneration. Yes, we don’t technically see the end of it. But still…it’s a brilliant and horrifying moment. Seeing the Doctor’s face blurred, seeing him sent to Earth, spinning round and round, it’s a fantastic cliffhanger, and a great ending to his Doctor.

So the idea that he had more adventures afterward, especially with Jamie, kind of undoes that. It undoes the emotional ending of Jamie’s story. It also undoes the impact of that regeneration.

It would be like, right after Ten says, “I don’t want to go,” we found out that he actually had many more adventures between that line and his immediate regeneration. It would just remove so much impact. So in recent years, I’ve been less keen to embrace season 6B.

The Second Doctor faces both his past and his future in The Black Hole.

(Photo credit: Doctor Who/Big Finish Productions.

Image obtained from: Big Finish Productions.)

The Black Hole

Thankfully, in 2015, Big Finish provided an alternative theory. At least, to explain the strange situation of The Two Doctors.

In The Black Hole by Simon Guerrier, the Second Doctor, Jamie and Victoria meet a Time Lord in that very story. It’s a great early glimpse of them that doesn’t feel quite like cheating.

The Black Hole not only provides an alternative reason for why the Doctor and Jamie were “working for the Time Lords”, or even having a kind of remote control for the TARDIS in The Two Doctors. (Something that the Sixth Doctor apparently always wanted at least, but never actually remembers having one later on.) There’s even a decent explanation for why they would all forget the events by the end of the story.

Personally, I definitely prefer The Black Hole’s explanation. Along with being a very neat way of explaining such an obvious discrepancy, it doesn’t negate the impact of The War Games.

As for that weird moment in The Five Doctors? Well, apparently, the scene was supposed to involve Victoria instead of Zoe. So what the Doctor was supposed to pick up on was Victoria calling Lethbridge-Stewart “Brigadier”. Because when she met him, he had only been a Colonel. And she had only met him once, so she couldn’t have known that.

So there wouldn’t have been anything wrong with that moment, in its original form. Unfortunately, the scene had to be changed from Victoria to Zoe at the last minute, and another discrepancy was written in. With the writer of this scene in question not realizing that he was creating a far bigger discrepancy with the Doctor.

In short: lazy script-editing that we’ll just ignore.

Next: Retro review: Journey’s End (Tenth Doctor story)

What do you think of the season 6B theory? Do you support it? Or is it better and more satisfying to leave The War Games as the Second Doctor’s final adventure? Let us know in the comments below.

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