Doctor Who: Darkness and light – The hidden depths of the Second Doctor

We continue looking at the light and dark sides of each Doctor with the second incarnation, as played by Patrick Troughton. Is he one of the lighter Doctors in Doctor Who, or does he in fact have hidden depths?

The idea for this series of articles was to look at the light and dark sides of every incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who. But while that was easy to do with the First Doctor – particularly as he went from one extreme to the other as he developed considerably over time – the Second Doctor isn’t quite so straightforward.

Patrick Troughton’s incarnation of the Doctor is, overall, a much lighter character. He’s your classic hero, while of course often acting like a fool. It’s no surprise that his portrayal of the character influenced Matt Smith’s – it was always extremely physical, and often featured a great deal of comedy. Overall, it could be argued that the Second Doctor is one of his more lighter incarnations.

Having said that, he still had his moments. If not of darkness, then of mysterious or alien behavior. Like his previous incarnation, he kept extremely quiet about his origins. This was especially true in his first story, The Power of the Daleks, when Ben and Polly weren’t even sure if he was the Doctor at all. His strange behavior and talking about the Doctor in the third-person didn’t help!

Two’s serious side

One thing that also balanced out the lightness and the humor of the Second Doctor was how seriously he took major alien threats. When the Second Doctor was worried, you genuinely believed it. He could be frivolous, but it was rarely around an enemy, at least not one as dangerous as the Daleks or the Cybermen. In fact, he gave this brilliant speech in The Moonbase:

"More from Winter is ComingFor All Mankind finally gives us information in Episode 405, “Goldilocks”Watch a stunning VFX breakdown of The Wheel of Time season 2Of course Steve Toussaint (Corlys Velaryon) thinks Eve Best (Rhaenys Targaryen) should rule WesterosConfirmed: The Last of Us season 2 will air in 2025Final season of Star Trek: Discovery will have “a lot of action, a lot of adventure, a lot of fun”There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things that act against everything we believe in. They must be fought."

Occasionally, he would mock a more human enemy, such as the Logicians in The Tomb of the Cybermen. But that was usually because they weren’t as intelligent or dangerous as Daleks or the Cybermen.

One of the best examples of the Second Doctor at his most serious – and when he was most afraid – is in his final story The War Games. Along with being a spectacular final story to his Doctor, what was fantastic was that we got to see brand new sides to him.

Up to this point, we had seen him worried or even scared, but never quite as much as when he had to summon his own people. His desperate attempts to run away from the Time Lords showed the Second Doctor at his most vulnerable, and reminded us how powerless he could really be.

The Second Doctor didn’t exactly have much of a “dark side” compared to other incarnations. Generally speaking, he was fun and funny and enjoyed his travels in the universe. But the fact that he also knew when to take a threat or even his friends seriously added so much depth to his character, and still makes him a compelling incarnation to watch.

What do you think? Do you think the Second Doctor was one of the more lighter incarnations of our favorite Time Lord? Let us know in the comments below.