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upslapmeal · 7 years ago

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Second Doctor Thoughts

When I finished the First Doctor’s era a year after starting it and in the summer before I started university I joked that at this rate I’d graduate before finishing Classic Who. Well joke’s on me because I very nearly graduated before even finishing the Second Doctor’s era, avoided in large part thanks to a conveniently timed DWSoc screening of The War Games that pushed me to finish the previous two serials in time for that. And I think all this makes it seem as though I wasn’t particularly interested or invested in Two’s era but that really wasn’t the case. Rather, it was more that my progress was bogged down by a combination of having a ridiculous amount of uni work, combining that with starting several other new tv shows (I’m super great at time management and priorities guys) and there being so many missing episodes. I know Power of the Daleks took a month to watch because of the combination of missing episodes making it hard to get a feel for what Two was like (the animation didn’t come out for another year).

And now it feels weird having to talk about my thoughts on something I started three years ago. When I was writing up my thoughts on The Krotons the other day I was struggling to remember what my notes were referring to and that was only several months after watching. But then again this is my thoughts on the era as a whole rather than individual parts of it. And there’s definitely something to be said for taking so long to watch. I mean Two and Jamie have been on-and-off fixtures of my life for the past 3 years which is more or less what they would have been for DW fans back in the 60s. And a six-episode serial back then would have taken over a month for people to watch. Maybe I should pretend this was all intentional to get a ~realistic viewing experience~….

I’m looking back now at my post where I talked about my First Doctor thoughts and I had split it into four sections: the Doctor, the companions, the aliens and the writing/visuals etc. I feel as though I have less to say this time, both as a result of 2/3 of Two’s era being less recent to me than the entirety of One’s had been at the time, but also because I feel as though I went into this era with a better idea of what if would be like. I started Classic Who blind, more just to fill the time while DW wasn’t on air than wanting to actually see what it was like and a lot of my post once I finished One’s era was talking about how pleasantly surprised and how I hadn’t expected to love the characters/character development/plots as much as I did. I had really gone in expecting very little and if you’ve spent any time on my blog you can see how much I really love One’s era now. However, since starting Classic Who I’ve followed a bunch of Classic Who blogs. I’ve seen people talk about Classic Who (including Two’s era) and I’ve even see some people I follow start and work their way through Classic Who at a significantly faster pace than me, going through Two’s stuff before I got there. I tried to not pay attention to plot details (oh how I wish I hadn’t known about the Time Lords in The War Games) but not only is it hard to avoid 50-year-old spoilers, I didn’t start watching only to be surprised by how good a lot of the characterisation and plots were. The quality of some serials still took me by surprise (I knew people said it would be good but The Enemy of the World was really EXCELLENT, can’t wait for Two to save 2018) but I generally had higher expectations.

Obviously this era suffers from missing episodes significantly more than One’s era. I watched all the reconstructions but so often something would be described in the scrolling text that I would pay large quantities of money to get to actually see (x x) and there were serials like The Macra Terror which I could tell were really good and enjoyed but would have been even better if there were full visuals to go with the audio. It’s a shame because all these missing episodes must seems like a huge barrier to a lot of people when it comes to starting Classic Who and I’ve seen people under the impression that most black and white episodes are missing.

But anyway. On to the actual thoughts. Like I said this is going to be shorter than it was for One’s era but please don’t mistake that for lack of enthusiasm. Also I’ll put it under a cut because this preamble has already gone on long enough.

The Doctor:

Isn’t Two fantastic? He’s really just out there to have a good time and explore and help out, and it really builds up well to the revelation that he ran away from the Time Lords because he wasn’t content to just observe the universe without interacting with it. He doesn’t seem to have misconceptions about him in the same way One did and I can’t imagine anyone watching the era and not thinking Troughton was an absolute delight. There’s a child-like amusement mixed in with scattiness that often seems to act as a mask to his thought processes (though not always - this is someone has done the blowing-up-an-island equivalent of sawing off a tree branch while sitting on it). And when you see Two switch to being dead serious you know that the situation warrants it. It was fascinating in particular to get a first glimpse into his interactions and relationship with the other Time Lords and I’m looking forward to the Master being introduced now I’m going into Three’s era to start to build on that (I know we had the Monk with One but that felt different, understandably, as I’m sure at the time there was so concept of Time Lords). Two had a deceptive child-like glee, not the same as One’s but not entirely different either, and I’m going to miss this recorder-playing space hobo and his expressive face.

The Companions:

I didn’t talk much about Ben and Polly in my First Doctor post because I felt I hadn’t really got to know them yet, although I don’t think their four (well…..really three, it’s a shame they weren’t in most of their last serial) stories with Two really told me anything I hadn’t seen with One other than giving them a new surface to bounce off of. I just loved their combination of small, frequently surprised sailor and hip 60s woman who defeats the cybermen using knowledge about nail polish. And of course they were the first ever companions to deal with regeneration and I really enjoyed seeing their different approaches and different amounts of trust in this new Doctor during Power. I’m not usually fussed about the whole ‘first face this face saw’ but seeing how overlooked these two are I like to think they had a special place in Two’s hearts because of this.

And then there’s Jamie who is unquestioningly the defining companion of Two’s era and for good reason too. A lot of the era’s comedy comes from Two and Jamie bouncing off of (and clinging to) each other, and seeing that Jamie lost all that time he spent travelling with the Doctor was really right up there with Donna losing her memories. It would be easy to just think of Jamie as not very clever, but I feel like a lot of the time this came down to a lack of familiarity with what would later become familiar technology (I really enjoyed having a historical companion, done much better than Katarina RIP). Yes he would sometimes be slow to get things and be the butt of the joke, and sure he would do things like jump in front of an ice warrior but it would work and he had a lot of heart and a lot of love for his friends. He would often be an outside perspective to Two, being a voice of reason when Two got a bit carried away (cf. Two’s blowing-up-an-island equivalent of sawing off a tree branch while sitting on it). Here are just a few favourite Jamie moments: x x x. Oh and of course, Jimbo McCribbob.

Quick shoutout to almost-companion Samantha Briggs - if she had ended up staying as originally intended we would have missed out on Victoria so I don’t wish that had happened but I thought she was really brilliant in The Faceless Ones and I loved her interactions with Jamie.

What I loved and also found sad about Victoria was her interactions with Two, how he showed a real understanding of the fact that she had lost everyone and come on the TARDIS out of a sense of having nowhere else to go rather than out of curiosity and a sense of adventure (Tomb of the Cybermen stands out in particular in this respect). She was often scared (and I’m pretty sure I would have been terrified in the situations she was put in) but always kind and I thought her exit was really earned. She deserved to live in a stable place with people she could grow to call family and not constantly feel in danger. That life just wasn’t for her as much as she loved Jamie and Two and I appreciated that the Doctor refused to try and persuade her otherwise, no matter what Jamie said.

Oh Zoe. My science daughter. My incredibly intelligent science daughter who didn’t know how candles worked #just21stcenturyproblems. Firstly: congrats Two! You only (accidentally) kidnapped one (stowaway) companion! I liked that she was introduced in a cyberman episode, contrasting her wanting to feel everything like someone who hasn’t been trained to be a human computer and the cybermen who want to erase emotions. And again, all that is lost when she leaves and it’s a tragedy. But this show always has to have bits of tragedy woven in every now and then, keeping us grounded. It’s a show that does bittersweet well. Her advanced scientific and mathematical knowledge meant that she had a dynamic with the Doctor that we also saw with Vicki only to a lesser extent and I liked that she often thought of things before the Doctor (oh what I would have given to see Zoe and Vicki meet at some point). Also, and very importantly, Zoe always made a cute(r than usual) face when she was complemented!

The aliens:

This is going to be very short, limited to four quick points:

I found Two-era cybermen increasingly difficult to understand and I’m not sure if that was just me or something people found in general

also interesting to see the introduction of another (if less-so) recurring alien with the ice warriors (and in a serial with Peter Sallis no less!)

yeti!! made even better by the fact that I got to see the actual costume when I went to the DW Experience this summer

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE MACRA

The plots, writing, and visuals:

I think this is where I’m going to have notably less to say than in my post for the First Doctor. What I will say is that while there were many outstanding or particularly fun stories (Enemy and Macra as I said earlier but also The Faceless Ones, The Mind Robber, The Invasion, The Web of Fear (Anne Travers <3 and the Brig!!) and The War Games to name a few), I’m definitely more a fan of going-on-an-adverture-to-find-stuff-out stories than the base-under-siege pattern that this era had a lot of and I felt like there were more stories that I was indifferent to than in One’s era, but even then that wasn’t any great amount. Oh and historicals. I miss historicals. One thing that I will say is that while this era managed have more roles played by black actors, whenever we we met a black character my first thought was always ‘I hope they don’t die’ (especially Kemel and Fariah), and as far as I can remember I was let down every time. But that is more a complaint with 1960s TV in general rather than being something specific to Doctor Who.

Overall:

The Second Doctor era has really been a constant in a significant era of my life, and I don’t think I have anything left to say that I’ve not already said in this overly-long post. I’m glad it’s not totally goodbye forever though, there’s still the anniversary specials to look forward to and I haven’t heard characterisation complaints for Two and co. in the same way as for One and Susan. But for now it’s onto the (temporarily) Earth-bound world of colour and UNIT, back with the Brig and getting to meet Liz, Benton and Yates (and later Jo and Sarah-Jane)! Autons! Dinosaurs! The Master! Let’s just hope this doesn’t take another three years!

Goodbye cosmic hobo. I’ll miss you.

#THIS IS LONG WHOOPS #second doctor #classic who #doctor who #patrick troughton #wanderings in the fourth dimension

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