Firstly, Patrick Troughton
A little congratulation to myself for the
most stunningly obvious statement I’m likely to write today. The challenge for
Patrick Troughton taking over the role was quite a difficult one. Think about
it – now we know that the Doctor changes periodically. When Pete Capadli took
over, for example, we had memories of Matt Smith, David Tennant, and
Christopher Eccleston in the role. So if it occurred to anyone to think – well,
he’s not like Matt Smith at all – they probably also thought – well, fair
enough, since he isn’t supposed to be. As for Patrick Troughton, though, it had
never happened before. As far as all the viewers knew, William Hartnell WAS the
Doctor. What Patrick Troughton, in fact pretty much all of the actors to play
each new regeneration of the Doctor, managed to do was to find a way to stay
true to the essential core of the character while putting their own stamp on
the role. We might possibly characterise these essential qualities that
Troughton’s characterisation of the Doctor retained from Hartnell’s as, in no
particular order –
- a scientific curiosity that can lead him
to overstep the mark at times and put his own and his companions’ lives in
danger
- a desire to stand up for what’s right,
and to protect the weak from those who seek to use their position of strength
to dominate and terrorise them
- an unreliable reliability – that is, an
ability to always come through, even when he seems to go AWOL, and even when he
has no clear idea of how to do it
- a genuine feeling of tenderness to his
companions which springs from a fear of loneliness, and also a distaste for
highly emotional parting scenes
- a feeling of a man being somehow out of
time – never totally at a loss, and yet never completely at one with the place
in time and space where he happens to be at any given moment.
Proof can be found that all of these are
just of true of Troughton’s Doctor as they are of Hartnell’s. Which is not to
say that Troughton brought nothing new to the party with him. Troughton’s
Doctor could at times be almost as grouchy as Hartnell’s, but these were mere
moments, while most of the time he had an air of impish charm, a little way
removed from Hartnell even at his most twinkly. Hartnell could also do delight,
but not in the same way that Troughton could. Essentially, Troughton brought
out the little boy in the Doctor.
It’s often said that Troughton’s costume
of the Doctor was an exaggerated version of Hartnell’s, and made that way to
emphasise the comic nature of his performances – the oft-mentioned ‘cosmic
hobo’ idea which could supposedly be traced back to Charlie Chaplin’s famous
Little Tramp character. There may be something in this, but I’m not sure that
we should say that the comedy was much more to the fore than in any other era
of Classic Who. After all, Hartnell, Troughton, Pertwee, Tom Baker, Davison and
McCoy could all point to some serious comedy pedigree on their CVs, and Colin
Baker , a very generous and funny man off stage I’ve always heard it said, is
no slouch in that department either.
Troughton was the first really anarchic
Doctor. If we compare him to his immediate successor, and his predecessor,
Hartnell effortlessly waltzes into the corridors of power in “The War Games”,
and it is completely accepted by everyone else that he belongs there. Pertwee’s
Doctor, the third Doctor, was so at home in The Establishment that in Terror of
the Autons he threatens a jobsworth civil servant that he will drop a word in
his overall boss, “Tubby” Rowlands at their Gentleman’s club. You could never
see Troughton’s Doctor being a member of a Gentleman’s Club, I’m sorry. In that
sense, he’s probably the least Establishment of all the Doctors – except, maybe
Sylvester McCoy – and one of the things about the 7th Doctor is that
although he is an original in his own right, I do find echoes of the 2nd
Doctor in McCoy’s portrayal.
Secondly, a redefinition of what the show was all about
It’s possible to argue that this actually
happened twice during Troughton’s tenure. At the start, Troughton’s Doctor was
a wanderer in Time and Space, with two companions he hadn’t invited on board in
the first place, unable to return them home, unable to control where the TARDIS
landed. We knew next to nothing about his past or his background. He could land
anywhere in Time and Space, including Earth’s own past history.
In Troughton’s second series there’s a
definite shift. He now has two companions on board, both of whom he invited to
join him. He embarks upon a series of adventures, almost all bar one of which
involve travelling into Earth’s future. Even with “The Tomb of The Cybermen”
the party of Archaeologists with whom he aligns himself are from Earth. In
every story bar “The Enemy of the World” the Doctor is defending humans from
alien monsters of some shape, form or description. Alright – the Yeti are
robots, but they are controlled by the alien Great Intelligence. So Troughton’s
second season could almost be subtitled “The Adventures of the Doctor – Monster
Fighter”.
Troughton’s third season saw a return to
variety and experimentation with format. Although the Dominators again saw the
Doctor defending humanoids against alien monsters – the Dominators and their
Quark robots – at least we were on an alien planet again for the first time
since Telos. “The Mind Robber” showed that the format could still handle some
experimentation, as it boldly went where no other Doctor Who story had gone
before. In “The Invasion”, though, we had a glimpse of the future, a story set
in contemporary earth where the Doctor had to save humanity from an evil
industrialist/technocrat and some hulking amoral monsters. Which essentially
would be the template for the next few seasons.
Finally, in “The War Games”, the idea of
the Doctor as the mysterious wanderer in Time and Space was cast away to the
four winds. After “The War Games” the Doctor would eventually be able to wander
again, but he would never again be quite so mysterious as he had been before.
There’s a lot you can say about the creation of the Time Lords in Troughton’s
last story. Personally I think they were a timely creation, after all, things
that don’t grow and change can stagnate, or even wither and die. However it did
open the gates for more and more additions to the Time Lord mythos. This is a
danger with long running drama series, and more so with long running sci fi/sci
fantasy drama series, creating all kinds of continuity headaches for future
writers and production teams. In a way it can also alienate viewers, who may be
puzzled or even put off by references back to what we were supposed to know
about the Time Lords from what has gone before.
Thirdly, Monsters
It’s difficult to think of any monsters
which made a huge impact during Hartnell’s time other than the Daleks and the Cybermen
– and the latter didn’t even make their first appearance until his very last
story. Comparing that with Troughton, in 9 fewer stories than Hartnell, not
only did he battle the Daleks and Cybermen 6 times altogether, his time also
saw the introduction on the Ice Warriors, whom he fought twice, and who would
appear in 2 stories with the Third Doctor, and the popular Yeti. The Macra
crabs never reappeared in Classic Doctor Who, but were exhumed for the David
Tennant story “Gridlock”. Everything is
relative, and everything is linked. The tone had been set in the 5th
season that this was the direction that the show as going to take, and so it
was probably inevitable that there would be a noticeable reliance on ‘monster’
stories. The very interesting thing is that the show moved away from this in
the 6th season. We had another Cyberman story, and another Ice
Warriors story, but other than that there are very few monsters in the season.
You could, I suppose, include the Quarks in this category, but even then they
were just the robot henchmen of the Dominators, who were essentially humanoid.
The Mind Robber is a special case, since even though monsters such as the Minotaur
and Medusa feature in individual scenes, these weren’t Who monsters by any
stretch of the imagination. The Krotons were less than successful, and the last
two stories didn’t feature any monsters at all, apart from humanoid ones. Which
again is probably a reflection on the rather more adult direction that Peter
Bryant and Derrick Sherwin had decided to steer the show into for the coming
Pertwee era.
Fourthly, The
Companions
The Troughton era saw only 5 companions, two of whom, Ben
and Polly, were legacy companions from the Hartnell era. For me there was
always a sense of things – relationships – not being quite right between the
three of them. Granted that the show began with three companions, and indeed continued
that way up until The Chase. Since then, though, two companions had been the
norm, and sometimes just the one. It’s probably fair to say that three
companions is just too many, and it puts a real strain on the scriptwriters to
find something meaningful to give each of them to do. A bonus point of Ben and
Polly leaving was that it really allowed the relationship between Jamie and the
Doctor to flourish. Both Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines went on record as
saying that the time they had working with each other on the show was the most
enjoyable, and their relationship was the most fruitful professional
relationship. The Doctor and Jamie complimented each other perfectly, and were
great foils to each other – indeed it is very difficult to think of any male
companion whose relationship with the Doctor comes close. Ian’s with the First
Doctor is extremely important too, but it’s very different.
When I’ve been commenting on Wendy Padbury’s cuteness
earlier, I want to stress that I wasn’t casting a slur on Deborah Watling by
the way – who was a beautiful girl in her own right. In fact, you could argue
that this was a golden era for female companions if looks were what was most
important to you – Anneke Wills – Deborah Watling – Wendy Padbury – all head
turners. Deborah Watling’s Victoria was a little problematical, though.
Remember that she’s a girl from a bourgeois English family of 1866, which means
she is going to bring a set of attitudes to life, the Universe and Everything,
which are going to be burdensome to some scriptwriters. Companions from earth’s
past are problematical, unless, like Jamie, you by and large say that he’s the
kind of person who just takes everything in his stride, so you don’t have to go
explaining every little thing to him because he’ll either work it out for
himself eventually, or if he can’t he won’t be that bothered about it anyway.
But Victoria isn’t like that. Also, add to this the fact that she was abducted
by Daleks and taken to Skaro, and it was from there that the Doctor rescued
her, at which time her father sacrificed himself to save the Doctor. Now,
either you have the poor girl acting traumatized – which she probably would
have been – or you have her seemingly get over it remarkably quickly, which she
does. That’s necessary dramatically for the ongoing series, but isn’t the most
believable thing on the menu. Fair play, though, she is allowed character
development throughout “Fury From the Deep”, and it worked to actually have a
companion call it a day because she can’t take it anymore. That wouldn’t happen
again until Tegan Jovanka, unless I’m very much mistaken.
Zoe was an interesting choice of companion. She was the
first attempt at an ‘as smart as the Doctor’. This was a theme that was
returned to more than once in the classic series – one thinks of both Romanas,
and also Adric, the Mathematical genius (no sneers, please, we’ll get to him in
the fulness of time.) One of the positives to emerge from “The Wheel In Space”
is the way that her character is set up, as someone whose academic intelligence
is without question, but whose emotional intelligence is somewhat lacking,
hence some of the bullying she endures from surfer boy on the wheel. A nice
little touch for me is the way that she doesn’t even seem to get it. Yes,
alright, she reverts to the screaming stereotype from time to time, but then
she is always capable of doing something you don’t expect, like deciding not to
go and explore with Jamie and the Doctor in the first episode of “The
Dominators”.
Fifthly,
the stories. In my opinion (as
always, feel free to disagree) the best Hartnell stories tended to be the
Historicals, as a rule. They weren’t all brilliant, but the best of them were
extremely good, and the worst of them were still quite watchable. The science
fiction stories often fell a little short in one way or another – it wasn’t
uncommon for them to have interesting ideas which were either not properly
developed, or not brilliantly realized on screen. Likewise, the real attempt to
take a voyage into surrealism and science fantasy was a halfhearted one at
best, and didn’t come off. Comparing this with the second Doctor’s era, while
it might not have been to everyone’s cup of tea the show did evolve a
successful way of doing science fiction, the much mentioned base under siege
format. The Mind Robber also showed that the show could do surrealism
brilliantly if it so chose. The Sixth season’s “The Invasion” was also a
signpost that the show was about to take a shift towards a format we could call
Earth under siege, if we so chose.
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Well, I certainly enjoyed the Troughton era. It
was different from the Hartnell era, which was a complete voyage of discovery
for me, in as much as I do have some very early memories of a few of the
stories first time round. On, then to the Pertwee era, and let’s wave a
relieved goodbye to the recon era.
Troughton
Era Ratings: -
Mighty
200 ratings/ 2014 DWM Poll ratings
The Evil of the Daleks – 18/34
Power of the Daleks – 21/19
The Web of Fear – 23/16
Tomb of the Cybermen - 25 /23
The War Games – 29 / 12
The Invasion – 31/33
Fury from the Deep 41/69
The Abominable Snowmen 59 /87
The Mind Robber – 60/73
The Ice Warriors 78/41
The Seeds of Death 111/126
The Moonbase – 112/113
The Faceless Ones – 122/142
The Macra Terror – 137/150
The Enemy of the World 139/56
The Highlanders – 145/166
The Wheel In Space - 156/177
The Krotons – 166/207
The Dominators – 191/234
The Underwater Menace – 194/224
The Space Pirates – 195/235
My Ratings
The War Games
The Mind Robber
Evil of the Daleks
Power of the Daleks
The Invasion
The Abominable Snowmen
Tomb of the Cybermen
Fury from the Deep
The Faceless Ones
The Web of Fear
The Ice Warriors
The Macra Terror
The Krotons
The Seeds of Death
The Wheel In Space
The Enemy of the World
The Dominators
The Underwater Menace
The Space Pirates
The Highlanders
