- 6/11/2025
Travel back to the swinging '60s and meet the Second Doctor, played by the brilliant Patrick Troughton. As the first actor to take over the iconic role, Troughton redefined Doctor Who with his quirky, clever, and compassionate portrayal of the Time Lord. This video explores how his “Cosmic Hobo” approach brought humor, heart, and bold storytelling to the series—introducing regeneration, iconic monsters like the Cybermen and Ice Warriors, and unforgettable adventures across time and space.
Join us as we celebrate the man who proved the Doctor could change—and the show could go on.
Join us as we celebrate the man who proved the Doctor could change—and the show could go on.
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00:00Patrick Troughton's Doctor. In a way, the story really, really starts.
00:20Whereas William Hartnell's first Doctor had been a gentleman of the universe,
00:24the second Doctor was a cosmic hobo.
00:26Played by Patrick Troughton, this Doctor was much smarter than he appeared,
00:31hiding a mischievous glint in his eye behind a Beatles mop-top.
00:35The way he tackles the Doctor is unlike any hero up to that point.
00:42Although, at this point, the Doctor is very clearly the hero of the show,
00:45he does everything to undercut it.
00:4717 degrees, I can't know.
00:4917 degrees? This is serious.
00:51What's real about the Black Quarren?
00:5317-1, 5-0, 6-0, 6-0, 7-0, 7-0, 7-0, 7-0, 7-0, 7-0, 7-0, 7-0, 7-0, 7-0, 7-0, 8-0.
01:01He's much more of a buffoon, it would seem.
01:03I mean, a lot of the time, that's a slightly dishonest buffoonery.
01:07He's using it to disarm people.
01:10Underneath it all, there's this steeliness and there's this brilliance.
01:15Get the scavengers out of here!
01:16No, no, no!
01:17No, you can't!
01:17No!
01:18You tell the man on the bench!
01:21In two minutes, 38 seconds, you're going to have an almighty explosion!
01:26The readings say so!
01:28For me, Patrick Charleston is one of my favourite doctors,
01:31maybe at times my favourite doctor.
01:33He's just got such naughtiness.
01:35He's so mischievous,
01:37and you genuinely don't know in any episode what he's going to do next.
01:42The other side of Patrick's portrayal of the Doctor
01:45was, of course, the humour he brought to it,
01:48which, apart from being endearing,
01:51added such a completely other dimension to the character.
01:56The new Doctor wasn't grumpy.
01:58He was distracted.
02:00He was having a wonderful time.
02:02People were always going to underestimate him
02:05because he was the baggy little clown man.
02:07That's him!
02:09Now the other one!
02:10He was funny, and he was nice,
02:22and he was somehow absolutely still the Doctor.
02:26You don't doubt for a second that he's a town lord,
02:42and that he's brilliant,
02:44and that he's gifted beyond our imaginings.
02:48And yet, at the same time,
02:49he seems like a little, scruffy little pub goblin of a man.
02:53Very careful.
02:54I'm going to get out.
02:55Oh!
02:57It's quite a long drop.
02:58This was a Doctor that I would actually like to be
03:06in the TARDIS with him.
03:09Hey, it looks like a great big wall of ice!
03:11Oh!
03:13What is it?
03:14You're on my hand!
03:18This show becomes more about the Doctor, I think.
03:20This playful new Doctor must have come
03:25as something of a surprise to viewers
03:27who are used to his rather more dignified predecessor.
03:32You discover, and what a shock twist this is,
03:35that the Doctor you've known all along
03:37is only one of many potential Doctors.
03:39He turns in to somebody else entirely.
03:43And again, what a reckless and brilliant piece
03:46of television inventiveness that was.
03:50It would have been so easy, if you think about it,
04:13for them to say, his face will change slightly.
04:15We'll put another bloke on a white wig
04:16and we'll have explained his slightly different features
04:19and he'll carry on playing it roughly the same way.
04:20He didn't do that at all.
04:22I still don't know how they came to this conclusion
04:23or how they knew this would work.
04:25They say, we'll make him completely different.
04:26Different age, different temperament,
04:28different style of behaviour, everything totally different.
04:32And we'll just say he's still the Doctor
04:33and that somewhere in there, somewhere in there,
04:35there is a spark that is the same.
04:37What I loved about Pat was his look and his costume,
04:42which was truly a mess most of the time.
04:48You know, William Hartnell's kind of stiff callers have disappeared.
04:50It's suddenly all soft lines and kind of baggy trousers.
04:54And it's a complete reinvention.
04:57And that's what makes it work, I think.
04:59The clothes reflect this version of the Doctor.
05:01The first Doctor very much the authority figure,
05:03very much sees himself as the senior man.
05:05Whereas the Troughton Doctor has rejected that.
05:08He decided he wouldn't be the guy in charge.
05:10He does everything to look like Charlie Chapman.
05:12He does everything to look helpless and disarming.
05:14His costume actually went brilliantly with his character
05:18and the way that Pat was playing him.
05:26I think, again, as the Doctor moves
05:28to become the focus of the show more,
05:30he becomes more involved in every way.
05:32So, you know, you see Patrick Troughton running around
05:35in a way that I don't think William Hartnell ever did.
05:38Suddenly he is able to get involved,
05:50not in fighting, he doesn't do that,
05:52but in clowning and in physicality
05:56and leaping around in the curious way he uses his hands.
06:00Now, if you look at Matt Smith's Doctor
06:03and Patrick Troughton's Doctor,
06:04although they are just about as different
06:06as human beings can be,
06:08you can't help but see the continuity.
06:11And that's real and it's there
06:12because when Matt was trying to get his head around
06:16playing the Doctor,
06:17it was the Patrick Troughton Doctor
06:19he fell in love with.
06:20He saw the key that way.
06:21That's where the bow tie came from.
06:23That's where the hand moves came from.
06:25All came from the Patrick Troughton Doctor.
06:27And he thought, I think the key,
06:30what Matt always says about Patrick is,
06:31he's odd, but he doesn't ask you to think he's odd.
06:35He just is.
06:35In an age of the Avengers and Bond girls,
06:39Doctor Who was keeping up with the times
06:40by introducing teen genius Zoe Herriot.
06:43A cat-suited, kung-fu-fighting astrophysicist,
06:46she was the first companion
06:47who considered herself smarter than the Doctor.
06:53It's always a kind of happy accident
06:55when the Doctor, each Doctor,
06:57finds the perfect companion.
06:59And generally speaking, generally speaking,
07:01it's been a girl.
07:03It's been a...
07:04You know, each Doctor's ideal number one companion
07:07has been a woman, you know.
07:10Well, while Jamie wore a skirt,
07:12he was certainly not a woman.
07:14And it's quite unusual.
07:14He's the definitive Patrick Troughton companion,
07:17and they have a tremendous friendship.
07:18Jamie was a Highlander who met the Doctor
07:21in 18th-century Scotland.
07:24Suddenly, the Time Lord had what he'd so far been missing,
07:27a best friend.
07:29The two became inseparable,
07:30and together they formed an unlikely double act.
07:33Jamie is a constant,
07:36almost through all of the Second Doctor's time.
07:39He's in just about all the stories.
07:42Jamie McCrimmon was one of the play.
07:44I loved playing.
07:45He was from 1746.
07:47He was a Highlander,
07:48the Battle of Culloden.
07:50Patrick Troughton, the Second Doctor,
07:52my Doctor, my favourite Doctor,
07:54he rescued him and took him in the TARDIS.
07:56I do remember,
08:22as a young boy growing up in Glasgow,
08:24you know, I'm going to switch now.
08:27All of a sudden, sitting there going,
08:28Mum, Mum,
08:30there's a guy in a kilt on Doctor Who.
08:33There's somebody from Scotland on Doctor Who.
08:35It was a complete...
08:38It was just different.
08:39To have a character who was wearing a kilt,
08:41and, you know,
08:43it must have been pretty rank after the...
08:45Even if you think about it,
08:46because he wore the same kilt all the time.
08:50They must have been a washing machine on the TARDIS.
08:52There's a swimming pool in the TARDIS.
08:53There's a big wardrobe in the TARDIS,
08:55if you go back and look into all those old episodes.
08:58May I see your passport, sir?
09:00We neither of us have passports!
09:03Now, does that satisfy you?
09:04I think you must be mistaken, sir.
09:06You couldn't have got on the aircraft without passports.
09:09What aircraft?
09:10The one you arrived on, sir.
09:12It was lovely for me,
09:13for my character to evolve and change,
09:16and in the faceless ones,
09:19I think, is when you first start to see
09:21Patrick and myself
09:23our kind of comedy sneaking in
09:26when the guy with the passport, obviously, you know,
09:29and I'm going,
09:29no, we came in a big blue box.
09:31Oh, what do you do that for?
09:32We didn't arrive on an aircraft.
09:34Now, look here, sir.
09:35This joke's gone far enough.
09:36You know and I know
09:37that you must have arrived here
09:38on the last inbound flight,
09:39which was flight number 729 to Madrid.
09:42I'm not talking about TARDIS.
09:43What's that?
09:44It's the way we got here.
09:46You gentlemen wouldn't know anything
09:47about a police box, would you?
09:48That's just what I'm saying.
09:49I really think that our mode of conveyance is irrelevant.
09:53The important thing is
09:54that we've discovered a dead body out there
09:55and we want to report it to someone in authority.
09:58We were always looking for the humour of the show,
10:02so much so that when we did
10:03The Tomb of the Cyberman,
10:06that lovely thing that was not in the script...
10:08It's perfectly safe to go in there now.
10:09Oh, come on, I'm wasting time.
10:11Of course, after you, Professor.
10:15We only did it on the take
10:16is when we said, come along, Victoria,
10:18and we'd grab each other's hands
10:19and Patrick and I worked this out.
10:22Yeah, let's do the gag here.
10:24I'd still be very careful if I were you.
10:26Very careful indeed.
10:28Come on, let's go and join.
10:30Come on, Victoria.
10:32That's why our hands are slightly higher
10:34because we didn't know where they were cutting.
10:36Normally, you'd grab somebody's hand like that,
10:37but because we didn't know where the camera shot was,
10:39we'd grab each other's hands and go,
10:41don't, don't, don't, don't.
10:42Lauren Hardy went with it.
10:47You look very nice in that dress, Victoria.
10:50Don't you think it's a bit...
10:51A bit short?
10:52Oh, I shouldn't worry about that.
10:53Look at Jamie's.
10:54Hey, I'll have you know that...
10:56Oh, why?
10:57Come along.
10:57Come along, let's go and see what the others are doing.
10:59Between two proper buddy movie opposites,
11:03big Bronnie Scott in a kilt
11:06and a wee madman with no physical prowess at all,
11:11but it's just that magical thing,
11:13that buddy movie thing,
11:14it happens, it works between the two of them.
11:16I was very fortunate that Patrick liked me
11:18and everybody else.
11:21You had Jamie and Victoria travelling with the Doctor.
11:24You had two companions from the fairly distant past.
11:29Jamie and the Doctor were joined
11:31by the very Victorian Victoria,
11:34a well-brought-up young lady from the 19th century
11:36whose father was killed by the Daleks.
11:40They've had companions from the future,
11:42but generally speaking, they default to the present day.
11:45But, you know, the show's still in flux,
11:47they're still making up,
11:47so they get Jamie from the past
11:49and Victoria from the past.
11:50And for quite a long time,
11:52we have these three utterly relatable characters
11:54travelling on the TARDIS.
11:56There we are.
12:01Well, what do you think?
12:04I don't know.
12:06I can't believe it.
12:08It's so big.
12:12Where are we?
12:13Oh, it's the TARDIS.
12:14It's my home.
12:15At least it has been for a considerable number of years.
12:18And what's fascinating about this set-up for a while
12:21is there's nobody from our world at all
12:23to experience the adventures.
12:24There's a Victorian girl,
12:26there's a boy from the distant past in Scotland,
12:29there are people who don't have an anchor in our world at all,
12:35and yet it still works.
12:37What are all these knobs?
12:39What, these?
12:42Instruments.
12:43These are for controlling our flight.
12:46Flight?
12:46Well, yes.
12:48You see, we travel around in here through time and space.
12:52Oh, no, no, no, no.
12:53Don't laugh.
12:54It's true.
12:56Your father and Maxtable were working on the same problem,
12:58but I have perfected a rather special model
13:03which enables me to travel through the universe of time.
13:07And then Victoria gets replaced by Zoe,
13:10who's from the distant future.
13:11In an age of the Avengers and Bond girls,
13:15Doctor Who was keeping up with the times
13:17by introducing teen genius Zoe Herriot,
13:20a cat-suited, kung-fu-fighting astrophysicist
13:23with a photographic memory.
13:25She wasn't just a match for Jamie.
13:27She was the first companion
13:28who considered herself smarter than the Doctor.
13:31Zoe's the first time they ever consider the idea of,
13:35let's get somebody who is notionally
13:37as clever as the Doctor on the darkness.
13:39She gave the Doctor a run for his money with her,
13:45and she would have said this as well, her brilliance.
13:48I mean, there was nothing humble about Zoe.
13:50Well, where are you going?
13:51I'm going to take the test.
13:52I can't let you go in there alone.
13:54What do I do?
13:54Well, sit down and put this...
13:56Oh, this headset on.
13:59And press the button.
14:02Press the button!
14:03All right, there's no deed to shout.
14:04Go away and don't fuss me.
14:05Now, come back. What's this?
14:06It's all right, I know.
14:08Right, fire away. I'm ready.
14:09OK.
14:10She had a mathematical brain that, I mean,
14:19she couldn't be more different to me.
14:22Oh.
14:23Oh, Doctor, you've got it all wrong.
14:25Oh, dear, I've been working in square roots.
14:28Can I have that again, please?
14:30Well, they don't give you second shots.
14:33Well, press the button again.
14:35In fairness to good old Doctor Who,
14:37they make the Doctor's intellectual equal a young girl.
14:39That must have been great for young girls watching,
14:41thinking, yeah, I can go two-to-two with the Doctor.
14:44I could outwit the Doctor at times.
14:46I did think he was pretty stupid at times.
14:49This is the most advanced machine.
14:51Perhaps it can't answer the questions.
14:53Of course it can.
14:54The Doctor's almost as clever as I am.
14:57Well, and, of course, not only was she a genius, basically,
15:01she loved a bit of action as well.
15:04Ah!
15:05Oops!
15:07Ah!
15:09Don't do anything rash!
15:14She wasn't scared of getting stuck in and fighting,
15:18as in the mine robber, fighting with the carcass.
15:21Oh!
15:22Throwing this six-foot-four man over my shoulder.
15:25Oh!
15:26Oh!
15:27Oh!
15:27Mercy!
15:28You better submit, you know!
15:29Oh, mercy!
15:30Help!
15:30Help!
15:30Help!
15:31Help!
15:33Do you submit it?
15:34I submit!
15:35Amazing to do.
15:38And, yes, there were many times when she was very much part of the action.
15:42Actually, the Doctor we recognise today is much more Patrick Troughton's Doctor.
15:46We've all sort of done our version, kind of, of what Patrick Troughton did.
15:50If Patrick Troughton hadn't done what he did so confidently and so brilliantly,
15:55then, I wouldn't be sitting here today.
16:01The Ice Warriors were the real deal, as far as I was concerned.
16:07In 1967, Doctor Who finally met the Martians.
16:12But what would the inhabitants of this fabled long-dead world look like?
16:15The answer had lain hidden under a glacier for thousands of years.
16:20A race of bloodthirsty giant lizards.
16:23The Ice Warriors.
16:26They're discovered near a base on Earth.
16:31Discovered in the ice.
16:33The idea being that they've been there for millennia.
16:37A giant among prehistoric men.
16:40You see, the kind of armor he's got on?
16:41Yes.
16:43That's rather strange.
16:44He looks pre-Viking.
16:49But no such civilization existed in prehistoric times before the First Ice Age.
16:54Proper Ice Warrior, isn't he, sir?
16:57They're rather magnificent, huge beasts.
17:00A terrific costume.
17:01One of the great things is you've never seen a real Ice Warrior.
17:04They're cloaked in this cybernetic, but partially organic armor.
17:11It's a perfect monster for his Doctor.
17:13But that sense that, you know, they bring out the liveliness of his performance, I think.
17:18Stop!
17:19You must be destroyed.
17:23You've got no orders to kill me.
17:26Your leader will want to speak to me.
17:28Humans are our enemies.
17:30But I can be useful to you.
17:32Like Husham.
17:34Your leader will be angry if you kill me.
17:35I'm a genius.
17:37Genius.
17:37Genius.
17:41The Ice Warriors weren't the only memorable monster that the second Doctor faced.
17:46He also had several encounters with the steely Cybermen.
17:50The 60s saw pioneering advances in surgery with the first artificial organ transplants.
17:57The Cybermen took this to extremes.
18:00They replaced almost every part of themselves.
18:03And in the process, became ruthless, emotionless, and unstoppable.
18:08Look!
18:10Look!
18:10I think that Tomb of the Cybermen is probably up there
18:40in my top three or four Doctor Who episodes ever, and it's such an extraordinary serial,
18:46particularly when they actually emerge from the tomb, and you just think...
18:57The Cybermen want what every species wants. They want to make more of them, but whereas most species
19:05have a very much more pleasant way of doing that, what they like to do is go and get people
19:09and turn them into Cybermen. They want to proliferate and to spread as simple as that.
19:14They're a race that slowly started replacing, first of all, an organ here and a limb there,
19:21and eventually they replaced sort of their entire bodies, and indeed within that lost
19:27any semblance of humanity. They regard themselves as an improvement. They think they're better.
19:32Reproducing yourself again and again is the ultimate necessity for life, I guess,
19:38so it's become a very simple formula for them.
19:43You must be destroyed.
19:47Yes, well, I was afraid you'd get back to that. Well, you'd better come in.
19:54You can't break through the field, you know.
20:13You will be destroyed. Others are coming.
20:20I think Patrick Troughton created the Doctor as he is now. William Hartnell created something
20:28that was unique and brilliant, but actually the Doctor we recognise today is much more Patrick
20:34Troughton's Doctor. We've all sort of done our version, kind of, of what Patrick Troughton did.
20:39He gave the show a way to keep going. He allows it to still exist. If Patrick Troughton hadn't done
20:47what he did so confidently and with such charm and so brilliantly, then I wouldn't be sitting here today.
20:58Top Gear's James May has been tasked with choosing the definitive car of the people.
21:04It's awful, brutally diabolical. It also smells funny. It's cumbersome. It's crude. It even looks a bit like a butter.
21:13Wow! The views and opinions expressed by Mr. May do not necessarily reflect the official position of Top Gear or BBC America.
21:18Top Gear Cars of the People, premieres next Monday at 9, only on BBC America.
21:24We're almost positive there exist much more suitable methods to evaluate cars than using rocket launchers.
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