The 2nd Doctor

Time Zone: November 5th, 1966 – June 21st 1969
Played By: Patrick Troughton

With the arrival of a younger Doctor and changing tastes, the Second Doctor's tenure was characterized by a faster pace and a preference toward "monster of the week" style horror stories whilst the purely historical adventures that were a recurring feature of the Hartnell era ceased with The Highlanders, the only Troughton-era entry in that genre. While Troughton's Doctor would still visit the Earth's past he would always encounter an alien such as the Daleks or the Great Intelligence. It was also during this era that Doctor Who began to come under fire for its purportedly violent and frightening content.

While the impish Second Doctor appeared to be far more scruffy and child-like than his first incarnation, tootling on a plastic recorder and playing mischevious pranks, at times he could be a calculating schemer who would not only manipulate people for the greater good, but who would act like a bumbling fool in order to have others underestimate his true abilities (The Tomb of the Cybermen and The Evil of the Daleks). However, despite the Second Doctor's tendency to panic when events got out of control, he always acted heroically in his desire to help the oppressed.