Why the Second Doctor is More Canonical Than You

Notes:

• This subject line is borrowed from a caption on one of calapine's icons. At first, it made me go: "Eh? How's that exactly?" But it got me thinking, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was true.



• I'm joking, really (but only a little bit); as far as I'm concerned, ALL of Doctor Who is canon -- from fanfiction to comics, movie screen to computer monitor, to television screen -- after all, the dude lives paradoxes, breathes alternate dimensions, and regenerates on a regular basis. We can't really expect him to fit comfortably in our puny little pigeonholes, now can we?

However, even though all Doctors are created equal, here's why the Second Doctor is more equal than the rest of them:

1. His regeneration from Hartnell!Doctor to Troughton!Doctor, at the end of "Tenth Planet," is the first onscreen moment that begins to answer the question: "Is he an alien from another planet or is he a human from our own interstellar future?" Up until then, the BBC had been deliberately ambiguous this point. And although the hints had been building throughout Hartnell's tenure that he might be alien, the Peter Cushing movies, made in 1965 (toward the end of Hartnell's time reign), could still present the Doctor as fully human and not shatter the audience's suspension of disbelief. That would have been much harder to do if the movies had been made after the start of Troughton's time as the Doctor, and downright impossible if the movie had been made after "The War Games," which ended Troughton's tenure. We don't get any ambiguity in the Doctor's alien nature again until the TV movie, 30 years later, and even then, he's only half human, and even that one line is still the cause of some controversy in fandom.



2. It was during Troughton's time that the Doctor's age was established as 100x years old, instead of 10x, like the rest of us (he tells Jamie and Victoria that he is about 450 years old, in Earth years, at the beginning of "Tomb of the Cybermen), thereby establishing that "Timelords are practically immortal, barring accidents."



3. In the beginning, Hartnell's Doctor was downright hostile to Ian and Barbara; the only reason they stuck with him, in the beginning, was that he was their only ticket home. And although the First Doctor grew to be quite fond of his companions, toward the end, it was the Second Doctor that really established the character as their teacher and protector. If the writers and Troughton had decided to try and continue with Hartnell's characterization, instead of going in the radically different direction, I have a hard time imagining any father asking the Doctor to look after his daughter, as Edward Waterfield does at the end of "Evil of the Daleks."



4. And, as evidenced by the point above, it was the Second Doctor that established the expectation that the Doctor's personality changes with each regeneration, so that the instability of his character remains one of his more enduring attributes.



5. We are introduced to the Gallifrey and the Timelords in Troughton's last story, and thereby learn that the Doctor is not merely an eccectric, but an outlaw, and we learn the true nature of the society he is rebelling against. Gallifrey and the Timelords, even after the writers have tried to destroy them (twice, in two different canons), have remained a driving force behind the Doctor's character ever since, from Third's obsession to get the TARDIS fully functional again to Nine and Ten's angst over the Time War, and from being "the last of my race."

And that's why the Second Doctor is "more canonical than you."

Nearly all of the attributes essential to the Doctor's character began with the Second Doctor (except the TARDIS, and for a long stint in the Eigth Doctor books the TARDIS wasn't around). If I were in the mood, I'd argue the First Doctor is only included in the fraternity through creating retroactive continuity (hence the arguments over whether Susan is really his granddaughter). Certainly, all the subsequent actors to play the role, from Jon Pertwee through David Tennant, have been carrying on a tradition established by Troughton.

[cross-posted to two_love]