10 Doctor Who Mysteries Explained Outside The Show

At first glance, there’s nothing to distinguish the return of the Second Doctor in The Two Doctors from the return of any other Doctor in any other multi-Doctor story. But on closer inspection, things don’t quite add up.

For one thing, he looks considerably older than he did in his own era. And sure, that’s not the end of the world. After all, Patrick Troughton isn't an actual Time Lord, and he did age in the interim.

The problem comes when you try and work out where, from the Second Doctor’s perspective, this story takes place.

In The Two Doctors, he states that he’s working for the Time Lords. But onscreen, he didn’t have any contact with the Time Lords until his final story, The War Games. So what’s going on?

Ultimately, Doctor Who fans decided that there’s only one explanation: that The Two Doctors doesn’t take place within the Second Doctor’s era, but after it.

This theory (commonly referred to as Season 6B), suggests that there’s a whole series of adventures between The War Games (when the Second Doctor regenerates) and Spearhead From Space (when the Third Doctor debuts), in which the Second Doctor carried out secret missions for the Time Lords. This also explains his older appearance in The Two Doctors.

Though never confirmed on TV, Season 6B was canonised by Terrance Dicks in novels such as World Game and Players, and has provided the basis for numerous other adventures - including Big Finish’s ongoing Beyond War Games series.