Patrick Troughton deserves great credit for the tricky task of taking on the role that Hartnell had made his own. The Second Doctor is much more the type you'd recognise today: naughty, childlike, clowning but deadly serious underneath. It took him a few tales to bed down but Troughton remains a favourite of viewers and other actors who have played the part. Troughton possessed great comic timing and a natural physicality. Witness his running away from Cybermen and Ice Warriors or his hysterical stripping off to his long johns to swim in the sea in The Enemy of the World. However, beneath this comedy façade, this Doctor could be as devious as the best of them, putting his companion Jamie through great danger in The Evil of the Daleks. Confirmation of his greatest comes in his acting his fellow Doctors off the screen not once but twice in both The Five Doctors and The Two Doctors. Alas, the poor quality of many of his scripts and the more children's TV feel of his era keeps him lower down the list than he probably deserves.
Writer of The Blog of Delights, a review site covering film, TV, cult TV, books and audio. Fan of Dr Who, Bond, X-Men and Marvel. Also the writer of e-book 'Fictional Legends: Doctor Who - the TV Adventures' for Collca.
