Like the iPhone 4, Doctor Who's second season was not without its problems. However, 1965 saw the series' popularity reach even greater heights than the previous year. Even the Beatles wanted to be on Doctor Who, and they sort of were. I think Doctor Who handled its success rather well - pushing the boundaries of what stories it could tell, while not straying from the formula that everyone loved. (Really, Season 2's only big failure was that it couldn't produce a monster to come close to the Daleks' popularity.) But things had to change, if only because of personnel changes. On screen there was, of course, the replacement of Susan with Vicki, and then the departure of Ian and Barbara. Off screen the biggest change was Dennis Spooner taking over from David Whitaker as Story Editor. And there were other decisions, which might have seemed quite minor at the time, that were as responsible for the Doctor Who we know today as anything that happened in Season 1.
The season at a glance:
2.1 Planet of Giants. The TARDIS lands in present day England! There's just one tiny problem...
2.2 The Dalek Invasion of Earth. I think you can guess what this story's about.
2.3 The Rescue. Marooned on the planet Dido, 25th Century lass Vicki is menaced by her not-at-all-creepy shipmate Bennett.
2.4 The Romans. A farcical romp around Nero's Rome.
2.5 The Web Planet. On the planet Vortis, an intelligent space-cancer has turned the giant ants against the giant moths and woodlice.
2.6 The Crusade. David Whitaker returns to give us a serious historical about the Crusades.
2.7 The Space Museum. There's a space museum. The TARDIS crew has to stop themselves becoming exhibits.
2.8 The Chase. The Daleks are back! And they have a time machine too!
2.9 The Time Meddler. Another member of the Doctor's race, the Meddling Monk, is trying to stop William the Conqueror conquering.
For those keeping score at home, that makes:
2 historical stories (The Romans, The Crusade)
4 3/4 space stories (The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Rescue, The Web Planet, The Space Museum eps 2-4, The Chase)
1/4 "sideways" story (The Space Museum ep 1)
1 contemporary Earth story (Planet of Giants)
1 pseudo-historical (The Time Meddler)
Quite a change from the alternating historical and space stories of Season 1. That was obviously far too rigid a format for Dennis Spooner. Even David Whitaker's original brief that the TARDIS should take its travellers backwards, forwards, OR sideways is broken down. "Sideways" gets one last hurrah, in the form of The Space Museum, Episode 1, in which the travellers arrive before they've actually arrived. We won't see anything like this again until Steven Moffat discovers time loops in 2006. So that's a bit sad, but we got the pseudo-historical instead, for better or worse. A pseudo-historical is a story set in Earth's past which features a non-contemporary antagonist (other time-travellers, aliens, rifts). As you might have noticed if you've seen any Doctor Who made after this, by the late '60s all stories set in Earth's past would pseudo-historicals. They were found to be at least theoretically much more exciting than "straight" historicals, because the stakes are so much higher when all of History could be changed! That means you, sitting at home, could become suddenly Danish! It was around the time of "Vampires of Venice" (N5.6) that my girlfriend wished they would make a Doctor Who story in which all of history wasn't at stake, because it does get a little tiresome after a while. Now, making a story in which all the travellers have to do is get out alive (the following story, "Amy's Choice", for instance) is the brave choice. But in 1965 the audience would not have seen The Time Meddler coming.
The Monk and his TARDIS, after the Doctor's had some fun with it.
It's at this point that most histories of Doctor Who become desperately teleological, and it's hard not to. The Doctor Who "we know" is taking shape before our eyes. The Chase cements the Daleks as we know them - time-travelling archenemies of the Doctor, who return every year to shout "Exterminate!" Companions become changeable, and following the departure of our protagonists Ian and Barbara, the show only now becomes about the Doctor and his companions. And then there's the character of the Doctor. In The Time Meddler we meed another Gallifreyan, and in August's Doctor Who and the Daleks, the big-screen adaptation of the first Dalek story, another actor (Peter Cushing) gives his interpretation of the Doctor. Both the Monk and Cushing's Doctor are more similar to the modern Doctor character than Hartnell's is. Patrick Troughton, here we come. Along the same lines, the Doctor becomes a more positive force throughout this season. In The Romans, it's the Doctor onto whom Vicki latches, because he's all twinkly-eyed and grandfatherly, while Barbara's shooting Vicki's pets. Even after his major mellowing post-The Edge of Destruction (1.3), the Doctor's main or concern is the survival of himself and his companions, which is why Season 1 stories kept having to find ways to make the TARDIS inaccessible so they didn't just leave. Even in The Chase the TARDIS crew is prepared to leave the Aridians to probable annihilation by Daleks and Mire Beasts in order to make their escape. But the following story the Doctor tells his companions that they can't leave until they've defeated the villain. Were these good changes or not? It's impossible to tell, because in 2010 this is just the story of how Doctor Who became Doctor Who. All these changes seem to us as obvious as the fact that the Monk is a Time Lord. But, of course, they weren't. The makers of these episodes didn't even know if more Doctor Who was going to be made in 1966. But I think Season 2 shows Verity Lambert and Dennis Spooner steering Doctor Who with a steady hand. Still, stick around, because hands are about to become less steady.
Peter Cushing IS Doctor Who!
From a more general perspective, Doctor Who's second season provides some good hints for how to keep a popular series going. I'm sure you can all think of examples of series (not just television) that seemed like they were going to be huge but then fell apart in their second season/installment. So you give people what they want (Daleks!) and try and keep the elements that made the show popular and good, but without keeping too much bathwater in with the baby. It would have been very easy for switching off between historicals and sci-fi adventures to be as much part of the programme's format as cliffhanger endings or companions, and had that become the case the series probably wouldn't have lasted nearly as long. Instead, Verity Lambert and Dennis Spooner kept changing what the series was and did, just enough to keep viewers guessing. Doctor Who's format works because viewers know just enough to feel safe - there's the Doctor, there's the TARDIS, and the day will eventually be saved somehow - but everything else is subject to change, even companions, and even the kinds of adventures likely to happen. Doctor Who Season 2 was funnier, less rigid, and more daring than its predecessor, and the series continued to show its growing faithful (which included the Beatles, current and former politicians, an increasing number of people overseas, and just about everyone involved in Doctor Who's 21st Century revival) things they'd never seen before. And as a result Season 2 received the highest the series would receive until the mid-'70s. But the fallout from the biggest changes wouldn't be seen until Season 3...
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