"Life depends on change."

The first episode with the second Doctor, indeed, the whole story arc- The Power of the Daleks, is lost to time. But those wonderfully ridiculous hardcore Whovians dug up whatever they could find on it, and reconstructed it the best they could.


The reconstructed episode begins in the TARDIS, after the Doctor had run inside and regenerated on the floor. His current companions, Ben and Polly, are with him at this point, wondering what's just happened and if that's really the doctor or not.
He sort of freaks out for a bit, and when he finally comes to his senses, he just chuckles sinisterly and says, "it's over!"


Ben and Polly are understandably confused and scared. Ben tried to get his attention but the Doctor doesn't seem to be very aware of them. Polly is convinced it's him, but Ben points out that he looks different and doesn't even act like him.

The doctor has some odd problems recognizing that he himself is the Doctor, denying that he's the same person. Ben tries to prove it by making him try on a coat that the first Doctor always wore, reasoning that it ought to fit if he's the same person. The Doctor replies by saying that's like trying to make a butterfly fit back into its chrysalis after its spread its wings. Polly starts to realize she was right, that he did change, but they don't seem to quite believe it yet.


As the Doctor goes to look for the 1st Doctor's journal, he finds a recorder instead. the 2nd Doctor adopts this as his quirk for the rest of his tenure.


Just as suddenly as he changed, he decides that now is the time to go for a walk and check out where they've landed. What happens after this gets a little unclear to me. The Doctor wanders around testing something (maybe it was the sonic screwdriver!), and then a man appears and shouts to him, "Hello! Hello, is there anyone there? Hello? Hello! Why don't they come?" and then he says, as if he's seen someone now, "ah, so you've come at last. I'm from Earth. I'm the examiner-"
 and then he cuts off. There's a sound sort of like a gunshot and he's silent. The reconstruction shows the Doctor pointing something at the man, and then standing over him. And...then and odd, cryptic and uncomfortably long photo of a guy's butt. it stays on the screen for 18 seconds (I counted) with the quiet bubbling sounds of whatever planet he's on still playing in the background.

 

 

 

 

this is what I hate about reconstructions.

The Doctor then investigates the man's body apparently- it's still unclear if the Doctor has shot him- and assumes his identity as the Earth investigator by taking what seems like a piece of paper granting this Earth investigator access to everything. We only know that there's some kind of paper because the Doctor reads it aloud.

Meanwhile, the Doctor has totally abandoned Ben and Polly. They're wandering around in some area full of bubbling quicksilver pools. Polly starts coughing and then Ben panics and calls out for the Doctor, which wasn't working at all before but he tries it again anyway.

Then the images change from a still of Ben and Polly to some guys in what looks like hazmat suits. they've found the Doctor passed out and discuss their astonishment as to why people don't use the kits they send them, and that Ben and Polly's sickness was due to "a bad dose of fumes" that one claims she'll recover from just fine. This is where we learn that the planet they're on is called Vulcan, and they're surprised that Earth has just now decided to send an inspector because one wasn't due for another 2 years.


They take the three back to their station, and we're introduced to a woman telling a scientist that they've arrived. it's clear he's working on some kind of space capsule, and that's what the Earth inspector is there to look at. He's very focused on it. it seems they didn't make it, they found it. He says it was buried in a mercury swamp for 200 years and he's fascinated by the fact that it's not corroded at all.


Considering the title of the episode, we can probably guess what its origin is.


We're then rejoined with the Doctor, Ben and Polly all reunited and recovered nicely, the Doctor fiddling around on his recorder while Ben processes that "the man that was murdered" was the real examiner. We're not exactly sure how he knows about the murdered man because he wasn't anywhere near the Doctor at the time. We can only guess that the Doctor had just briefed them on every detail of his experiences since they parted (conveniently leaving out the part where, I'm convinced, the Doctor shot the inspector). Polly asks if he's going to let them think he's the real examiner but he just keeps playing that damn recorder. Ben gets as irritated as I would and yells at him to communicate properly and admit to being the Doctor.


They're then introduced to the governor of the colony, who barges in asking why they're there. The Doctor replies simply that they're here to examine, and he intends to start at once. The Vulcan governor seems offended that they're meddling in his business, but then fills the Doctor in on the ancient capsule anyway. They're all led to the science lab where the capsule is, and they show the doctor a piece of the capsule that fell off during transport. The scientist seems eager to open it, explaining that the incredible resilience of the metal could revolutionize space travel. They decide that the Doctor is the best man for the job of opening the thing, and when he does, the Doctor and the scientist step through. The Doctor suggests that the area they're in is some kind of entry bay, and the Doctor tells him it's definitely not from this planet.


After it seems that everyone has gone back to their quarters for the night, Polly sees the Doctor in the corridor, headed for the lab with the capsule. They follow him into it this time, and the Doctor seems to have been able to open another door inside it, a door hiding a couple of web and dust covered Daleks.

"Come meet the Daleks," he says, as if they were a newlywed couple at a party. As they're wandering around looking at them, Ben is startled by the sight of a dalek outside of the shell we're used to seeing. Then the episode ends, leaving you hanging and wondering just what is that thing?




The 2nd Doctor is kind of hard for me to evaluate as a whole. I feel like he did a great job as the Doctor, but he just was too like the 1st Doctor. you can't really blame Patrick Troughton, what else did he have to go on? But I feel like his Doctor was a little lacking, and it also feels like he had a shorter run than William Hartnell. Nothing really sticks out as exceptional to me about the 2nd Doctor. Maybe all the lost episodes would have given me a better sense of who he was, but we'll never really know for sure.

"Have you ever thought what it's like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension?"

I recently re-watched the first episode, "An Unearthly Child," on a whim, and only then did I really notice just how much William Hartnell had gone downhill during his time as the Doctor. Mr. Hartnell had atherosclerosis, which, during the course of the series, effected his memory. in later episodes it's really sad to watch him stutter on his lines, not quite remembering what he was supposed to say, and even what seemed like him completely missing a line in one later episode. But it was because of William Hartnell's disease that one of the most basic tenants of Doctor Who was created - his regeneration.


In the first episode, we're introduced to the Doctor's first set of companions, Barbara Wright and Ian Chesterton, both teachers at the Coal Hill School. Barbara is a history teacher, and Ian teaches science. They meet the Doctor by way of his granddaughter, Susan Foreman, who is a fairly new and very strange student of theirs.
While they both acknowledge she's a genius, they've noticed her homework quality has decreased lately. Barbara tried to go talk to Susan's guardian, her grandfather, but the address in Susan's records leads her to a vacant lot.
So one day after classes are over, they basically decide to stalk her and wait outside of 76 Totters Lane, the address on Susan's record, for her to arrive home. While they wait in the car they discuss her strangeness, such as not knowing how many shillings are in a pound but then being completely disinterested in a science experiment because it seems so pointless and juvenile to her.
When they follow her inside, the area is full of odds and ends. A junkyard. Then they stumble across something extremely odd- a Police box, in a completely unexpected and unusual spot. They're even more startled when they realize it's humming. Something leads Ian to speculate that it's "alive," although I don't know what would make him come to that conclusion rather than something more normal, like a machine's running inside it instead...
They're just about to go find a cop when they hear coughing. The Doctor totters out of the dark and heads to the Police box. They approach him when they think they hear Susan's voice coming from the Police box and inquire about Susan. The Doctor tries to dodge their questions by asking why they were following her in the first place, and then suddenly becoming very interested in an old painting sitting on the floor.

The teachers want to check inside the Police box to make sure Susan's not in there, but of course, the Doctor isn't about to let them. This just makes them more and more suspicious until Susan sticks her head out of the Police box, asking what her grandfather is up to out there. Ian and Barbara rush inside and, naturally, are stunned by the massive interior. It's the first time any of us see the inside of the TARDIS.

The Doctor is concerned that if he lets them go, they'll blab all about it. Ian and Barbara rejected any understanding of the TARDIS when Susan tried to explain, and she begs her grandfather to let them go, but he's still worried about letting out their secret.

So against their will, Barbara and Ian become the first companions of the Doctor. Over time, they see his sense of humor come to light and that his grumpiness and gruffness is pretty much just a cover for how much of a big softie he is. The 1st Doctor pouts every time he loses companions and never seems to really adjust when they do leave.

I think my favorite story arc from the 1st Doctor is the second one, beginning with the episode called "The Dead Planet."
The TARDIS lands on Skaro and we meet the Daleks for the first time, as well as a tribe of humanoids called the Thals. This story arc explains how a long war with an opposing tribe, the Kaleds, eventually made the latter tribe mutate into what we know as Daleks. This is an especially interesting story arc for anyone who just wants to get their feet wet in the classic series and to learn more about the origins of one of the most famous and enduring Doctor Who villains.