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Season 6B refers to a popular theory in the fandom of the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. An example of fanon, it is a hypothetical season that takes place between the last episode of The War Games (1969), the last serial of Season 6, and the first episode of Spearhead from Space (1970), which opened Season 7. This hypothetical season is used by fans to explain away certain continuity problems in the programme. Season 6B should not be confused with 6B, the production code for the Doctor Who serial Earthshock (1982).
The conclusion of The War Games saw the capture of the Second Doctor by his people, the Time Lords, who put him on trial for interfering with the universe contrary to Time Lord policy. This was the first time the Time Lords had appeared in the programme, and also the first time the Doctor had revealed he was one of them. At the conclusion of the trial, the Time Lords sentenced the Doctor to exile on Earth, as well as forcing a regeneration on him, returning his companions Jamie and Zoe to their own times and wiping their memories of their experiences with the Doctor bar their first encounters. The first part of Spearhead from Space followed on from this, introducing the Third Doctor.
Patrick Troughton reprised his role as the Second Doctor in the anniversary stories The Three Doctors (1973) and The Five Doctors (1983). In the latter story, illusions of Jamie and Zoe were dismissed because the Second Doctor knew that the Time Lords wiped their memories, and therefore they should not have recognized Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. However, it was not explained how the Second Doctor could know this since the memory wipe did not take place until after his capture by the Time Lords, and there did not seem to be any time to fit in the events of The Five Doctors before his forced regeneration.
Troughton once again returned to the series in the 1985 serial The Two Doctors, where the Second Doctor and Jamie were on a mission for the Time Lords. This caused confusion among fans, since Jamie did not find out about the Time Lords until just before he was sent back to his own time. Coupled with this was the visibly aged appearance of Troughton and Frazer Hines (who played Jamie). Robert Holmes, who wrote The Two Doctors, stated on occasion that he believed the Doctor had long been a discreet agent of the Time Lords, undertaking missions for them despite his anomalous status. However, this was still at odds with what had been seen on-screen.
To account for these apparent discrepancies, the "Season 6B" theory was proposed, first documented in the 1995 book The Discontinuity Guide, by Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping. This hypothetical season took place off-camera between The War Games and Spearhead from Space, and had Troughton's Doctor working as an agent of the Time Lords, who granted him increased control over his TARDIS at the cost of his freedom. The Second Doctor who showed up in The Five Doctors came from this period, and was therefore aware of Jamie and Zoe's mindwipe.
During this time, the Second Doctor apparently regained Jamie and Victoria Waterfield (who is mentioned but not seen in The Two Doctors) as companions, acquired a Stattenheim remote control device to summon his TARDIS, and undertook the mission which was related in The Two Doctors. Eventually, either the Time Lords tired of keeping the Doctor on a leash, or, as is more likely, the Doctor rebelled and attempted to escape once more. This resulted in the exile which began in Spearhead from Space. To explain why the Sixth Doctor did not remember his own past in The Two Doctors, it is also suggested that the Time Lords wiped the Second Doctor's memory of the events of Season 6B.
The Season 6B theory proved popular among fans, particularly since elements of it were accepted by the spin-off novels. The plausibility of the theory is aided by the fact that we never actually see Troughton regenerate into Pertwee. The end of The War Games merely sees Troughton vanish into darkness and the opening of Spearhead from Space sees the Pertwee Doctor stumbling out of his TARDIS time machine, already transformed. The Third Doctor also carried a ring, a bracelet and a watch which homed in on the TARDIS, which he did not have at the close of The War Games.
The canonicity - or necessity - of the theory is a topic of fan debate. Some fans argue that the presence of Victoria indicates that The Two Doctors takes place during Season 5 of the series and that Jamie simply forgot he knew about the Time Lords. This also postulates that the Second Doctor in The Five Doctors is from a brief escape from the Time Lords following The War Games (partially covered in the Doctor Who comic strip in TV Comic) and that the aged appearance of the Second Doctor and Jamie in The Two Doctors should be ignored as simply the actors aging, not the characters.
Some novels adopt the Season 6B idea and some do not, and in any case, the novels' canonicity is questionable. The BBC Books novel Players, by former Doctor Who series writer and script editor Terrance Dicks is partially set in this period. Dicks will be penning another Second Doctor novel set during Season 6B, to be released in October 2005.
See also
References
External links
- Season 6(b) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/episodeguide/season6b.shtml) from the official BBC Doctor Who site
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