Doctor Who's future may look a little uncertain now, but that's nothing compared to when the First Doctor, William Hartnell, first left the show in 1966.

Of course, the Second Doctor actor, Patrick Troughton, stepped in, paving the way for decades to come with the first ever regeneration. From then on, it was clear that Doctor Who would be able to run for years to come - something that Hartnell had predicted.

Now speaking exclusively to Radio Times, Troughton's son Michael, who has taken over the role of the Second Doctor for the Big Finish audio adventures, opened up about what he thinks his dad would have thought of the show nowadays.
"He'd have loved the fact that it carried on because he would have gone, 'Well, that was all me!'
"And the difference in all the Doctors - they're all so different, and I think he instigated that. When you were going to become a Doctor, you had to make it your own. You couldn't really go with someone else's or part of someone else's because it didn't work. You had to make it your own."

Michael also pointed out that his father originated the advice that actors should only play the Doctor for a maximum of three years - something that even the modern Doctors have taken into account.

In 2022, Michael (who is also known to Whovians for playing Professor Albert Smithe in the 2014 Christmas special, Last Christmas) started voicing the Second Doctor for Big Finish, following his father's death in 1987.

"I wanted to do an amalgamation of myself and him," Michael explained of his performance.

"That was the first thing I thought, and the second thing was that amazing energy he had. It was very difficult because it's all visual. Everything he did - the quickness of movements - that's what I took and and tried to get it into the the vocal expression, sometimes throwing myself about."

He also wanted to bring in key parts of Troughton's intonation too - including the actor's signature cough between lines.

"That was really important because that cough was because he'd forgotten the line, and he was just trying to summon up the next line. But it became part of the Doctor, which was brilliant."

Most recently, Troughton starred in The Haunted Windmill, which he described as having "very clever writing".

"There comes a point in the story when the crew have almost been caught by the Time Lords and the only way to avoid being caught - Raven (Emma Noakes) comes up with this idea - is to go into a completely different timeline, so that we slip into this timeline that is Earth, but as if the Doctor hadn't ever been there," he teased.

"This whole new strange Earth is almost like the old Earth, but is not, and there are all slightly different things that have happened, and different histories and different names, and people pop up that are relatives of very well-known characters, and I just think that's such a clever idea. What a great way to escape."

Doctor Who – The Second Doctor Adventures: The Haunted Windmill is available to buy on Big Finish. Doctor Who is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

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