Season 6B Season 6B — also known as Season 6b and Season 6 ( b ) — is the narrative space between the end of the televised " Doctor Who " stories " The War Games " ( which concludes season 6 ) and the beginning of " Spearhead from Space " ( the opener to season 7 ) . Explanation . The gap exists because the regeneration of the Second Doctor ( played by Patrick Troughton ) into the Third Doctor ( played by Jon Pertwee ) was never explicitly shown on television — although the Second Doctor ' s face is shown beginning to change and contort , and then disappear , as he spins away into the void . Instead , viewers were left only with the impression that the Doctor had been sentenced to two fates : enforced regeneration and exile on Earth . Season 6B thus contains stories in which the Second Doctor is living under the " threat " of these two sentences . Depending on the story involved , he may be living on Earth or not , but all stories in this period have him waiting to be forcibly regenerated . Season 6B is regarded as a theory or fanon by those fans who hold that " only " the televised stories are " proper " or " canon ical " , but it has been the backdrop to many officially licensed , if untelevised , stories . Because this wiki takes the view that all officially licensed stories are of equal value , the basic notion that the Second Doctor had many adventures after " The War Games " is regarded here as a " truth " of the " Doctor Who " universe . Origins . The idea of a gap of time between " The War Games " and " Spearhead " dates back to 1969 , the year Patrick Troughton left the series . When the First Doctor ( William Hartnell ) had regenerated into the Second ( Patrick Troughton ) , things had been relatively easy for Polystyle Publications , the official " Doctor Who " comic licensees . There had been precisely a one - week gap between Hartnell and Troughton on TV and their " TV Comic " , a weekly publication , had easily followed suit . In 1969 , though , Troughton was leaving at the end of the season . To make matters worse , there would be a significant break as " Doctor Who " cut its annual episode output almost in half . It was almost six months between the end of " War Games " and the beginning of " Spearhead " , easily the longest gap between new televised episodes of " Doctor Who " up to that time . Not wanting to " stop " publication of their " Doctor Who " comic strip , Polystyle kept on publishing stories featuring the Second Doctor ; however , the decision was made " not " to set the interregnum stories prior to " The War Games " , but rather after . In the stories , the Doctor has indeed been exiled to Earth , but was awaiting his Time Lord - imposed regeneration . For a time , the Second Doctor lived the high life as a celebrity based in London ' s swanky Carlton Grange Hotel . ( COMIC : " Action in Exile " ) He travelled the Earth , responding to calls received via the Carlton Grange switchboard , with nary a UNIT soldier in sight . ( COMIC : " The Mark of Terror " , " The Brotherhood " , " U . F . O . " ) One day , conveniently around the time " Spearhead from Space " aired on TV , he was a celebrity panellist on " Explain My Mystery " , a game show of sorts that asked experts to explain supernatural phenomena . Unable to diagnose the caller ' s mystery over the phone , the Doctor went into the English countryside to a farm . There , in the deep of night , scarecrows animated by the Time Lords captured him and forced him to regenerate . Then , they sent the TARDIS on one last journey , leaving the reader to believe that when the Doctor arrived , he ' d fall out of the TARDIS in Oxley Woods as the Third Doctor , just as he did in the first episode of " Spearhead from Space " . ( COMIC : " The Night Walkers " ) These comic strips , however , were soon forgotten . In an internet - less age , it wasn ' t easily possible for fans in possession of the comic strips to share them with the broader fanbase . They lay outside of fans ' grasp for another few decades . Fans start to ponder things . In the meantime , Patrick Troughton returned to " Doctor Who " as the Second Doctor , each time looking a little older . At the same time , it became easier to get home video of early serials such as " The War Games " and " Spearhead from Space " . Fans began to question what they were seeing . Amongst the questions asked were : These questions were given detailed consideration in " The Discontinuity Guide " by Paul Cornell , Martin Day and Keith Topping . A theory grew from this book which was quickly embraced by fandom . Indeed , it eventually became " fanon " . When the BBC started printing excerpts from the " Guide " on their website , it crossed over from fanon into essentially BBC " policy " . As of 2011 , " season 6B " remains a part of the official BBC episode guide . The full text of the official position on 6B is more extensive , but the core of the idea goes something like this : Established as narrative fact . " TV Comic " had long established an actual , " narrative " period of time where the Second Doctor was exiled on Earth . But for a while , " The Discontinuity Guide " s notion of the post - " War Games " Second Doctor working for the CIA had remained purely theoretical . It was just a way to explain the discontinuity . It really took Terrance Dicks to put the theory into action . Dicks ' " Players trilogy " pressed the theory into service , making it explain the presence of the Second Doctor in the novels " Players " and " World Game " . The latter novel , in fact , walks the reader from the end of " The War Games " into the beginning of the Doctor ' s association with the CIA and into his first adventure on their behalf . Thus , this final Second Doctor novel , published after David Tennant had made his first appearance as the Tenth Doctor , effectively rewrote the book on the Second Doctor ' s era . It had taken more than thirty years since people first started scratching their heads at the adventures of the Second Doctor in colour , but at last there was something in print , bearing a BBC logo , that actually explained it all . Season 6b , in pretty much all the detail that Cornell and company had envisaged , was no longer just a theory , but the narrative explanation embraced by Terrance Dicks — the man who had created most of the discontinuity in the first place given that he : co - wrote " The War Games " , was script editor at the time " The Three Doctors " was produced , and wrote " The Five Doctors " . However , a different explanation for the inconsistencies in " The Two Doctors " was given by Simon Guerrier in the Big Finish Productions " Early Adventures " story " The Black Hole " . Stories taking place during this period . All stories listed are a part of season 6B " from the perspective of the Second Doctor " .