"I'm beginning to wish I'd never started this..."

The Seventh Doctor --
Sylvester McCoy

The personality of Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor during his first season was a cartoon version of the Second Doctor. Silly and sillier.

However, with the beginning of his second season as the Doctor, McCoy found a new side to the Doctor -- a dark side. The Doctor became a manipulator, setting up villains at time and place of his choosing so he could defeat them, or using his companions as a tool to get the edge on the enemy.

Was this really the Doctor? Now there were hints that the Doctor wasn’t who we thought he was...or maybe more than we thought he was. The Doctor had become an emigma: a mystery wrapped in a riddle.

The dark side of the Doctor was explored further in the New Adventure novels as was his relationship with his companion Ace. It’s ironic. The Doctor that started out the thinnest personality, is the one that has been most fully explored and developed. Sadly, most of this development took place without the benefit of Sylvester McCoy’s performance. Who knows what that would have been like.