This is why I prefer the expanded universe (especially stories that came out in the wilderness years). When they don’t have to appeal to a general audience the stories are just more interesting. Hence why many of the best pure historicals are from the main range! And why there are more interesting companions, often from historical settings, like charley and erimem.
8 Likes
This is true. They could experiment more and do a wider variety of stories. There are many fantastic historicals in the Main Range!
3 Likes
I like both approaches. And it really depends on the story. The Doctor and co getting mixed up in historical events, and having to figure out how to survive and get back to the TARDIS all while maintaining the timeline can often be enough of a story. Marco Polo, The Aztecs, The Crusade, and The Massacre all do this expertly, having compelling enough narratives to carry the story without the need for some sci-fi threat. Others take the setting and turn it into highly enjoyable period comedies, like The Romans, The Myth Makers, and The Gunfighters. After the early Troughton years, they stepped away from the pure historical, and it’s a shame the concept was done away with entirely. Oftentimes you get a story that feels like it just has an alien or something tacked on just for the sake of having it (Vincent, Rosa, Demons of the Punjab, even though the first and last one there make it at least work well thematically). I’d like to see some pure historicals again, but it of course doesn’t have to be the only approach. Pseudo-historicals, celebrity historicals, and period pieces all have their place as well, but I’d like to see pure historicals at least back at the table.
That brings me to another point, I make further distinctions than just pure or pseudo-historicals. To be a historical rather than just a period piece to me, it has to actually be centered around a historical event or figure. Things that just happen to be in the past generically aren’t really historicals, so Pyramids of Mars, Masque of Mandragora, Black Orchid for some examples may take place in the past, but the people and events aren’t anything specific from history. If it revolves around an event it’s just a historical, around a person a celebrity historical. Pure and pseudo would then refer to whether or not there’s an alien or other sci-fi presence beyond just the Doctor and the TARDIS. So I have something like 6 categories.
6 Likes
I don’t know what these stories would look like without an alien in though.
Vincent would have no momentum or plot, just a sad painter who they decide to show his future for no reason?
Rosa would just be watching what happened, no threat of the protest being unwritten (although I think the way this was treated in the show was very silly, one single protest wouldn’t have changed the future that much)
Demons of the Punjab without the titular demons would have just been Chilling in the Punjab.
3 Likes
They’d all of course require rewrites beyond just “take the aliens out,” and they’d be slightly different, being a different kind of story than what we got.
Vincent without the chicken could have been a character piece on the mind of Vincent van Gogh and a piece on mental health, like it was already, without the chicken. And what do you mean “for no reason?” It would be to show the man that his artwork is at least appreciated, like the exact same reason of the episode as is.
Rosa, I just think Krasko was terribly implemented, and there would have been another way to do the story without him
Demons of the Punjab, the aliens already had such little actual impact on the story, as just observers, and without them could already be a great character piece on Yaz, her family, and the mystery of her grandmother’s first marriage she didn’t know about.
All of these things could absolutely be done without the aliens or sci-fi threat. Maybe it wouldn’t be interesting to you, and that’s fine, but that’s not the same as it not being possible.
10 Likes
Ah yes, because there was no conflict or events taking place in the punjab in 1947 that could be used for good storytelling /s
9 Likes
But what I meant, and explained above, is there needs to be a reason for the Doctor to stay and be part of events, otherwise you have no story and no jeopardy.
So without the chicken, the space nazi, and the demons, they’d need to be something to keep them there and make them interfere with history.
So they’d need to have a mistaken identity, or a doppelgänger, or something like that 
3 Likes
I don’t think that’s true. Meeting and learning about Vincent is enough reason to go and stay. Meeting Rosa Parks and seeing the Civil Rights Movement is enough reason. Meeting Yaz’s ancestors and solving a mystery of her family is enough reason. The Doctor is a traveler after all, why can’t the desire to travel, learn about, and experience history be the basis of the story on its own?
10 Likes
I’m not much a fan of the Historical if I’m honest. Especially when so many are just oh look, we’re in Victorian London, and now we’re in London but it’s regency, oh wow more Southern England… a. when are we going to do, idk, a Venerable Bede historical; b. can’t we go somewhere outside the UK; c. I agree with @shauny that they’re all basically the same.
I am of course generalising here, and it’s why I like episodes such as The Aztecs or Punjab because it takes us somewhere else - I think what I want from a historical is for it to make me want to google something.
I also think a ‘Historical’ but on an alien planet would be an interesting take
6 Likes
That’s a fair point. They could branch out more and do history that isn’t British history. A lot of the better ones are the ones that explore other cultures.
6 Likes
Just because the ones from the classic series were “samey”, doesn’t mean that new ones would have to follow all the same tropes. They can do new things. Even if they didn’t, they would still be different to what the show’s been doing for the past 40 years
6 Likes
Not every doctor who story has to have the antagonistic force being sonething that goes against the established course of history. When the doctor visits an alien planet in the future and helps out with a conflict, that is just as much a historical event as something in earth’s past, because time is relative. Different factions of humans from the past can function narratively the same as different groups do in many non-historical stories. This is just my own preference though.
(By the way, I hope my sarcasm didn’t come across as rude. I meant it in a joking way but it can be hard to judge online.)
6 Likes
And of course, a lot of this just comes down to taste, and what you want out of a Doctor Who story. Maybe some are content with just a low key, Doctor goes and explores, and we get to experience the past for a while, and others are here to see aliens and stuff. I think what’s great is that Doctor Who can do both. I’d just like to see it actually do both again.
3 Likes
In the early days, though, the historicals were coupled with the oft-used trope of losing the TARDIS. This meant the regulars had to survive in history until they could return to its safety. The historicals are much more about survival in a hostile land. It’s not so much about them avoiding changing history as it is about them not becoming victims to history.
Also, in the Hartnell era they framed the stories as ‘the past is a foreign country’ - the places they visit are as alien as the outer space planets.
Something like The Massacre is so affecting because its about Steven not only losing the TARDIS, but the Doctor as well and having to survive by his wits with the very real prospect that he is stuck in 16th century France.
Demons of the Punjab is about Yaz witnessing a part of her history which she didn’t know about and revealing why it is a secret. It is about the violence and prejudice of humans against each other (like in The Massacre) and about the inevitability of intolerance, fighting and division.
The more comedic stories are still about the regulars surviving history - The Romans, The Myth Makers and The Gunfighters all have the very real threat of the regulars ending up dead and, again, not as the result not of a blobby green monster with a ray gun but at the hands of other human beings. Humans that the regulars may even know of and about.
There is so much more to historicals than I think your post suggests - and that’s before you even get to some of the Big Finish efforts like The Marian Conspiracy, The Council of Nicaea, The Peterloo Massacre and Son of the Dragon to name but a few.
12 Likes
That’s another good point I didn’t mention. The hostility of the past being the threat, so an alien isn’t necessarily required to be a threat for the story.
6 Likes
The “Black Orchid” model of the Doctor turning up just in time for a historical murder mystery, is absolutely not stale and could easily be done again. (Yes, Black Orchid has a doppelganger, but I don’t think you can seriously claim that every murder mystery would need a doppelganger in order to work). You can even make a joke about the Doctor expecting it to be aliens, only to be continually surprised that it’s not
There’s an episode pitch I’ve had for a while of a full on, earnest, queer, period romance. The Doctor and Co. would already have established cover stories, they’ve clearly been hanging out in this time period for a few days already, when one of them falls in love. We don’t see the tardis, we don’t need the sonic, nobody makes any anachronistic jokes, we are fully genre-swapping. The tardis crew is just hanging out for a few weeks/months while this plays out
(note that, in either of these, the events of the story itself would be more than enough to keep the Doctor engaged without the need for an outside force to compel them to stay)
10 Likes
I think I would need to see a New Who pure historical to judge whether I want them to come back… I’m fine with “historical and there are aliens.” I agree with NyssaUnbound though that a “turns up just in time for murder mystery” (or other drama) would be really fun to see more of.
9 Likes
I’m now trying to imagine Vincent and the Doctor but without the CGI chicken. It could still be painted in the window in the painting, but then we never get to actually see it (nor would the Doctor and Amy). The monster is there, but in Vincent’s mind only. I think it could work.
5 Likes
I love a “pure” historical. None of them give us a perfect rendition of the era that thy’re set in, but they usually provide a good taste of it, and they often highlight some more little known part of the time that gives us something more to think about. A good historical story makes me want to learn a bit more about the period or the main events portrayed. I think that was the point of them. They weren’t necessarily there to teach history, but to inspire us to find out a bit more. So, stories like the Myth Makers or the Gunfighters, that weren’t accurate still did a good job of stimulating some interest, while telling an amusing adventure story.
I’m sometimes irritated by the need to include an alien threat in a modern Who historical. It’s fine if the threat is an integral part of the story, but if it’s tacked on or used as an excuse to tell the original story from history, I’d rather it wasn’t there. I enjoy it if Doctor Who teaches a little history, but I think it’s there to entertain first and to educate second.
9 Likes
Another excellent Pure historical from Big Finish is “The Settling”.
2 Likes