Or maybe a bug-eyed monster with suckers! 
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This guy gets it.
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I cannot argue with any of this!
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How historically accurate do people want their historicals? The Gunfighters is particularly terrible for that. I did some research for my review and this is what I found out:
Historically, it seems that The Gunfighters is closer to Hollywood legend than historical fact. Bat Masterson, Warren Earp, Phineas Clanton, and most significantly, Johnny Ringo, were not in Tombstone in 1881. Warren Earp, whose death here is partly responsible for initiating the gunfight between the Clantons and Earps did not die in real life until 1900! Ike Clanton is shown to perish in the gunfight, but in reality he survived and Pa Clanton had died in the August of 1800 making it rather difficult for him to feature in these episodes. The actual gunfight involved four other men: Morgan Earp, Billy Claiborne and Tom and Frank McLaury. Apparently, Doc Holliday was only 30 in 1881, whereas Anthony Jacobs is clearly portraying a man of older years (he was 48 in real life). In real life, there were numerous events leading up to, and provoking, the gunfight.
However, the characters of Doc Holliday, Wyatt, Virgil and Warren Earp, Bat Masterson, Ike, Phineas, Billy and Pa Clanton and Johnny Ringo are all real people. Intriguingly, so is Kate, Holliday’s girlfriend, and one-time squeeze of Johnny Ringo. In real life she was Mary Katherine Horony Cummings, known as Big Nose Kate. She was Hungarian born and, unsurprisingly from the implicit nature of her character, a prostitute. What is quite striking about Kate and Holliday is the way their obviously sexual relationship is presented on screen with a couple of quite saucy scenes.
Is it okay that if a story is written as an historical, that the actual historical facts and played with fast and loose?
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Well, Doctor Who isn’t a documentary. I think it’s fine to take liberties with the source material if it makes for a better story, as long as it’s respectful.
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Is it possible that you’re confusing the actual historical facts as they happened and were accurately depicted in The Gunfighters, with the historical facts as they exist now after the timelines were changed during the last great Time War?
(given the show’s premise, the events we saw on screen could well be an accurate depiction of some timeline)
Anyway, for a real response to your question… I think in almost all cases, you need to take some liberties with historical facts to make the storytelling work, to hit the dramatic beats necessary and times that make the story flow as it needs to. Just how far you should go with those liberties is debatable.
The initial plan for the show was to include educational material, and in that regard The Gunfighters sounds like it does a rather poor job. Then again, if it’s job is to get people curious enough to look into the actual history, then it seems to have succeeded admirably (at least in your case).
I say as long as it’s entertaining, Steven has no Regrets.
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This is also quite common in biopics. Most biopics I’ve watched have changed or simplified real events to make them more suitable for cinematic storytelling. Relity is rarely as simple or as dramatic as movies often show them to be.
Yes, and by this time, they’ve sort of began to veer away from the educational aspects of Doctor Who. That was really only something they focused on during the first two seasons. The sacking oo the pure historicals shortly after this was an extension of the process.
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For me historicals can be good while still being inaccurate. The first episode of doctor who I ever watched was The Fires of Pompeii, which I love and still feel strongly nostalgic about, despite being very aware of the inaccuracies.
Sometimes, beind able to teach about history is a selling point, e.g. I had never heard of the massacre of st bartholomew’s eve before watching doctor who. But that doesn’t mean these stories have a duty to be 100% reliable; I would rather do my own research after doctor who brings historical events to my attention.
When there are so many plotholes, conflicting timelines, and no single ‘canon’ in doctor who it seems counterproductive to want history to be represented in a single, accurate way all the time.
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I think it very much depends on the amount of inaccuracy and how much is known about the events and what makes a good story. I didn’t actually like Rosa for its inaccurancies because that was actually a planned protest and I think it takes away from the activism there? I feel like it could have definitely been a great story that way too
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Yeah, I am in agreement with most others, that said I think it also heavily depends on the Subject at Hand. I think certain historical Periods are better for more creative Liberties than others. It makes sense why they would change some Stuff, to either simplified it to fit the Runtime or make some dramatic beats work better, and that’s totally valid.
I don’t think you can expect Doctor Who to show you the most historic accurate we have today of said Person or Event. Especially with people, it can be a hard Thing, there are a lot of Layers which you can’t even often fit into a 2-Hour Movie, so some cuts have to be made.
In many ways, I do think it does come down to a case by case Situation here.
That also said, if any Writer, and I am pretty certain a few did it at least, takes their Time to (extensive) research and tries to be more accurate as much as the Story allows. That is of course most appreciated, especially with a pure historical. But of course not needed.
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My main thing about historicals is less about how accurate they are and more about how the same eras, figures, and events are used repeatedly. How many stories do we need about the French Revolution, the Greeks/Romans, English royalty, WWII, the Old West, etc?
I’m currently working through Erimem’s audio range (those including Peri) and seeing that three of her small selection of stories takes place within that above list has me procrastinating on getting through them[1]. I’m sure for people who love the FR and English royalty, they can’t get enough of these stories, but, for the rest of us, can we please get some different settings.
I did listen to the Roman one ↩︎
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Peri and Erimem don’t visit the French Revolution, they visit Musketeer-era France which is a good hundred-and-fifty years prior to the Revolution (1626 vs 1792). Yes, they visit English Royalty, but it’s Richard III, not one of the more commonly seen Kings. They also visit Ancient Egypt, the Council of Nicea in 325, and Vlad the Impaler in 1462. So, they do get adventures in historical time and places out of the norm.
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On the flipside, those audios also have stories set during the time of Vlad the Impaler and Emperor Constantine (and some fascinating details about the early days of Christian theology). Then there’s The Roof of the World which is set during WW1 but isn’t about it.
The reason lots of those historical periods crop up though, such as Victoriana, the Old West, WWII etc is because of how Doctor Who is firmly rooted in literature and story. They are not so much visiting history as they are visiting historical fiction. This is very much the way the historicals were going at the end of their heyday - The Gunfighters is Hollywood Western; The Smugglers is Doctor Syn; The Highlanders is Rob Roy.
A Doctor Who story has to do a lot in a short time so audiences need cultural touchstones to grasp a setting as quickly as possible. An obscure historical period would be absolutely fascinating but would have to be written extremely effectively to give the audience the stuff they need to know to understand the time and space well enough without distracting from the plot.
This is why the books are a good place for this where they have the space to explore the settings in more detail and there are quite a few, right up to the recently released Ruby Red, which go to very interesting times and places.
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I don’t think so, but we can agree to disagree. They’re all variations on a theme as far as I’m concerned.
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I think you’re generalising a bit here especially with the amount of interesting historical detail that is present in Son of the Dragon, The Council of Nicaea and even The Church and the Crown.
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And I suppose that is the trouble with consuming media that is primarily made for Brits. As someone who isn’t one, a lot of the British-based historicals involve people/events I’ve never heard of or only know of by name. But that’s not an argument against what you’re saying, just something I wanted to comment on from my POV.
I’d also never heard of Nicaea before I’d listened to that audio.
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And it’s a very valid point. It’s funny because I’m sitting here watching Drag Race Down Under and we always laugh about how we have no idea who the guest judges are - but are fully aware an Aussie watching Drag Race UK would think the same. We are all parochial by nature and, as you say, Doctor Who is a truly British show. What’s good though is that there are a lot of authors in the audios and books, at least, who try to push the envelope.
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Would like to see the revival era attempt a pure historical. Agree with opinions shared above that stories like Rosa and Vincent and the Doctor aren’t improved by the inclusion of sci fi elements.
Recently listened to Wrath of the Iceni which I thought was excellent and manages to avoid some of the tropes Shauny mentioned by having Leela actively join up with Boudicca
My main beef with ‘celebrity’ historicals is that they tend to cast the famous person as either a hero or villain which is a naive way of looking at history. The Doctor is pals with Churchill despite his real world racism, Tesla’s belief in eugenics doesn’t come up etc…
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The Perimem arc does this a few times as well– Erimem often takes a strong moral stance on a historical situation that differs from the Doctor’s. It means she actively drives the plot which is always fascinating. Evelyn does this a few times as well.
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