User:PicassoAndPringles/Sandbox 5

Here's how we have them right now:

DWMS Summer 1986
"Making History"

Although the 'true' historical story has not really been seen in Doctor Who since the Hartnell days, stories mixing historical settings and science fiction have regularly appeared, especially in the late Seventies.

Gary Russell traces the development of the pseudo-historical, and the Doctor's part in altering history...

The War Games was really the first true pseudo-historical. ... The War Games was, despite The Time Meddler's attempt four years previously, the first serious use of pseudo-history as a means of story-telling. (I think most other sources disagree with this classification.)

... it wasn't until The Time Warrior that we had what could truthfully be called the archetypal pseudo-historical story.

....

Another story that has a most tenuous link with our subject is Enlightenment,... it doesn't really fit into the category.

....

despite its setting, [The Mark of the Rani] cannot be counted as a true pseudo-historical story ... as neither the characters, nor situations really had any bearing on the plot. (Again, this differs with other sources.)


 * Specifically counted: The Time Meddler, The Evil of the Daleks, The Abominable Snowmen, The War Games, The Time Meddler, The Pyramids of Mars, Masque of Mandragora, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, Horror of Fang Rock, The Visitation, The King's Demons
 * Specifically discounted: City of Death, Enlightenment, The Awakening, The Mark of the Rani

Who's 50: The 50 Doctor Who Stories to Watch Before You Die
The Psychic Papers: The Historical Stories

["The Time Meddler"] also introduced a new genre to Doctor Who: the "pseudo-historical," stories set in history with a science-fiction element (beyond the TARDIS).

....

The pure historical stories ended with "The Highlanders" in 1966. The pseudo-historicals also started to peter out so Doctor Who became, for all intents and purposes, a show about the present day, the near future or outer space.

....

["The Time Warrior"] heralded a mini-renaissance of pseudo-historical stories in the early fourth Doctor era. These stories fit nicely with new producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert Holmes's vision of Doctor Who, which filched from various pulp and horror genres. But the revival came to a halt with Hinchcliffe's and Holmes's departures; "Horror of Fang Rock," set in a lighthouse in the Edwardian era, was the last pseudo-historical for many years.

....

The New Series has had at least on historical story per season, and it has introduced a new sub-genre, the "celebrity historical": pseudo-historical stories that focus on an important historic figure, starting with Charles Dickens (2005's "The Unquiet Dead") and continuing through to Richard Nixon (2011's "The Impossible Astronaut"/"The Day of the Moon"). All of these, however, feature monsters and futuristic technology.

Impossible Worlds, Impossible Things: Cultural Perspectives on Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures
Sideways Pompeii!: The Use of a Historical Period to Question the Doctor's Role in History

[O]n the occasions when the Doctor did venture into the past between 1966 and 1989, the stories were almost always pseudo-historicals, usually involving some alien invasion of Earth, where the stakes can be much higher. ... The first pseudo-historical is usually identified as "The Time Meddler", though the "Mary Celeste" sequence from "The Chase" is actually the first introduction of an sf element other than the TARDIS and its crew into a historical setting. ... Thirty-nine are pseudo-historicals: "The Chase", "The Time Meddler", and "The Daleks' Master Plan", and every historical story after "The Highlanders", except "Black Orchid". ...

"The Fires of Pompeii", as noted, isi a pseudo-historical, as have been all the new Who historical stories; the show is fully aware of its identity as a science fiction series.

...

(Footnote 13) The terms "historical" and "pseudo-historical" emerge from fan discourse.


 * The War Games is discounted because the action does not take place on Earth.

The Essentail Doctor Who 8: Adventures in History
Why had John only ever written historically-based stories?

John Lucarotti: “Because I was asked to and chose to,” he said. “I was writing Doctor Who action-adventure, but at the same time I was trying to show my audience the way people lived in those times. I still enjoy blending fact with fiction – Operation Patch [1976] for ITV was about an attempt to murder Nelson before Trafalgar, and a new one, The Ravelled Thread [1979-80], also for ITV, is about involving Britain in the American Civil War.

[...]

In a science-fiction story set in the future the writer can always invent some device – a souped-up laser-zirgon atomiser, to make one up – to get the Doctor and his friends out of a jam. You couldn’t do that in the past. They had to use what existed. Which made the creation of the story that much tougher, I think.”

BBC episode guide
The Time Meddler

'The Time Meddler [contains] a number of "firsts" for Doctor Who,' pointed out Graham Howard in TSV 33 dated April 1993. 'It is the first "pseudo-historical", i.e. a historical that contains science-fiction elements (aside from the Doctor and his companions...) ...'

The 'pseudo-historical' aspect of the story was one that drew considerable comment, and most of it very favourable, from viewers whose reactions were recorded in the BBC's Audience Research Report ... (citing The Television Companion, citing TSV)

The Highlanders

'It is also the second - and last - of the historical stories conforming to Gerry Davis's idea of drawing inspiration from popular areas of 'romantic' fiction, the main source on this occasion being Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped (although John Prebble's Culloden may also have been influential).' (citing The Television Companion)

'Aside from its status as the last of the true historicals (at least until Black Orchid in the nineteenth season) ...' (citing The Television Companion)

The Talons of Weng-Chiang

"an effortless conquering of the pseudo-historical genre" (citing The Discontinuity Guide)

The Visitation

"a stylish slice of pseudo-historical nonsense" (citing The Discontinuity Guide)

"writer Eric Saward in his debut contribution to the series has come up with a fine pseudo-historical Doctor Who story" (citing The Television Companion)

Radio Times
Mandragora - 'another "pseudo-historical" romp'

Non TV

 * Timewyrm: Genesys (novel), Timewyrm: Exodus (novel), and White Darkness (novel)
 * First Frontier (novel)
 * Phantasmagoria (audio story)

John Dorney says the brief for The Wrath of the Iceni was open enough to do either pure or pseudo-historical.