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.

Making History: Interview with John Lucarotti
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.”

Reality Check: Interview with Donald Tosh
There is reliable evidence that [Donald Tosh] does, however, share a credit with John Lucarotti on the final episode of The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve (1966), one of the most intriguing of all Doctor Who’s purely historical stories. As Donald explains, this was the type of story that helped to make Doctor Who so appealing to him.

[...]

Donald Tosh: “The historical stories were built into the original format,” he recalls. “They were one of the reasons that I took the editorial brief. I was not, and am not, a science-fiction nut. In fact, with a few notable exceptions, I find little of it that engages me.

[...]

Accuracy is something Donald seems to have strived for in all the historical stories on which he worked. But, perhaps surprisingly, he doesn’t necessarily think that they all had to be played as straight as The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve.

“I’ve always said that you can take kids with you in just about anything,” he explains. “I was all for Doctor Who being just a little bit darker, or a little bit funnier. You could have jokes, for instance, as in Donald Cotton’s The Myth Makers [1965].”

Nor does he object to what are now referred to as ‘pseudo-historical’ stories – adventures set in the past, but which still contain science-fiction elements in addition to the TARDIS and its crew.

“When they eventually brought it back, and they did the Dickensian one early on [The Unquiet Dead, 2005], that was very much how John Wiles and I saw Doctor Who developing, way back in the 1960s. In that sort of story you can bring the past and the future together. You don’t worry if something is sort of fantastical, you don’t have to say, ‘Well that couldn’t happen in the nineteenth century.’ Of course it could if you were mucking about with both sides anyway, the historical and the science-fiction. But I always felt you had to maintain an educational ethos and not just be pure entertainment. That came after I left.”

One slightly fantastical element of The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve is the presence of the Doctor’s double, the Abbot of Amboise – also played by William Hartnell. Donald claims this idea as his own, rather than something that was in John Lucarotti’s original version.

Past Lives: Interview with Anneke Wills
“Patrick, Mike and I loved doing the historical stories,” says Anneke Wills, remembering her Doctor Who co-stars Patrick Troughton and Michael Craze with affection. “As actors, I think it’s much more interesting to ‘do’ history. Patrick absolutely adored doing the historical ones. It was such fun for him, dressing up and using outrageous accents.”

The regular cast’s enjoyment of monster-free adventures was short-lived. In late 1966 and early 1967, Doctor Who was undergoing momentous changes as William Hartnell, the show’s leading man, was replaced by Patrick Troughton. The cast wasn’t the only thing that was transformed. “As far as I can remember,” says Anneke, “they dropped the historicals because Doctor Who was considered by the high-ups at the BBC to be science-fiction: that’s what they wanted and that’s what they thought the audience wanted. Especially with Pat coming in new, they stuck to what worked – when in doubt, give him the Daleks.

[...]

One aspect of Anneke’s historical adventures that she particularly enjoyed was Polly’s feisty behaviour: in The Smugglers she poses as a boy and in The Highlanders she joins forces with Kirsty (Hannah Gordon) to blackmail an English army officer.

[...]

The 1960s historical serials are further enhanced by seasoned character actors, whose performances were honed by extensive rehearsals. “I was talking to Peter Capaldi about this when I met him a few years ago,” remembers Anneke. “He asked me what it was like working on Doctor Who in the 1960s. I said, ‘It was pretty full on. We’d start rehearsing on Monday and work through until Thursday.’ He went, ‘Rehearsing! You rehearsed?!’ I asked him how he did it. He said, ‘I go through the script the night before, adjust, then I’ll come in and do five or six takes. I leave it to the director to decide which one is best and go on to the next pick-up.’ I couldn’t do that. I’m old money.”

[...]

In May 2016, the new [Big Finish-based] team recorded The Forsaken, another historical foray as the TARDIS arrives during the Japanese invasion of Singapore in 1942. [according to the wiki classification, The Forsaken is a pseudo-historical due to the presence of the titular enemy]

[...]

Although the series’ run of purely historical adventures was drawing to a close when The Smugglers was made, the production of the serial broke new ground.

Steering the Seventh: Interview with Andrew Cartmel
Andrew presided over five stories containing historical settings or elements – the 1950s (Delta and the Bannermen), 1960s (Remembrance of the Daleks), the seventeenth century (Silver Nemesis), 1940s (The Curse of Fenric) and the 1880s in Ghost Light.

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.