Huge thank you to my Patreon supporter, LilSeahorse! I hope you enjoyed the video! Let me know what you think of the pure historicals. Think they should make a comeback?
Steven Moffat did NOT want Vincent and the doctor to be a pure historical. He has debunked this “fact” several times, more recently in a tweet back in June that made doctor who Twitter catch fire for a day. The monster was always the plan for the story from the start, showing how Vincent’s “illness” is a strength because he can see things others can’t was always the concept for the episode! It’s obviously a shame that we don’t get any pure historicals in modern doctor who… but with respect to Steven Moffat we shouldn’t pretend that the people in charge want them to return, that form of storytelling would be incredibly hard to make work in the modern show after we’ve had monsters of the week for over half a century (but I do admire the episodes with smaller Sifi influence like Vincent and Demons of the punjab for leaning on that classic story concept and reinventing it for the new show)
Oh, interesting! I must have fallen victim to the mass Mandela effect surrounding this. I was certain I'd heard this fact a hundred times, but when I was fact checking I did struggle to find a definitive yes or no in terms of proof, but decided ultimately to keep it in. Regardless, I think it helps illustrate the point that pure historicals COULD work given the right story either way. If you can link me the proof of Moff debunking it, I'll add a citation to the video/description. :) Thanks for letting me know!
Great vid doccy 👍 I think I'd like to see an updated Zarbi episode. Insect aliens could be a good scary one. Didn't realise it's been so long since a pure historical 😅
To me it really is a shame that they stopped doing pure historicals. In some stories that are set in the past the monsters really feel unnecessary. The history would make for enough drama by itself. I also think it's a shame that they stopped trying to be educational. That doesn't mean that I dislike the monster stories, but having the added variety of the occasional pure historical would be nice.
The Time Meddler is a really messed up story if you think about it. The Doctor actively has the villagers help to destroy the only thing protecting them from a Viking invasion, where presumably they would all die, seeing that just one viking slipping through is heavily implied to have r**Ed one of the villager's wives. And worse, they were made to actively enable the Vikings to slaughter them, so the King's army could be weakened enough so he could be killed and the entire country taken over by the invading Normans. Yet when the Doctor leaves it's all smiles and fare-thee-wells between the TARDIS crew and the villagers
Also the weird thing about The Reign of Terror is Barbara still defends the French Revolution, despite every Revolutionary official in the story being either despotic or an outright murderer, and the very first thing that happens to her and Susan is the revolutionary court sentences them both to death without evidence and no defense whatsoever in a speed trial talking all of one minute. Meanwhile all the royalists in the story are depicted as kind people who actively try helping them and who end up extrajudicially massacred by the Revolutionary troops. It's an incredible disconnect.
Because Barbara is a history teacher and can see the bigger picture and the impact the French Revolution had on history, outside of their immediate circumstances.
@@corax3341 Still not one single person in that story on the side of the revolution was a good person or at least not down to gun people down for their own ends.
It is, regardless of the invisible alien chicken thing. Of course "Blink" and "Heaven Sent" are objectively better. When making "Doctor Who" tier list these two are no doubt S+ tier But "Vincent and the Doctor" is just one tier lower, in S tier, alongside "Father's Day", "The Girl in the Fireplace", "Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead", "Midnight", "The Christmas Carol", "The Girl Who Waited", "The Rings of Akhaten", "Mummy on the Orient Express", "World Enough and Time / The Doctor Falls", "Wild Blue Yonder", "Boom", "73 yards" and "Dot and Bubble" I'm personally subjectively love "Planet of the Dead", "Gridlock", "Hide" and "Eve of the Daleks" more, but I know those aren't massively publically praised episodes. "Vincent and the Doctor" is truly one of the best "Doctor Who" episodes. Probably THE best of the Matt Smith and Karen Gillan era. I'm not a fan of Rory Williams, so I especially appreciate Arthur Darvill being absent in "Vincent and the Doctor" (and in the next episode "The Lodger")
It's really a shame that era of Who was so iron-clad with the Monster of the Week story pattern. Having some historical and non-monster shows would have made the monster shows way more interesting rather than "just another" monster wee of the week show. It was like the story police showed up to haul away a chance for a good character, just when you were having fun.
The historicals contain my favourite stories ever. The Aztecs, with Barbara trying to pre-empt their destruction before Cortez arrived, was an engaging idea - and The Crusaders wouldn't be out of place on the stage of The Globe Theatre!
The other factor with the Darleks is that they were the "Tanks" of WW2. Challenged with outright extermination the Super-Weapons engineer Davros put a powerful single energy weapon, on to an industrial mechanoid frame (our equivalent of a lawn tractor or forklift), and covered it with armour and shielding. The problem with Davros's "invention" (read obsession) is that he couldn't get a machine mind to fit into the frame, they were just too limited and too big, neither could they spare troops from the front line or support staff to risk blowing up, cooking, drowning, or otherwise dying while being stuffed inside an industrial lifter frame designed to be unmanned. Likewise, there was no way to feed or poop once the armoured hatch was closed up. Thus leading to Davros' ultimate super weapon - playing on Eugenics (as atomics had already been breached) - Davros designed an _organic_ mutation and had engineered a micro "life"-support to fit into the industrial robot frame safely tucked away from damage entirely for life kept within the artifical frame, as it had no existence or limbs to exist outside. And he gave it the sole purpose to exterminate everything that wasn't "Kaled" since he'd incorporated Kaled cells and parts of brain into the mutant to give it inherited memory and control of the frame - but he'd made one major error. He had used "us" instead of "Kalid" in his ego-maniacal teaching. And the "Darlek" decided that Kalids didn't fit in the "like us" category. The minor error, is that his super weapon had one other advantage: self-replication. After all it's an industrial frame for building things, and super-intelligent Kaled-mutant -brain in a jar to drive the thing (ie vat mutant) then there is no reason you can't insutruct them to make more of themselves. A good solution to the diminishing population of adult Kaled, who couldn't spare factories or workers to built the Tanks. So Darleks could scrounge and build themselves, without sparing manpower, and the Kaleds could continue to use full force against the Thals. Sounds like a solution that's just too good to be true.... (self-building invulnerable tanks. Just what could go wrong - it's the ultimate weapon. Right?)
I’ve wondered if the death of the historicals was at least due in part to black and white episodes being rather dull visually as late 60s tv was switching to color, fueled by flashy American shows like Batman, Star Trek, and the Irwin Allen series. (Ironically, Allen’s regular time travel series, the Time Tunnel, was made in color, and old film footage in black and white was colorized.) I’d actually forgotten about that stupid monster in Vincent and the Doctor. One of the things I’ve gratefully appreciated was all sorts of excellent sf & monster-historical stories scattered throughout the Modern era. The Vincent story is my current favorite historical adventure, with Jodie’s Rosa Parks and Partitioning of India stories being my second and third favorites in the genre. For me, The Black Orchid story was my first and only historical I’d ever seen, though I have been able to see the serials 100,000 BC and The Aztecs twice each in the last ten years as I began filling in the gaps of my unseen episodes. The widespread success of the various Tolkien films and shows, as well as Game of Thrones, as well Modern Who, does show that historically set sf and fantasy series can work well. Certainly, I think the Celebrity Historical series are a great trend. I hope they stay as a staple. Perhaps you could do a video about then. In the meantime, this was an excellent video.
Over the years I have seen various tv shows with time travel try to be 'pure historicals' and sadly it never seems to catch on. Probably because if people want to be entertained while learning history (especially these days with youtube) we have so many options. OTOH, I would love to see some episodes where the story helps to debunk many modern myths of history. Even something as simple as an ep set in the 1400's where people DID KNOW that the Earth in fact was not flat. I was born in 1966, and I was taught in grade school that people thought Columbus was nuts because they though he would sail over he edge. This is stupid myth was easily disproved back then, and yet it still persisted.
I’m surprised that a lot of the historicals are dismissed as “not very much happens”, and also the most enthusiastic description ever given to The Space Museum. Is The Time Monster really a monster story?
I don't really consider Black Orchid an actual "historical" , it's a period drama if you see the difference - yes it's set in Earth's past and has no sci-fi beyond the regulars and the TARDIS but there is no reference to actual historical events or real people. It's just a stately home mystery and as to why they made it , I guess JNT thought it would go down well in the US.
The Daleks' ancestors were actually originally called Dals. Also, wdym when you say the Sensorites were being controlled by an outside force? I don't recall anything like that happening.
honestly there's some examples in New Who that would have worked better as a pure historical. kinda weird it didn't happen again. edit: dang I really wanted to give Vincent as an example. I wonder if there's actually more examples of this happening.
Great video, I would absolutely love to see a pure historicals on TV again. Vincent & the Doctor, the alien aspect didn't feel jarring to me but with Rosa it did, that one would have worked better as pure historical.
I wager Black Orchid is a pure historical simply due to time constraint. It's one of several 2 episode stories they experimented with during the Davison era, and none of them worked. They all either feel like they are missing the middle and skip straight to the end, or feel like they ended abruptly without really resolving anything. The same is true about Black Orchid, more so because the Doctor is entirely superfluous to the story and basically does nothing but look confused, if memory serves. Honestly even calling this a historical is barely accurate. All the other historicals before it explored interesting far off time periods and cultures and showcased real historical figures. Black Orchid has the Doctor show up at a completely random date in Britain in the 1920s that is of no significance and goes to a fictitious masquerade ball. A setting that is just breathtaking in it's unremarkability.
The video is too dismissive of early Who for me. Yes, often the 'monsters' looked like humans in cheap costumes, because they were. No CGI in those days but there was plenty of great story telling, and it was never better than in the Pure Historicals. How can any genuine fan dispose of Marco Polo with a 'not much happens' line? I've watched at least three different recons, and read the Target novelisation, and it's superb. The colour photographs taken of the cast on set make it look like a really lavish production, though of course it wouldn't have looked like that on our tiny, black and white televisions. I don't think there's much chance of the serial being found now, but the next best thing would be an animation, through which the ambition of those involded in the original production could at last be realised. I also love The Aztecs, which we do have in its entirety, and it's here that we see the moral dilemmas that would be frequently posed by Time-Travel if it should ever become a reality, played out through the clash between Barbara's attempt to end himan sacrifice and the Doctor's insistence that 'Time can't be rewritten, not one single line!' I hope young fans who have only ever known Modern Who (which I loved, up until 2017) will take their own trip back in time and give the early stories, especially the Pure Historicals a chance.
Interesting. I might also have liked to hear how many actual episodes the pure historicals took up as opposed to the sci-fi ones rather than just stories. Not sure why you called out Marco Polo as a celebrity historical and not stories like Reign Of Terror and The Romans and others that also feature historical celebrities like Nero and others? The Chase is the first story to mix history with sci-fi monsters not The Time Meddler (Daleks on the Mary Celest is not historically acurate!)
Wait a sec you said new who haven't done any pure historical. What about the Fires of Pompeii? that was all about the great disaster that killed thousands and it was a pure historical with some alien stuff. There have also been other pure historicals in New Who can't think of some of the I there but still
@@Blazing_Ninja it's about Volcano Day the incident that killed many souls. Besides the alien stuff it was accurate to what occurred that makes it a pure historical
@@solrachernandez3389 there are still aliens in it, which means it can’t be counted as “pure”. If you count this as “pure” then you’ll have to count Vincent and the Doctor, Rosa, Demons of the Punjab, and many others
This is great stuff! And could I add that your voice is wonderful to listen to, also. I like the idea of “pure” historicals as I’m a classicist by trade but I like how new who could create an alien menace of some sort. We can’t get anything in nz earlier than 11s run which is very annoying and I was too little to remember much of the aired show except I think a Dalek’s top falling off and foamy stuff coming out. I was behind the sofa at the time.
I am sorry Vincent and the Doctor was forced to shove in a monster because it didn't need it. I think there is an interest in pure historicals and, anyway, time travel itself is a science fiction concept. You don't need to add a monster to make it sci-fi. Good video though. Very interesting. Subscribed!
I always felt that the India partition episode would have been better as a pure historical. The story already had so much drama that the supernatural element felt incredibly tacked on. On the whole I think it is probably for the better that Dr Who moved away from "trying ro get people interested in history". With all its history documentaries, historical dramas and antique shows, the BBC is already an incredibly backwards looking broadcaster.
I love a historical WHO, but I'm not sure Black Orchid in Season 19 should be treated as such. Let me explain why I think of it as a Period Drama, rather than a Historical. Many years ago when I was at school, we were taught about The Romans, The Crusaders and The Aztecs, The French Revolution and the religious fallout that forced the Huguenots to leave France. Closer to home we touched upon the Jacobite Rebellion, Smuggling and the Norman Conquest (though no meddling Monks were mentioned). Playing Cricket on a village green an having a masquerade ball in between the showers may seem very British, but whether its truely historical I'm not so sure.
Rosa was a good story dealing with racism, might have been better without the racist trying to change history, i might be wrong about Black Orchid but part of Season 19's budget was used to fund K-9 and Company meaning they only had a budget for two episodes so the production team probably found a two part pure historical a nice cheap way to fill the run time
For me there's a lack of personal opinion in your video, so we don't really get to hear your personality or your enthusiasm for the show. Almost every time you mention a "pure historical" you follow it up with the phrase, "nothing much happens", so it feels the whole thing could be condensed into why pure historicals don't really work story-wise for Doctor Who, or generally as a medium of serialised entertainment. You don't go much into why, you just give a brief overview of each serial then say which ones are "pure historicals" and that's that - not much opinion or audience reviews at the time. All the information presented in the video isn't new, it's all Wikipedia search-able.
"The Death of Pure Historical Serials" - what on earth is a "Pure Historical Serial" when a time-traveller turns up in the middle of it? I would watch your video but I have become reticent to follow-up 'click-bait' titles that are blatantly based on false-hoods. Doctor Who has NEVER done Pure Historicals, it has done Historicals without 'alien interference' -- but never Pure.
It's just the name that has come to be given for stories set on Earth in past times when the only SF element was the Tardis and its crew. You're taking 'pure' a bit too literally. Of course, none of the stories could be 'pure' in the literal sense.
Wokeness is a good thing. It means being aware of societal issues even when you yourself are not affected by them (but other people are). Wokeness is a sign of empathy. And Doctor Who has been woke since the beginning.
@@corax3341 no, wokeness is the replacement of straight white males by everyone else in all facets of entertainment. treating them as second class citizens or the butt of every joke or someone who must defer in every instance to a strong woman that can be a better man than the man.
Huge thank you to my Patreon supporter, LilSeahorse!
I hope you enjoyed the video! Let me know what you think of the pure historicals. Think they should make a comeback?
Yeah I like them!
Steven Moffat did NOT want Vincent and the doctor to be a pure historical. He has debunked this “fact” several times, more recently in a tweet back in June that made doctor who Twitter catch fire for a day. The monster was always the plan for the story from the start, showing how Vincent’s “illness” is a strength because he can see things others can’t was always the concept for the episode!
It’s obviously a shame that we don’t get any pure historicals in modern doctor who… but with respect to Steven Moffat we shouldn’t pretend that the people in charge want them to return, that form of storytelling would be incredibly hard to make work in the modern show after we’ve had monsters of the week for over half a century (but I do admire the episodes with smaller Sifi influence like Vincent and Demons of the punjab for leaning on that classic story concept and reinventing it for the new show)
Oh, interesting! I must have fallen victim to the mass Mandela effect surrounding this. I was certain I'd heard this fact a hundred times, but when I was fact checking I did struggle to find a definitive yes or no in terms of proof, but decided ultimately to keep it in. Regardless, I think it helps illustrate the point that pure historicals COULD work given the right story either way.
If you can link me the proof of Moff debunking it, I'll add a citation to the video/description. :)
Thanks for letting me know!
Just want to point out, at the time of Dr Who's debut, we still only had 2 TV channels in Britain.
Great vid doccy 👍 I think I'd like to see an updated Zarbi episode. Insect aliens could be a good scary one. Didn't realise it's been so long since a pure historical 😅
This is actually really good! I'm subscribing immediately!
Well done. I miss the pure historicals
Great channel
I enjoyed the part where you talk about Doctor Who
To me it really is a shame that they stopped doing pure historicals. In some stories that are set in the past the monsters really feel unnecessary. The history would make for enough drama by itself. I also think it's a shame that they stopped trying to be educational. That doesn't mean that I dislike the monster stories, but having the added variety of the occasional pure historical would be nice.
Thank you for an enjoyable and informative video.
The Time Meddler is a really messed up story if you think about it. The Doctor actively has the villagers help to destroy the only thing protecting them from a Viking invasion, where presumably they would all die, seeing that just one viking slipping through is heavily implied to have r**Ed one of the villager's wives.
And worse, they were made to actively enable the Vikings to slaughter them, so the King's army could be weakened enough so he could be killed and the entire country taken over by the invading Normans.
Yet when the Doctor leaves it's all smiles and fare-thee-wells between the TARDIS crew and the villagers
This is a great channel, love the video
I love "The Keys of Marinus" because of how all over the place it is.
Also the weird thing about The Reign of Terror is Barbara still defends the French Revolution, despite every Revolutionary official in the story being either despotic or an outright murderer, and the very first thing that happens to her and Susan is the revolutionary court sentences them both to death without evidence and no defense whatsoever in a speed trial talking all of one minute.
Meanwhile all the royalists in the story are depicted as kind people who actively try helping them and who end up extrajudicially massacred by the Revolutionary troops.
It's an incredible disconnect.
Because Barbara is a history teacher and can see the bigger picture and the impact the French Revolution had on history, outside of their immediate circumstances.
@@corax3341 Still not one single person in that story on the side of the revolution was a good person or at least not down to gun people down for their own ends.
if Vincent and the Doctor was a pure historical, it could solidly be in the running for the best episode of Modern Who
It is, regardless of the invisible alien chicken thing.
Of course "Blink" and "Heaven Sent" are objectively better. When making "Doctor Who" tier list these two are no doubt S+ tier
But "Vincent and the Doctor" is just one tier lower, in S tier, alongside "Father's Day", "The Girl in the Fireplace", "Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead", "Midnight", "The Christmas Carol", "The Girl Who Waited", "The Rings of Akhaten", "Mummy on the Orient Express", "World Enough and Time / The Doctor Falls", "Wild Blue Yonder", "Boom", "73 yards" and "Dot and Bubble"
I'm personally subjectively love "Planet of the Dead", "Gridlock", "Hide" and "Eve of the Daleks" more, but I know those aren't massively publically praised episodes.
"Vincent and the Doctor" is truly one of the best "Doctor Who" episodes. Probably THE best of the Matt Smith and Karen Gillan era. I'm not a fan of Rory Williams, so I especially appreciate Arthur Darvill being absent in "Vincent and the Doctor" (and in the next episode "The Lodger")
It's really a shame that era of Who was so iron-clad with the Monster of the Week story pattern. Having some historical and non-monster shows would have made the monster shows way more interesting rather than "just another" monster wee of the week show. It was like the story police showed up to haul away a chance for a good character, just when you were having fun.
I don't think the fact that there's a silly giant chicken alien monster really ruins it or anything. It's still a fantastic episode.
Nah the monster works really well thematically
I think it still is. The monster works fine in the story
The historicals contain my favourite stories ever. The Aztecs, with Barbara trying to pre-empt their destruction before Cortez arrived, was an engaging idea - and The Crusaders wouldn't be out of place on the stage of The Globe Theatre!
The other factor with the Darleks is that they were the "Tanks" of WW2.
Challenged with outright extermination the Super-Weapons engineer Davros put a powerful single energy weapon, on to an industrial mechanoid frame (our equivalent of a lawn tractor or forklift), and covered it with armour and shielding.
The problem with Davros's "invention" (read obsession) is that he couldn't get a machine mind to fit into the frame, they were just too limited and too big, neither could they spare troops from the front line or support staff to risk blowing up, cooking, drowning, or otherwise dying while being stuffed inside an industrial lifter frame designed to be unmanned. Likewise, there was no way to feed or poop once the armoured hatch was closed up.
Thus leading to Davros' ultimate super weapon - playing on Eugenics (as atomics had already been breached) - Davros designed an _organic_ mutation and had engineered a micro "life"-support to fit into the industrial robot frame safely tucked away from damage entirely for life kept within the artifical frame, as it had no existence or limbs to exist outside. And he gave it the sole purpose to exterminate everything that wasn't "Kaled" since he'd incorporated Kaled cells and parts of brain into the mutant to give it inherited memory and control of the frame - but he'd made one major error.
He had used "us" instead of "Kalid" in his ego-maniacal teaching.
And the "Darlek" decided that Kalids didn't fit in the "like us" category.
The minor error, is that his super weapon had one other advantage: self-replication. After all it's an industrial frame for building things, and super-intelligent Kaled-mutant -brain in a jar to drive the thing (ie vat mutant) then there is no reason you can't insutruct them to make more of themselves. A good solution to the diminishing population of adult Kaled, who couldn't spare factories or workers to built the Tanks. So Darleks could scrounge and build themselves, without sparing manpower, and the Kaleds could continue to use full force against the Thals.
Sounds like a solution that's just too good to be true.... (self-building invulnerable tanks. Just what could go wrong - it's the ultimate weapon. Right?)
I think historicals would be an amzing breath of fresh air in new who wish they came back
I’ve wondered if the death of the historicals was at least due in part to black and white episodes being rather dull visually as late 60s tv was switching to color, fueled by flashy American shows like Batman, Star Trek, and the Irwin Allen series. (Ironically, Allen’s regular time travel series, the Time Tunnel, was made in color, and old film footage in black and white was colorized.)
I’d actually forgotten about that stupid monster in Vincent and the Doctor. One of the things I’ve gratefully appreciated was all sorts of excellent sf & monster-historical stories scattered throughout the Modern era. The Vincent story is my current favorite historical adventure, with Jodie’s Rosa Parks and Partitioning of India stories being my second and third favorites in the genre.
For me, The Black Orchid story was my first and only historical I’d ever seen, though I have been able to see the serials 100,000 BC and The Aztecs twice each in the last ten years as I began filling in the gaps of my unseen episodes.
The widespread success of the various Tolkien films and shows, as well as Game of Thrones, as well Modern Who, does show that historically set sf and fantasy series can work well.
Certainly, I think the Celebrity Historical series are a great trend. I hope they stay as a staple. Perhaps you could do a video about then. In the meantime, this was an excellent video.
Over the years I have seen various tv shows with time travel try to be 'pure historicals' and sadly it never seems to catch on. Probably because if people want to be entertained while learning history (especially these days with youtube) we have so many options. OTOH, I would love to see some episodes where the story helps to debunk many modern myths of history. Even something as simple as an ep set in the 1400's where people DID KNOW that the Earth in fact was not flat. I was born in 1966, and I was taught in grade school that people thought Columbus was nuts because they though he would sail over he edge. This is stupid myth was easily disproved back then, and yet it still persisted.
21:59 ... that's not what happens
I’m surprised that a lot of the historicals are dismissed as “not very much happens”, and also the most enthusiastic description ever given to The Space Museum. Is The Time Monster really a monster story?
This makes me want to watch only the Daleks serials 😅
I don't really consider Black Orchid an actual "historical" , it's a period drama if you see the difference - yes it's set in Earth's past and has no sci-fi beyond the regulars and the TARDIS but there is no reference to actual historical events or real people. It's just a stately home mystery and as to why they made it , I guess JNT thought it would go down well in the US.
The Daleks' ancestors were actually originally called Dals.
Also, wdym when you say the Sensorites were being controlled by an outside force? I don't recall anything like that happening.
What about Enemy of the World? It's kinda build like a pure historical but it's set in the future. Don't really see Salamander as a Sci-Fi Monster.
honestly there's some examples in New Who that would have worked better as a pure historical. kinda weird it didn't happen again.
edit: dang I really wanted to give Vincent as an example. I wonder if there's actually more examples of this happening.
Great video, I would absolutely love to see a pure historicals on TV again.
Vincent & the Doctor, the alien aspect didn't feel jarring to me but with Rosa it did, that one would have worked better as pure historical.
I wager Black Orchid is a pure historical simply due to time constraint. It's one of several 2 episode stories they experimented with during the Davison era, and none of them worked. They all either feel like they are missing the middle and skip straight to the end, or feel like they ended abruptly without really resolving anything.
The same is true about Black Orchid, more so because the Doctor is entirely superfluous to the story and basically does nothing but look confused, if memory serves.
Honestly even calling this a historical is barely accurate. All the other historicals before it explored interesting far off time periods and cultures and showcased real historical figures.
Black Orchid has the Doctor show up at a completely random date in Britain in the 1920s that is of no significance and goes to a fictitious masquerade ball.
A setting that is just breathtaking in it's unremarkability.
"Surprise season 19" does summarise Black Orchid somewhat yes.
Hiding Chibnal among the monsters had me crying 🤣😭
How pure? Barbara and Steven wanted to change history.
The answer is ratings . Pure historical episodes didn’t get as high as ratings as alien / monster episodes.
Wait maro polo was a real guy
what about Fires of Pompeii?
Big ol’ giant lava rock monsters! Pyroville
@@DoccyWhoTime I think if you ignore the monsters it does have a first doctor episode vibe
The video is too dismissive of early Who for me. Yes, often the 'monsters' looked like humans in cheap costumes, because they were. No CGI in those days but there was plenty of great story telling, and it was never better than in the Pure Historicals. How can any genuine fan dispose of Marco Polo with a 'not much happens' line? I've watched at least three different recons, and read the Target novelisation, and it's superb. The colour photographs taken of the cast on set make it look like a really lavish production, though of course it wouldn't have looked like that on our tiny, black and white televisions. I don't think there's much chance of the serial being found now, but the next best thing would be an animation, through which the ambition of those involded in the original production could at last be realised. I also love The Aztecs, which we do have in its entirety, and it's here that we see the moral dilemmas that would be frequently posed by Time-Travel if it should ever become a reality, played out through the clash between Barbara's attempt to end himan sacrifice and the Doctor's insistence that 'Time can't be rewritten, not one single line!' I hope young fans who have only ever known Modern Who (which I loved, up until 2017) will take their own trip back in time and give the early stories, especially the Pure Historicals a chance.
Monk ain't a monster he's like the doc = historical as he tried to change history
Interesting. I might also have liked to hear how many actual episodes the pure historicals took up as opposed to the sci-fi ones rather than just stories. Not sure why you called out Marco Polo as a celebrity historical and not stories like Reign Of Terror and The Romans and others that also feature historical celebrities like Nero and others? The Chase is the first story to mix history with sci-fi monsters not The Time Meddler (Daleks on the Mary Celest is not historically acurate!)
Wait a sec you said new who haven't done any pure historical. What about the Fires of Pompeii? that was all about the great disaster that killed thousands and it was a pure historical with some alien stuff. There have also been other pure historicals in New Who can't think of some of the I there but still
There’s a monster in it, so that means its not a “pure” historical, just a historical
@@Blazing_Ninja it's about Volcano Day the incident that killed many souls. Besides the alien stuff it was accurate to what occurred that makes it a pure historical
@@solrachernandez3389 there are still aliens in it, which means it can’t be counted as “pure”. If you count this as “pure” then you’ll have to count Vincent and the Doctor, Rosa, Demons of the Punjab, and many others
@@solrachernandez3389 it still had a monster threat so it disqualifies itself
@@DoctorTardis100 it really doesn't
This is great stuff! And could I add that your voice is wonderful to listen to, also. I like the idea of “pure” historicals as I’m a classicist by trade but I like how new who could create an alien menace of some sort. We can’t get anything in nz earlier than 11s run which is very annoying and I was too little to remember much of the aired show except I think a Dalek’s top falling off and foamy stuff coming out. I was behind the sofa at the time.
🛸🤌
I am sorry Vincent and the Doctor was forced to shove in a monster because it didn't need it. I think there is an interest in pure historicals and, anyway, time travel itself is a science fiction concept. You don't need to add a monster to make it sci-fi. Good video though. Very interesting. Subscribed!
Space lasers 🎉
I always felt that the India partition episode would have been better as a pure historical. The story already had so much drama that the supernatural element felt incredibly tacked on.
On the whole I think it is probably for the better that Dr Who moved away from "trying ro get people interested in history". With all its history documentaries, historical dramas and antique shows, the BBC is already an incredibly backwards looking broadcaster.
I love a historical WHO, but I'm not sure Black Orchid in Season 19 should be treated as such.
Let me explain why I think of it as a Period Drama, rather than a Historical.
Many years ago when I was at school, we were taught about The Romans, The Crusaders and The Aztecs, The French Revolution and the religious fallout that forced the Huguenots to leave France.
Closer to home we touched upon the Jacobite Rebellion, Smuggling and the Norman Conquest (though no meddling Monks were mentioned).
Playing Cricket on a village green an having a masquerade ball in between the showers may seem very British, but whether its truely historical I'm not so sure.
Ain’t no way you called the edge of destruction filler 💀
I love the edge of destruction so much, it’s INCREDIBLY good
It literally was filler though, in the sense that it was written to fill a gap in production schedule. That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad.
Rosa was a good story dealing with racism, might have been better without the racist trying to change history, i might be wrong about Black Orchid but part of Season 19's budget was used to fund K-9 and Company meaning they only had a budget for two episodes so the production team probably found a two part pure historical a nice cheap way to fill the run time
For me there's a lack of personal opinion in your video, so we don't really get to hear your personality or your enthusiasm for the show. Almost every time you mention a "pure historical" you follow it up with the phrase, "nothing much happens", so it feels the whole thing could be condensed into why pure historicals don't really work story-wise for Doctor Who, or generally as a medium of serialised entertainment. You don't go much into why, you just give a brief overview of each serial then say which ones are "pure historicals" and that's that - not much opinion or audience reviews at the time. All the information presented in the video isn't new, it's all Wikipedia search-able.
Let me tell you why pure historical’s “died” in 3 words: They’re less popular. Alright, videos over bye everyone.
Only the BBC could make Doctor Who sound terrible. Shows how crap they were even then.
classic dr who will always be the best imo had mystery behind the dr they had to dumb it so down to the newer gerneration its embarrassing lol
great work but a mention to the fact the whole show was a bbc propaganda device would have been nice.
"The Death of Pure Historical Serials" - what on earth is a "Pure Historical Serial" when a time-traveller turns up in the middle of it? I would watch your video but I have become reticent to follow-up 'click-bait' titles that are blatantly based on false-hoods. Doctor Who has NEVER done Pure Historicals, it has done Historicals without 'alien interference' -- but never Pure.
It's just the name that has come to be given for stories set on Earth in past times when the only SF element was the Tardis and its crew. You're taking 'pure' a bit too literally. Of course, none of the stories could be 'pure' in the literal sense.
“Pure Historicals” is a term created by the fanbase, not myself!
Bit pedantic, no?
@@darachocathain1996 Yes. And?
@ tis’ not an endearing thing.
the modern day monster in DW is wokeness and the doctor can't defeat it because he is part of it as well as being subject to it
Sure, mate. Whatever you say.
@@Blazing_Ninja i sense you disagree with me. am i wrong?
@@joeespin4377 we all have our own opinions
Wokeness is a good thing. It means being aware of societal issues even when you yourself are not affected by them (but other people are). Wokeness is a sign of empathy. And Doctor Who has been woke since the beginning.
@@corax3341 no, wokeness is the replacement of straight white males by everyone else in all facets of entertainment. treating them as second class citizens or the butt of every joke or someone who must defer in every instance to a strong woman that can be a better man than the man.