Pure historical

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Pure historicals are Doctor Who stories that are set in in a historical time period and feature no science fiction anachronisms other than the TARDIS team. These stories were highlighted by Philip MacDonald in the article "A Foreign Country" in DWM 194.

Pure historicals were common in televised Doctor Who until The Highlanders in 1966. The only pure historical since then was Black Orchid in 1982.

The Time Meddler was the first "pseudo-historical" story with the Monk serving as the science fiction anachronism.

The term has been widely adopted by the fanbase, even by writers for Doctor Who Magazine and Big Finish Productions. These stories have explicitly been described as pure historicals: Other Lives,[1] The Wrath of the Iceni,[2] The Flames of Cadiz,[3] The Lady of Mercia,[4] The Doctor's Tale,[5] The Peterloo Massacre,[6], The Great White Hurricane,[7] and The Bellagio Imbroglio.[8]

Paul Magrs jokingly described his audio story Muse of Fire as a "not-quite-so Pure Historical".[9]

List of pure historicals

Medium Title Doctor Era Release Date
TV An Unearthly Child 1st 100,000 BC 23 November14 December 1963
Marco Polo 1289 22 February4 April 1964
The Aztecs After 1430 23 May13 June 1964
The Reign of Terror 1794 8 August12 September 1964
The Romans 64 16 January6 February 1965
The Crusade 1190s 27 March17 April 1965
The Myth Makers 1200 BC 16 October6 November 1965
The Massacre 1572 526 February 1966
The Gunfighters 1881 30 April21 May 1966
The Smugglers 17th century 10 September1 October 1966
The Highlanders 2nd 1746 17 December 1966–7 January 1967
Black Orchid 5th 1925 12 March 1982
Mini-episode The Bells of Saint John: A Prequel 11th 1990s 23 March 2013
The Doctor's Meditation 12th 1138 15 September 2015
Comic Backtime 3rd 1863 2 October-13 November 1971
Who is the Stranger 3rd c. 1940-1944 10 February 1973
Perils of Paris 3rd 1880 Summer 1974
Woden's Warriors 4th to be added 1 September 1975
Treasure Trail 4th 1944 20 March- 1 May 1976
The Sky Warrior 4th 16th century 1 July 1977
Doctor Conkerer! 7th 5th or 8th century[nb 1] 14 June 1990
The Submariners 10th 1944 19 February 2009
They Think It's All Over 11th 966 25 May 2011
The Doctor Shops for Comics 11th 1923 12 August 2015
Novel Sanctuary 7th 1242 20 April 1995
The Plotters 1st 1605 21 November 1996
The Roundheads 2nd 1648 24 November 1997
The Witch Hunters 1st 1692-1693 2 March 1998
The Wages of Sin 3rd 1916 1 February 1999
Byzantium! 1st 64 2 July 2001
Blood and Hope 5th 1860-1865 19 February 2004
The Coming of the Queen 5th 15th century BC 13 October 2005
Short story The King of Golden Death 2nd After c. 1323 BC[nb 2] September 1967
The Real Hereward 6th 1066 August 1984
A Victorian Interlude 5th 1890 21 March 1991
An Unfulfilled Dream 7th 1240 BC 5 September 1991
Who Discovered America? 1st 1002 20 February 1992
The Stranger, The Writer, His Wife and the Mixed Metaphor 4th 1590s 21 January 1993
Front Line 7th c. 1914-1918 23 December 1993
The Last Days 1st c. 74[nb 3] 2 March 1998
The People's Temple 8th Stone Age 2 March 1998
Romans Cutaway 1st 64 1 March 1999
Five Card Draw 1st, 2nd,
3rd, 5th, 6th
12th century 6 March 2002
Apocrypha Bipedium 1st After 1200 BC 2 April 2003
Mire and Clay 1st 1842 16 June 2003
The Immortals 5th 1016 9 April 2004
All Done with Mirrors 4th 1593 9 April 2004
The Thief of Sherwood 1st 12th century 9 April 2004
White Man's Burden 5th 1877 9 April 2004
Of the Mermaid and Jupiter 7th 1829 9 April 2004
The Man Who Wouldn't Give Up 6th 9th century 9 April 2004
The Bushranger's Story 4th 1876 26 August 2004
The Farmer's Story 2nd After 1914 26 August 2004
The Republican's Story 4th 1666 26 August 2004
Never Seen Cairo 5th, 7th 1914 30 December 2004
It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow 4th 1940 30 December 2004
The Duke's Folly 1st Late 19th century 9 April 2005
Comforts of Home 5th 1861 26 November 2005
Log 384 7th 1933 18 September 2006
The Slave War 2nd 71 BC 10 May 2008
Goths and Robbers 5th 493 10 May 2008
The Price of Conviction 1st c. 1521[nb 4] 10 May 2008
God Send Me Well to Keep 5th 1539 10 May 2008
On a Pedestal 2nd 13th century 10 May 2008
Hiccup in Time 3rd 1539 30 March 2009
Shamans 4th 1856 30 March 2009
The Reign Makers 1st 1415 30 March 2009
The Bledoe Cadets and the Bald Man of Pengriffen N/A 1937 March 2017
Audio The Marian Conspiracy 6th 1555 12 March 2000
The Fires of Vulcan 7th 79 18 September 2000
The Church and the Crown 5th 1626 28 November 2002
Doctor Who and the Pirates 6th c. 1702 April 2003
Catch-1782 6th 1782 April 2005
The Council of Nicaea 5th 325 July 2005
Other Lives 8th 1851 13 December 2005
The Settling 7th 1649 May 2006
No Man's Land 7th 1917 November 2006
Summer 5th 17th century 20 January 2007
Autumn 5th 2000s 20 January 2007
Son of the Dragon 5th 1462 6 September 2007
100 BC 6th 101 BC 26 September 2007
Resistance 2nd 1944 March 2009
The Angel of Scutari 7th 1854 June 2009
The Emperor of Eternity 2nd 210 BC 9 March 2010
Farewell, Great Macedon 1st 323 BC 10 November 2010
The Wondrous Box 4th 1885 11 May 2011
The Wrath of the Iceni 4th 60 March 2012
The Flames of Cadiz 5th 1587 9 January 2013
The Lady of Mercia 5th 918 8 May 2013
The Alchemists 1st 1933 August 2013
Murder at Moorsey Manor N/A 1894 3 April 2014
The Doctor's Tale 1st 1400 17 October 2014
The Founding Fathers 1st 1762 3 June 2015
Dark Convoy 7th 1941 20 July 2015
Murder at the Abbey N/A 1950s 6 August 2015
The Peterloo Massacre 5th 1819 15 March 2016
The Ravelli Conspiracy 1st 1514 10 November 2016
The Behemoth 6th 1756 11 October 2017
The Great White Hurricane 1st 1888 25 December 2017
The Barbarians and the Samurai 1st 1820s 25 July 2018
The Phoenicians 1st 814 BC 29 January 2019
Black Thursday 5th 1902 12 February 2019
Last of the Romanovs 1st 1918 18 March 2020
Operation: Hellfire 3rd 1943 14 May 2020
The Hollow Crown 1st 1601 27 April 2021
The Secrets of Det-Sen 1st 1630 17 August 2021
The Rotting Deep 6th 2000s 17 May 2022
A Ghost of Alchemy 4th 1921 8 March 2023
River of Death 6th 19th century 7 March 2024
The Merfolk Murders 5th 1940 9 April 2024
Role-playing game The Bellagio Imbroglio Uncertain 1778 12 January 2017

Footnotes

Notes

  1. In the original printing of DWM 162, this story is dated to the 5th century. This was changed to the more historically accurate 8th century in The Mark of Mandragora.
  2. Approximate year of Tutankhamun's death.
  3. Real world date of the Siege of Masada.
  4. Real world date of the Diet of Worms.