Talk:Pure historical

Scope?

Should this page exclusively cover Doctor Who-branded stories, or would other alien-free historical stories from other series count?

Also, how do we feel about stories which do have some kind of SFF twist beyond the time-travelling protagonists, but where that twist is not a conventional alien-monster situation? Is a story disqualified from pure-historical status if it has genuine, but Earth-based and non-temporal, supernatural phenomena like ghosts or gods or fairies, for example? Because arguably Thin Ice ^[+]Loading...["Thin Ice (TV story)"] is a pure historical, depending on where you draw the line. The creature in the Thames is suggested to just be some kind of cryptid unknown to modern science, not a stranded alien. And I see The Marian Conspiracy ^[+]Loading...["The Marian Conspiracy (audio story)"] is listed, but while it takes place in a "pure" "historical" setting, the whole gimmick is that history has diverged from what it should be… so I don't know. Perhaps we should add a "Notes" column to the tables and include explanations of those kinds of caveats?

I guess we also need to figure out how far in the past a story has to be set before it counts as "historical". Lots of stories published in a given year are supposed to take place a couple of years prior: surely that doesn't count. They're "present-day" stories. But where's the cutoff? Five years, ten, fifteen, fifty? We have The Bells of Saint John: A Prequel ^[+]Loading...["The Bells of Saint John: A Prequel (webcast)"] listed, a 2010s story set in the 1990s. And I mean… yeah? I guess? But it surprised me. Feels like a gray area worth discussing. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 19:34, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

To begin to address just one of those questions: if we draw the line at 15 years, which I think is sensible — as a length of time commonly understood to represent a generation — then Father's Day ^[+]Loading...["Father's Day (TV story)"] is a pseudo-historical, and The Eleventh Hour ^[+]Loading...["The Eleventh Hour (TV story)"] (just barely) isn't.

Also, what do we do with stories like The Rings of Akhaten ^[+]Loading...["The Rings of Akhaten (TV story)"]? It has extended flashbacks in the distant enough past, but none of that is the main action of the story. It can't be a pure historical and also have an A-plot involving dozens of alien species, not to mention a sentient star, surely.
× SOTO (☎/✍/↯) 01:59, 24 October 2024 (UTC)