Anyone else bored of "Elizabethan Era" episodes?

[Starkers]

I still don't understand why you can't have an occasional hisorical with no aliens? You can still have a villain. Imagine, for example, Miss Hartigan without the Cybermen, I bet she'd still be a threat, you could even have them become a reccuring villain. Her plot foiled Miss Hartigan stows away on the TARDIS and the next thing she knows it's the 51st Century...lucky for her she's smart enough to figure out the technology and next thing you know she's a time travelling nemesis!

 

[Shazam!]

I think instead of a monster running around in a historical episode, there should be another time-traveler (not a Time Lord though).

 

[Bacl]

I just wonder why they always go to Europe. Seriously, what's wrong with Asia or Africa or South America. A lot of interesting history and cool futuristic ideas to be had.

And don't worry, you can still film in Cardiff.

 

[Turbo]

Only three major factions have been shown to have time travel - the Time Lords, the Daleks, and the Earth-based Time Agency. The first two were destroyed in the Time War and John Hart said there were only seven Time Agents left. The odds of the Doctor running across another time traveler seem slim to none, especially if they keep doing Earth-based stories; I doubt any of the Time Agents would try to change history.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Actually, that's not quite true. When we first met the Sontarans, they had time traveling capabilities in The Time Warrior. Additionally, the Eight Legs (Planet of the Spiders, Fenric (The Curse of Fenric), and Tharils (Warrior's Gate) all had time traveling capablities. I'm sure there are others.

 

[DWF]

Actually, that's not quite true. When we first met the Sontarans, they had time traveling capabilities in The Time Warrior. Additionally, the Eight Legs (Planet of the Spiders, Fenric (The Curse of Fenric), and Tharils (Warrior's Gate) all had time traveling capablities. I'm sure there are others.

Yeah Lynx could travel but mainly though projection, I don't the Sontarans as a race could travel though time. I don't think Fenric could travel though time either or the eight legs. And the Tharils needed Romana to make them TARDISes to find the rest of their race so I don't think they could travel though time either, the gateway allowed them access though different time streams.

Also there's been no other race on the new series that could time travel.

 

[Bacl]

Actually, that's not quite true. When we first met the Sontarans, they had time traveling capabilities in The Time Warrior. Additionally, the Eight Legs (Planet of the Spiders, Fenric (The Curse of Fenric), and Tharils (Warrior's Gate) all had time traveling capablities. I'm sure there are others.

There were those time-traveling tourists (Nostalgia Tours?) in Delta and the Bannermen.

Given how much the Time Lords freaked out in The Two Doctors at the idea of anyone else developing time travel, I always found it odd how casually those time traveling tourists (Navarino?) were assisted by the Doctor to go back and visit 1959. He didn't even blink when they told him they were all going to time travel to visit Disneyland in 1959.

As for Time Agents, we still never got any clear answers on what exactly the agency was, what its function was, etc. Jack's vortex manipulator shorted out rather easily. Their time travel capabilities might have been laughable at best.

 

[Cutter John]

Thens theres whoever built the mysterious 'time ship' that turned up in 'Attack of the Cybermen'.


I think the OP has a point though. Honestly I'd love a historical story too. Seems like these days 'going back to the past' generally means 19th century London. A shame when theres all of history and an entire planet to work with. I mean damn. How about a story set in the first American colonies, the Napolionic war, the court of Catherine the Great, or the first western visitors to Japan? Yeah I know, it'd cost too much, and it's hard to do something epic in 45 minutes. Would still be wonderful though.

 

[David cgc]

As for Time Agents, we still never got any clear answers on what exactly the agency was, what its function was, etc. Jack's vortex manipulator shorted out rather easily. Their time travel capabilities might have been laughable at best.

To be fair, Jack was from the 51st century, so, depending on the Time Agency's jurisdiction, it might've been rated to only travel a few thousand years in a hop. Going from the 201st century to the 21st (or trying to) was probably a couple of times beyond it's design capacity (which would also explain the hundred-fifty year margin of error).

Still, the machine itself was obviously more than sound, since the Doctor only need a couple minutes of jiggery-pokery to get it to go 100 trillion years into the past, to a specific city on a specific planet, probably an ungodly distance away. It's also likely that the Time Agency had capsules (not full-on TARDISes but some kind of time-ship), and they may have had more robust non-portable vortex-manipulators that they normally used for missions, the wrist-strap being more of a back-up than a primary mode of travel.

My guess is that the Time Agency were, well, cops. Sort of like the Time Lords were, sealing breaches, preventing history-altering disasters, that sort of thing, but with a more local purview. They knew of the Time War, and remembered first-hand stuff with the Daleks (and Jack's implied that he's met Time Lords other than the Doctor before, or at least read a couple books on them), so they were probably middle-to-upper tier in terms of their understanding of time-travel and the Causal Nexus (lower-tier having not noticed anything at all of the Time War and being completely oblivious to how the Daleks could be extinct in 2005, returning in 2008, extinct again in 2012, and at the height of their empire in 216, middle-tier having heard of the Time-War from other people but not believing it, and upper-tier having a full conception of the timey-wimey ball, and direct knowledge of or participation in the Time War).

Speaking of, we can add the Chula to the list of people who had time-travel, and presumably whomever they were having a war with.

 

[Icemizer]

I think it would be brilliant to create another race of time travelers and set them up as the Doctors new nemises. Since the Time Lords have been removed and nature abhors a vacuum surely some race would step in and fill the void. Perhaps there was a race that the Time Lords had suppressed who now have their freedom and are out playing with time.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The lovely thing about DW is that it really has even less to do with time travel cliches than Star Trek has to do with space exploration. Known historical periods on Earth are just another variation of exotic environments in which to plop down the aliens/monsters/scifi zombie hoards. The episode with Rose's father was rather wonderful in that respect, a one-off cautionary tale concerning Why Time Travelers Don't Do That Kind Of Thing. Ever.

Because mucking about with history makes scary winged monsters appear and eat everybody.

Works for me.

Instead of going to the Roman planet and the Gangster Planet and the Nazi Planet like Trek, DW just goes to Rome and New York in the '30s and World War II.

 

[Sci]

I've always thought it would be interesting if the next Doctor Who season villain turned out to be a companion -- someone that the publicity had built up as the next new companion, just as brave and loyal as any of the others... who we then find out in Episode 11 or 12 has been manipulating things to betray the Doctor and steal the TARDIS all season.

Just a thought.

 

[The Nth Doctor]

Hm, that would actually be pretty cool, a nice contrast to Turlough in fact.

 

[Rosalind]

Actually, that's not quite true. When we first met the Sontarans, they had time traveling capabilities in The Time Warrior. Additionally, the Eight Legs (Planet of the Spiders, Fenric (The Curse of Fenric), and Tharils (Warrior's Gate) all had time traveling capablities. I'm sure there are others.

There are the Eternal from Enlightment, the guardians.

As for pure historicals, the audio plays The Kingmaker, The Church and the Crown, The Council of Nicaea, Son of the Dragon are all examples of how amazing wonderful a historical can be. I don't agree that the format of Doctor Who is to bring aliens into history. I think it's a wonderful device to show an outside perspective on any period in time.

 

[Timofnine]

I don't know if a pure historical would really interest me. I love monsters, and so does my 5 year old nephew. Imagine how disappointed he, and every other child in the UK, would be if they tuned in to Doctor Who and there were no aliens or monsters!

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Imagine how disappointed he, and every other child in the UK, would be if they tuned in to Doctor Who and there were no aliens or monsters!

Doctor Who without monsters is like Star Wars without Jedi: it's perfectly possible. I can't imagine that children in the UK would be disappointed by a monster-less Doctor Who episode if it's fun and entertaining.

 

[Timofnine]

Imagine how disappointed he, and every other child in the UK, would be if they tuned in to Doctor Who and there were no aliens or monsters!

Doctor Who without monsters is like Star Wars without Jedi: it's perfectly possible. I can't imagine that children in the UK would be disappointed by a monster-less Doctor Who episode if it's fun and entertaining.

LOL no, forget the Jedi.... I don't actually know what one of those is personally, but I see it as Doctor Who without monsters is like Star Wars without light sabers and aliens!

 

[Turbo]

The Jedi are the ones with the lightsabers.

(Never thought I'd have to explain that to anyone on this board.)

 

[Kibbin]

As for the replacing of the timelords I loved the explantion given on Darker Projects in their section 31 series that explained the temproal cold war as a result of the loss of the Time lords and everyone viying to fill that place. A bit fanwanky but creative I thought.

 

[USS KG5]

I still don't understand why you can't have an occasional hisorical with no aliens?

I doubt there is a rule against it but someone has to come up with a good story. This is after all a show aimed to a significant degree at young children.

What makes more sense is to introduce the younger viewers to great historical figures like Churchill, Agatha Christie, Dickens and events like World War One as part of an adventure story about aliens, therefore educating and entertaining at the same time.

The question should not really be "why not?" (only real answer: its a show about aliens, but not particular inherent reason) but "why do it?"