Would you consider The Enemy of the World a 'future historical'?

[Candlelight]

It has no alien elements at all, the Doctor and his companions are effectively sideline players in this story except for the Doctor impersonating Salamander in the last episode. You could argue had the Doctor not been there then Salamander may not have died, but from Earth's perspective he simply died in the research centre explosion (no worse than Hartnell suggesting the fire of Rome to Nero or the large wooden horse in Troy).

Anyone agree?

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

Actually, yes. This has been said occasionally before, but it's true. The Enemy of the World is very much like a Hartnell historical, especially something like The Crusaders or The Massacre, where the Doctor and his party get caught up in ongoing political events, court intrigue and so on. It often gets flagged up as a Bond/Avengers type story because of the helicopters, hovercraft, underground base and so on, but that's just the trappings.

 

[diankra]

But... to count as a 'historical' all the technology would have to be taken for granted as everyday by the locals. That's true of things like the suborbital shuttles, but Salamander's ability to create earthquakes is treated as a science fiction breakthrough by the other characters.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

Well, that's someone exploiting a new invention. Like the cavemen and fire. Or the Trojans and the wooden horse.

 

[Candlelight]

But... to count as a 'historical' all the technology would have to be taken for granted as everyday by the locals. That's true of things like the suborbital shuttles, but Salamander's ability to create earthquakes is treated as a science fiction breakthrough by the other characters.

That would be like saying World War 2 couldn't be included as a historical setting because of Hiroshima or Nagasaki; the technology is seen as a marvel and yet to the scientists in the United States who made it they could take it for granted.

 

[diankra]

Yeah, but then Inferno is a present day historical... Project Inferno is just a new invention with unexpected consequences.
But if that's not SF, then what is?

Also, I'm not sure the atom bomb comparison works: everyone with a solid knowledge of nuclear physics, allied or axis, knew that it was possible, they just didn't know for sure if they could make it now, or soon enough to be useful to their military backers.

And Andrew... in AUC and Myth Makers,it's the Doctor's lot who introduce the new technology... that keeps it historical.
Enemy of the World is a bit like a version of Marco Polo where we learn that Tegana's boss has invented the flintlock a few centuries early. Which would have been a fun story to see...

 

[Candlelight]

Any story that doesn't have any alien influences other than the Doctor\Tardis should be considered an historical. Inferno technically could be in that category however the parallel earth story disputes that. Plus the Primords are borderline; I can't remember if that green ooze was 'natural' or not.

 

[DWF]

Any story that doesn't have any alien influences other than the Doctor\Tardis should be considered an historical. Inferno technically could be in that category however the parallel earth story disputes that. Plus the Primords are borderline; I can't remember if that green ooze was 'natural' or not.

How could a story set in the future be a historical? By definition or one of the definitions of science fiction it's speculative fiction.

 

[Christopher]

Any story that doesn't have any alien influences other than the Doctor\Tardis should be considered an historical.

That's too broad a definition of "historical." There are plenty of science fiction concepts that aren't about aliens. What about "The War Machines," "Robot," or the Gangers 2-parter from the modern series? Those were about new technologies invented on Earth, but they were definitely science fiction because those technologies don't exist in the present. A historical is a Doctor Who story set in the past with no SF elements beyond the presence of the Doctor and the TARDIS, something where the TARDIS is merely a means to inject the cast into a story that could otherwise constitute pure historical fiction.

 

[diankra]

Passing thought: By that definition, Caves of Androzani is a future historical - aside from the arrival of the Doctor and Peri, everything is a result of then-contemporary politics and technology.

 

[Christopher]

Passing thought: By that definition, Caves of Androzani is a future historical - aside from the arrival of the Doctor and Peri, everything is a result of then-contemporary politics and technology.

Indeed, and that shows just how useless such a broad definition is. You could say the same about almost any Doctor Who story, because if the Earth is menaced by alien invaders, the aliens' actions are based on their own contemporary politics and technology. The existence of those aliens and their arrival on Earth at that time is simply a part of the state of affairs at that moment in time (analogously to, say, the Vikings arriving in Newfoundland in 1000 CE and encountering the Native Americans). By that definition, the only things that wouldn't count as "historicals" are stories where time travellers are the enemy.

 

[diankra]

And flipping it the other way: Androzani is a science fiction story in the purest sense - it's about a society which has been turned upside down by a new development in technology or (as here) medicine (a far comparison in this case would be Wyndham's Trouble with Lichen).

 

[Christopher]

^Right. And there's more to science fiction than just technology. "The Aztecs" is basically a historical, but it has an SF conceptual thread to it, involving Barbara's efforts to alter history and her discovery that it can't be done (at least under the rules that applied back then).

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

I'm not the right person for this argument, because I dont think I've ever argued that Enemy of the World isn't a sci-fi story - just that it follows the pattern of a Hartnell historical but in a futuristic setting. (As indeed does The Caves of Androzani.) That was my point, that it's the spiritual successor of The Crusaders rather than of James Bond.

 

[Christopher]

I'm not the right person for this argument, because I dont think I've ever argued that Enemy of the World isn't a sci-fi story - just that it follows the pattern of a Hartnell historical but in a futuristic setting. (As indeed does The Caves of Androzani.) That was my point, that it's the spiritual successor of The Crusaders rather than of James Bond.

Okay, yeah, I can buy that -- in the sense that it was a political thriller rather than a monster-driven story like most Troughton serials. But it's an analogy that shouldn't be taken too literally or applied too expansively.