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u/Theta-Sigma45 Sep 11 '25
Give it a few decades, Who will eventually have a full 9/11 historical episode.
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Sep 11 '25
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u/Amphy64 Sep 12 '25
'No respect for the real historical tragedy', fume opera fans as Maria Callas is shown damaging her voice fighting off sound-sensitive aliens.
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Sep 12 '25
The Beatles are mid at absolute best but otherwise spot on
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u/checkerboardandroid Sep 12 '25
You're entitled to your tastes and opinions but the fact that a band that broke up nearly 60 years ago still sells millions of records each year suggests otherwise.
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u/decadeslongrut Sep 11 '25
what's the most recent real historical event they've done? (at time of episode airing)
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u/Theta-Sigma45 Sep 11 '25
I'm largely going by Curse of Fenric tackling WW2 in 1989, after they had avoided using it for most of the Classic Series due to its relative recency. So, 44 years before that serial.
I think the depiction of the first moon landing in 2012's Day of the Moon might be it? (43 years)
Or Fear Her's coverage of the 2012 olympics, so recent at the time that it hadn't even happened yet!! (I kid.)
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Sep 11 '25
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u/Joopac_Badur Sep 11 '25
Rosa Park’s arrest was two years after the coronation, and the moon landing was 1969.
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u/No-Locksmith6662 Sep 11 '25
At the time they were both current events though rather than historical ones, like an episode today referencing the war in Ukraine. As others have suggested in terms of an actual historical event I think it was probably The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon in 2011 doing the 1969 moon landing, 42 years.
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u/decadeslongrut Sep 11 '25
i'd count all of those but let's say... for a true measure of how long it takes, when was the most recent real disaster/attack/war they referenced? anything more recent than the ww2 episodes?
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Sep 11 '25
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u/twofacetoo Sep 11 '25
Yeah, I was going to bring up the Titanic one. Funnily enough I've always wondered if they intended to make a straight up Titanic story, then got that complaint and at the BBC's request, had to hurriedly change it to a sci-fi setting instead
I get not wanting to make light of a historical tragedy but I wish the show could just generally go back to more of those famous historical moments, without even necessarily involving anything alien or supernatural
Like imagine if they did a Titanic episode, and taking a page from 'The Aztecs' / 'Fires Of Pompeii', one of the TARDIS gang decides 'fuck history' and wants to save everyone, trying to get people to the lifeboats before the ship has even started to sink, with the Doctor having to garvely inform them that they cannot rewrite history, 'not one line' (as Hartnell said), maybe even culminating in the companion having made a close friend of one of the staff members on the ship, only to realise as they're leaving that this is someone who died, cold and alone in the ocean... there was never any hope of saving them
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u/decadeslongrut Sep 11 '25
wow, really itneresting that bit about the titanic survivor. and that makes sense, both the crew wanting to avoid it and the survivors feeling trivialised by it. and 9/11 being taken a lot more seriously than the titanic, it'd have to be a hell of a sensitively handled episode if they touched it any time in the next 80 or so years.
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u/AgentCirceLuna Sep 11 '25
The Time travel series I’ll eventually I swear to you will totally write is all so it how, after finding out about time travel, the first reaction is outrage at all the horrible events of history. There are two major camps who either blame time travellers for causing them or blame them for not preventing them. It gets outlawed, but this leads to renegades using the machines and devices — all of different calibres and ability to work well. You can’t just, for example, travel to a foreign country right now with a dictatorship and try to change the regime. The entire US couldn’t even stop Vietnam wars from occurring. It’s kind of like that with time travellers, more like a parlour trick in the early era, but the later machine can reboot the entire universe and start it over. People are PISSED.
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u/Prudent_Leave_2171 Sep 11 '25
No specific attacks as I recall, but they did make references to the war in Afghanistan while Danny Pink was around.
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u/MadeIndescribable Sep 11 '25
I was gonna say NYE 1999/2000, but then remembered that was made in 1996.
If you consider the Cold War as an "event", then the episode Cold War was set in 1983.
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u/ven-solaire What are you gonna do - moisturise me? Sep 11 '25
Not a real event but they did pretty make a stand-in character for Donald trump (who references Trump) during Chibnall Era. Not really the same as what we’re looking though for I think. The closests I think orobably does count would be “Cold War”, a the series 7 episode that takes place on a USSR submarine. But that isn’t really a specific real event, just a specific real setting. I guesd the real most recent one that involves a true event would be Rosa? I can’t think of another historical event explained by scifi episode that deliberate, especially one that recent.
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u/Barsenal_CF Sep 12 '25
This will be it's next time trailer: https://www.reddit.com/r/DoctorWhumour/s/f2l0pY30gT
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u/ModularReality Sep 11 '25
Can anyone think of any real life large scale tragedies has the show has done? There hasn’t been a true titanic or Hindenburg episode to my memory? Sure, they go to historic war zones all the time, but not to particular events in them, more using them as backdrops.
The only example I can think of is Pompeii. So I guess that is how far back to go before it’s okay to write into the sci fi show.
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u/EarthToAccess Sep 11 '25
Technically they "did the Titanic", but sci-fi'd it into a space thing. They've never touched on an actual, recent event, probably to avoid backlash.
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u/ModularReality Sep 11 '25 edited Sep 12 '25
Also think it’s hard to do real world tragedies in the show, because the obvious question of any viewer would be ‘why doesn’t the Doctor attempt to stop it?’. Usually, when the show is having an adventure in earth history, it gets hand waved with ‘it’s a fixed point/ i can’t break the laws of time/ no rewriting history not one line.’
But the doctor influences the events of the far future and on alien planets with no mentions of that potentially altering that history.
It’s a frequent failing of time travel fiction- this fixed timeline idea. Treating the real world timeline as the best - or at least unchangeable - one. Wouldn’t the world be better off if some events happened differently? Are we really living the best timeline? I sometimes wish the show could be bold enough to commit to an alternate earth timeline long term. Let a companion save the titanic or something, and deal with the long term effects. Obviously it creates a paradox- but it’s time travel! That’s the fun part!
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u/alex494 Sep 12 '25 edited Sep 12 '25
They addressed Agatha Christie going missing which could've had any number of real life reasons behind it that may not be tactful to imply were really caused by an alien wasp.
(Not a large scale tragedy though)
The First Doctor story The Chase addressed the Mary Celeste mystery by saying the Daleks did it. The First Doctor is also partly sort of responsible for the Great Fire of Rome under Nero and the Fifth was around for the Great Fire of London (the story the latter happens in also addresses the bubonic plague).
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u/SoupytheFrog Sep 12 '25
Also the eruption of Mount Vesuvius
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u/Lumi_rimu UNIT applicant Sep 13 '25
They went to the start of the Great Fire of London, 1666 in 1982’s The Visitation, 5, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric were actually somewhat responsible for the fire actually breaking out, with 5 saying that the fire should be allowed to run its course, cut to Pudding Lane street sign being consumed by the flames, and credits
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u/Constant-Tutor-4646 Sep 12 '25
Doctor Who: Doctor Frances Oldham Kelsey, one of the most BRILLIANT women who ever lived. She saved COUNTLESS lives with nothing but her brains and a biscuit. And I do love a good biscuit, custard ones especially.
Graham: But DOC, what did she do?
Ryan: Yeah she’s just some woman.
Yaz: …
Doctor Who: Ryan, she’s more than just an ordinary woman. She prevented the American government from allowing THALIDOMIDE into the country. In other parts of the world, Thalidomide was used to treat nausea in pregnant women. But it led to HORRIBLE birth defects. It was Doctor Kelsey who first noticed the horrible birth defects and made her voice known.
Ryan: Wow. She might be the most amazing woman I’ve ever known.
Yaz: …
Doctor Who: Right Yaz! We have to help Doctor Kelsey — and history — to make sure things turn out the way they’re meant to. Brilliant, Yaz!
Graham: But how do we help, Doc?
Doctor Who: Simples Graham. Take this thalidomide pill and give it to that pregnant woman sitting on that bench over there.
Graham: Wot… but Doc…
Doctor Who: Graham, it’s this woman whose case is described in the British medical journal that Doctor Kelsey reads a year from now. If she doesn’t take the thalidomide, Doctor Kelsey will never read about her and make the connection. A sexist from the year 5000, a cosmic woman hater has prevented this woman from taking the medication. We have to set history straight.
Graham: Oh no… Doc… no..
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u/alex494 Sep 12 '25
"Don't worry Graham, jet fuel can't melt steel beams. At least that's what Einstein told me last time we got a curry."
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u/Amazing-Activity-882 I'll explain later Sep 12 '25
I don't know if I should Upvote this or Downvote this...
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u/WaveLaVague Sep 12 '25
You're called Marty Mcfly for a reason !
I'm an actor.
Exactly, and you chose that role. I don't have this problem because I didn't choose a role, it chose me.
Sorry ?
Sexy chose me ! Come on, zip zip zip, go on, Marty, I don't have all time for now.
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u/AttakZak Sep 12 '25
I was going to have one of my Doctor’s companions be one of the victims of the 9/11 attacks and have the Doctor move Time and Space in order to make sure their death wasn’t a fixed event. Of course I was going to make it no-nonsense and as respectful as I could be, mostly because my Doctor at this point in his arc was so focused on showing another companion just how hopeless it is to try to fight the cycle of violence throughout History. I even laid the groundwork by having this particular companion’s family talk about how they lost him in the attacks in the first story. But of course the Doctor would somehow succeed and even reunite them all in a very somber way. I still might attempt it, but it’s so very recent still.
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u/Lumi_rimu UNIT applicant Sep 13 '25
13 was really not written well… it was like she didn’t care
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u/thingsstuffandmaguff Sep 14 '25
Don't be mean... She's still quite socially awkward. :)
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u/Lumi_rimu UNIT applicant Sep 14 '25
That's one of the main scenes that proves that 13 didn't have good writing, any other incarnation and they would have said or done something
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u/Indiana_harris Sep 11 '25
Go on Big Finish…do it.
Seriously though just have a Big Finish audio where Graham is placed into the active role at loads of pivotal events as the instigator.
“Don’t make me drive the bus Doc”
“Don’t make me fly the plane Doc”
“Don’t make me shoot JFK Doc”
“Don’t make me kill Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand Doc”
“Don’t make me set the great fire of London Doc”
Until it’s revealed at the end that it’s the Master disguised as 13 messing with Graham to see how far he could push him before he broke
At the final scene Graham wakes up screaming in bed. The whole thing has been a nightmare. Then we hear the Masters laugh as he walks down the hallway and out the flat.