If you have a time machine, you’re gonna go to the past at some point. Since the very beginning, Doctor Who has made adventures in Earth’s history one of its staples. Like literally from the beginning. The very first TARDIS trip we see takes the new crew back to caveman times. For a few years, owing to the desire to make the family series educational as well as exciting, the BBC mandated the show’s historical serials take precedent over “googly eyed aliens.”
Even after the show stopped doing “pure” historicals and added science fiction to the mix, adventures in the past have been one of the hallmarks of the Doctor and their myriad of shenanigans. We have a separate piece about the modern series, but in terms of the classic series, here are the best. I’m going to attempt to include at least one from every Doctor, but be aware some Doctors have more than others, and some Doctors may have a few but only one good one…
“The Aztecs” (1964)
This is not the very first historical, but the first truly great one. The TARDIS crew land back in 15th century Mexico. As usual in these early stories, they attempt to blend in to the local society. However, many of the Aztec people suddenly believe forthright history teacher Barbara (Jacqueline Hill) is the embodiment of the god Yataxa. While she at first assures the Doctor she’d never do anything, upon hearing that a human sacrifice is forthcoming, she commands that they stop and quickly tries to enforce 20th century British values of human rights and onto the Aztec people.
This story also has some lighter moments—including the First Doctor accidentally marrying an older Aztec lady—but what makes it wonderful is how, in only the show’s sixth serial, the show contends with all the perils of time traveling and seeing the past as flawed. The Doctor emphatically tells Barbara, “you can’t change history, not one line!” which became a calling card for the series.
“The Romans” (1965)
Effectively, during the First Doctor era, every other story is a historical. A lot of them are, well, pretty boring, or at best enjoyable jaunts through a history book. That is, until, season two’s “The Romans.” It’s the first comedic story in Doctor Who, and moreover, it’s an out-and-out farce. The Doctor and companion Vicki end up in Emperor Nero’s court, the Doctor pretending to be a murdered lyre player. Meanwhile, teachers Ian and Barbara are sold into slavery; Ian an oarsman on a Mediterranean galley and Barbara a handmaiden to Nero’s wife Poppaea Sabina. Throughout the story, they all just barely miss running into each other until the very end, when the Doctor accidentally starts the Great Fire of Rome.
The story mixes real historical events with rampant silliness and even some darkly comedic moments. I love “The Romans” for all of that, but it definitely wasn’t everyone’s favorite in the ’60s. Still, it’s much closer to modern Who sensibilities these days.
“The Time Meddler” (1965)
Later in the same season, the same writer (Dennis Spooner) gave us the very first in what would soon become the norm for stories taking place in Earth’s history: The “pseudo-historical.” These are stories that may have real people from history, real places, real events, but with some sci-fi element added. Here, the Doctor, Vicki, and brand new companion Steven land in Britain in 1066, just as the Vikings were about to attack Harold Godwinson’s Saxon army. Though the Saxons won, it left them too tired and spent to fend off William of Normandy’s invasion at the Battle of Hastings.
Sounds like a pretty normal setup, yes? The Doctor thinks so, until he starts noticing anachronistic items, including gramophone music and power cables. Quickly we learn that a time traveler is about. This man, the Monk, is another member of the Doctor’s race and has his own TARDIS. While the Monk isn’t a villain per se, he does want to annihilate the Vikings with nuclear weapons so that the Saxons can defeat William’s Normans. And as we know, changing history is bad. This story is phenomenal and one of the most important in Whostory.
First Doctor’s Missing Historical Masterpieces
I should note that due to the BBC’s “junking” policy, many stories from the First and Second Doctor’s time are missing all or some of their episodes. While we can listen to them thanks to off-air audio recordings from the time, and some have been animated, many of these historicals remain unviewable. From the First Doctor’s time, several are among the best. “Marco Polo,” half of “The Crusade,” “The Myth-Makers,” and “The Massacre” are all pure-historicals we can no longer see. I recommend listening to the last two especially as they are truly some of the best of the ’60s.
“The Evil of the Daleks” (1967)
By the time of the Second Doctor, the pure historicals were largely gone. The only one of the bunch was “The Highlanders,” which is also missing entirely. There weren’t even that many pseudo-historicals. “The Evil of the Daleks” is really the only one that truly fits the bill. The Doctor and his companion Jamie McCrimmon, after bidding farewell to modern Londoners Ben and Polly, find themselves in 1866 where the Daleks,using their own time traveling tech, demand the Doctor’s help in isolating the “Human Factor” which has made them vulnerable to defeat for so long.
This is arguably in the top three Dalek stories of all time, and it finds the Doctor teaching the Daleks what it means to be human. For a brief moment, it’s joyful, it’s a triumph, the Daleks play and have fun. This didn’t last. Stupid Daleks. The fact that this takes place in the Victorian era is pretty secondary, however.
“The War Games” (1969) (Nice)
Okay …so this one’s an interesting case. It’s the Second Doctor’s final story, and one of my favorites of all-time. It introduces us to Time Lords in earnest and results in the Doctor’s exile to Earth. Now, how is it a historical? The Doctor and friends find themselves in 1917, on the frontlines of World War I. After some bureaucratic nightmares, the pompous British general believes them to be German spies and wants them executed. But this general, it appears, uses some kind of mind controlling technology. Before long, the heroes escape and find themselves looking headlong into an advancing Roman Legion.
The story is actually that a group of aliens from the future, in an effort to learn how to master warfare, have each recreated a specific period in Earth’s history and kidnapped real soldiers from those eras to take part in their endless war games, hence the title. So, while we see WWI, Ancient Rome, the American Civil War, and other wars from history, they’re all not real and are actually on another planet. But it counts in my book.
“The Time Warrior” (1973)
The Third Doctor’s five seasons are essentially their own thing. Set almost entirely on modern day Earth, the stories tended to be a lot more sci-fi James Bond and a lot less time traveling hobo. Once the Doctor started venturing in the TARDIS again, it was pretty much entirely to the future. There are only two instances where the Third Doctor went back in time: One, “The Time Monster,” sucks wad. The other, “The Time Warrior,” is excellent.
The Doctor and investigative reporter Sarah Jane Smith (this is her first story) find themselves back in medieval times where a local warlord named Irongron has teamed up with an explorer from far away…the Sontaran scout Linx. Naturally, just like always, the Doctor needs to stop future tech from messing up the past. We get some lovely banter, some excellent castle-set filming, and the first appearance of a Sontaran. It’s pretty great all around.
“Pyramids of Mars” (1975)
The Fourth Doctor’s second season consisted of many Gothic horror pastiches, and for most, the best of those is “Pyramids of Mars.” The Doctor and Sarah Jane head to 1911, at the height of the Egyptology craze, and some malevolent force seems to be behind some gnarly deaths. It appears like real Egyptian mummies are attacking. Turns out, the gods in the Egyptian pantheon were a race of Martians called the Osirans. Sutekh—the entity that became the Egyptian god Set—is unearthed and threatens to destroy all of Earth.
This isn’t my favorite, but it is a nice mix of plummy English Gothic/Hammer Horror iconography with Doctor Who science fantasy. It does represent Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen at their very best, which goes a long way with me.
“Horror of Fang Rock” (1977)
Unless I am completely missing an obvious one, “Horror of Fang Rock,” which began Tom Baker’s fourth of seven seasons in the lead role, is the very last historical he made. Several stories take place on alien worlds that resemble elements of Earth mythology, and even sort of act like historical Earth stories, but none of them actually do. At any rate, this story also happens to be outstanding and creepy in equal measure.
The Doctor and companion Leela find themselves on a lighthouse in the early-20th Century where someone or something is killing the wickies and the crew and passengers of a yacht which wrecked on the island. The Doctor is at his grumpy best here as he acts as Sherlock for this alien whodunnit. It’s also a semi-sequel to “The Time Warrior,” which is pretty cool in a roundabout way. Excellent stuff, cracking dialogue, superbly chilly atmosphere. It’s one of the Fourth Doctor’s best.
The Fifth Doctor Had No Good Historicals
There were exactly three historical stories during Fifth Doctor Peter Davison’s time on the show, a total of eight 25-minute episodes. I know they probably all have their defenders but I don’t think any are really worth your time unless you’re doing a full watch.
“The Visitation” has the Doctor and company end up in the 1600s where a race of vaguely reptilian aliens try to unleash a plague to take over the planet. The very next story, “Black Orchid,” is for some reason a pure historical, meaning no sci-fi element at all. It has the crew land in 1925 at a posh garden party where there’s a “monster” killing people and a girl who looks inexplicably like Nyssa. It’s only two episodes and is very boring.
The final historical of the era is “The King’s Demons” where the Doctor and crew end up in 1215 in the court of King John where the Master, posing as a Frenchman, tries to use a robotic duplicate named Kameleon to keep King John from signing Magna Carta. Dream bigger, the Master. Dream bigger.
“The Mark of the Rani” (1985)
I think the only story that gets close to being actually good in the Sixth Doctor’s brief tenure is “The Mark of the Rani,” his one and only historical. The Doctor and companion Peri find themselves in a 19th-century mining town where seemingly unmotivated attacks and riots are taking place. Turns out the Master and another renegade Time Lord known as the Rani are behind these. The Rani is an amoral scientist who is experimenting on the locals for her own research, and the Master wants to use the top minds of the Industrial Revolution to speed up Earth technology. Again, dream bigger, the Master.
This story is one of only two to feature the Rani and is by far the better of the two. She’s a fascinating Time Lord villain, not concerned with doing evil, but also not at all interested in the lives she destroys to further her research. The Master is silly in this, but the setting, the Rani, and most of the plot are all great.
“Remembrance of the Daleks” (1988)
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Doctor Who, the Seventh Doctor went back to 1963 with his new companion Ace to foil a Dalek plot which we didn’t know at the time but was cooking offscreen during the show’s pilot. He needs to retrieve the Hand of Omega, a powerful Time Lord device which he needs to keep away from the Daleks at any cost.
It’s very fun that the series had been on long enough at this point that traveling within its existence counts as a historical. But it does! Ace, a modern-era teen, views some of the racial and social norms of the ’60s with disgust, and the story plays with the show’s history as well as the history of the UK. Possibly the best Dalek story since the mid-’70s, it’s also a fine example of using history for a purpose.
“The Curse of Fenric” (1989)
The final historical to air (the penultimate story of the classic era) is one of the Seventh Doctor’s very best. A true epic, it takes him and Ace to WWII where the ancient (we’re talking Lovecraftian) evil entity Fenric is using vampiric future-humans called Haemovores to destroy all life on Earth. The Doctor has to clash with Fenric in a battle of wills and wits that is thoroughly engrossing. It furthers the Seventh Doctor tenure’s penchant for making the Doctor a trickster god from the Before Times who fights against enormous malevolent machinations.
The story—all shot on location—also gives Ace a really nice turn as the Doctor forces her to contend with meeting the infant who will grow up to be the mother she hates. The story has a devastating impact on their friendship…for a hot minute, though the Doctor’s manipulation of Ace is fodder for a lot of the novels that came out post-series.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd.
