World War I Christmas Truce (1914)
2014 marks the centenary of the First World War, which means that this December is the 100th anniversary of the legendary Christmas Truce – the series of unofficial ceasefires that took place between the British and German armies, where tensions decreased so much that the opposing sides crossed No Man’s Land to talk, exchange gifts, sing carols and, famously, play football.
The Christmas Truce is a moment in history where humanity wins out in the most desperate of circumstances – the Doctor’s favourite treat. It might be interesting to have the TARDIS land among the Germans, and due to the translation circuit, Clara wrongly assumes that the tired and friendly young men she’s meeting are British troops. It would hammer home the most important factor of the truce – that at this point in the war to end all wars, these soldiers were just boys being told what to do by their governments, that they were all the same, that the men on each side of the line were not each other’s true enemy.
The Doctor has, according to canon, witnessed plenty of WWI moments, but we haven’t had a reboot-era episode that took place on the Western Front, aside from a fleeting moment in “The Family of Blood.” Wouldn’t this be the ideal setting for this year’s Christmas Special? There’s actually a comic in which the Ninth Doctor is responsible for initializing the fateful football match, and that’s a story that could either be reworked or retconned – it would be more heart-warming, for us and for the Doctor, to see the soldiers truly come to this moment of peace naturally.
The Lost Princess (1918)
The whereabouts of the Grand Duchess Anastasia, the youngest princess of Imperial Russia, has been a source of conspiracy and intrigue for nearly 100 years. In 1917, during the Russian Revolution, the Tsar abdicated and the Romanov family was put under house arrest in exile. A year later, the household was shot in an extrajudicial execution, but for many decades, Anastasia’s body was never recovered, and rumors of her survival abounded.
In the real world, modern forensics have pretty much cracked the case, but this story has such a fairytale notion – a lost princess, imposters and secret identities, innocent victims of circumstance – that it’s hard to accept the sad truth that Anastasia died that day with the rest of her family. We’d love to imagine the teenaged Grand Duchess, who was a sharp, sassy and vivacious girl, as one of those “just this once” people the Doctor can actually change history for – stealing her away in the TARDIS and planting her elsewhere in time to live somewhat normally, or instating her as the ruler of a far-off ice planet.
To tie this into former Who canon, did you know that Queen Victoria was actually Anastasia’s great-grandmother? The Romanov children suffered from the hereditary hemophilia – or, as we learnt in “Tooth and Claw,” werewolfism – that Victoria passed down, and the treatment of this illness was a major part of the Russian royal family’s relationship with the infamous Rasputin, who was, by varying accounts, corrupted and cultish or innocent and holy. Was he a werewolf hunter? Was he a supernatural veterinarian? You decide.
Alan Turing at Bletchley Park (1940s)
World War II is familiar territory for the Doctor Who reboot era – from gas masks and “Are You My Mummy?” to the War Rooms and tea-serving Daleks, but the blue box has yet to touch down at Bletchley Park, Britain’s codebreaking centre. Around 12,000 people were assigned to Bletchley during WWII – 80% of them women, so there’s a whole story about kick-ass lady spies there – but the most famous figure to have worked there was the mathematician Alan Turing.
Turing was already in training as a government codebreaker in 1938, and he reported for duty at Bletchley on the day war was declared, becoming a leading participant in the breaking of German ciphers. He later became the father of artificial intelligence – the Turing Test, which debates the basic question “can machines think?” is a subject that the Doctor (and the TARDIS!) will be sure to have some opinions on. The issues Turing faced less than 10 years after the war – prosecution for homosexuality, chemical castration, death by suicide – are somewhat intense for a family show, but telling Turing’s story while glossing over these cruel aspects does him a great injustice.
“Vincent and the Doctor” proved that reboot Who has the guts to tackle this kind of darkness head-on with respect and delicacy – a Turing episode would be another step forward and an opportunity for some real frustration and anger from Capaldi. We’re picturing the Doctor mouthing off at his difficult old friend Winston Churchill – who was quoted as saying that Turing made the single biggest contribution to Allied victory in the war against Nazi Germany – when Churchill does nothing to prevent Turing’s trial and punishment.
Harold Holt’s Last Swim (1967)
In 1967, Harold Holt, Australia’s currently-serving Prime Minister, went for a swim and never came back. Vanished without a trace. That’s it. That’s the story. Prime Ministers don’t just disappear while in office. What was waiting for him in the ocean? Did he join the lost city of Atlantis? Was he abducted by aliens? Was he, in fact, an alien himself – did he just, to paraphrase Men In Black, go home? Was he a mermaid? Who knows? Australia sure doesn’t – all they did was name a swimming pool after him in commemoration. (Yes, a swimming pool. The irony.)
Doctor Who actually suffers from a lack of historical episodes set in the recent past, and Australia in the 1960s was a time of massive social upheaval for the southern outpost of the British Commonwealth, full of anti-Vietnam war protesters, women’s rights, pop music fads, deliciously seedy nightlife and multiculturalism. The Doctor could also swing by Brisbane and catch a glimpse of his old companion Tegan, years before their paths will cross in her timeline.
Plus, we know that Peter Jackson is keen to direct an episode of Doctor Who, and while we’re not trying to imply that Australia and New Zealand are one and the same, it wouldn’t be hard for him to just pop across the Tasman and direct some on-location stuff, right? Andy Serkis for the Monster of the Week, and the Twelfth Doctor disgusted by a Vegemite sandwich.
So you’ve heard ours – what’s your dream historical Doctor Who episode?
Doctor Who returns with “Deep Breath” on August 23, 8pm ET/PT on BBC America.
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