Doctor Who: When the Past Did Not Have Alien Threats

Remember the good old days of Doctor Who, when the Doctor could travel back into the Earth’s history without encountering some diabolical alien scheme? Apparently, neither do the writers of the show.

Let us hijack the TARDIS and take a trip back through time to the early days of Doctor Who. In those days, the Doctor and his companions would occasionally find themselves back in the Earth’s past, interacting with cavemen or Aztecs or other assorted long-lost races. Given the initial idea that Doctor Who would have an educational element, it made sense that the Doctor and his companions would end up back in these different times, even if it was unintentional.

While the Doctor still travels back in time to various points in the Earth’s history, it is not the same. With the First and Second Doctors, these excursions showed what life was like back then, with the adventures based around their interactions with these beings. Now, it seems that virtually every time the Doctor travels back in time, there is some sort of alien menace that could disrupt the very fabric of the past, present and future of Earth.

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It is easy to understand why the more action packed treks to the past, where the Earth is in danger from whatever species, would tend to occur. It is certainly more interesting to have events such as the eruption of Mount Vesuvius be the result of alien intrigue as opposed to a natural event. And it is certainly more interesting to save an ancient being from an alien race than it is to watch the Doctor interact with them.

At least, that is how conventional wisdom would think. With the idea that the modern audience needs fast paced action and constant strife to remain interested in what is happening, those calmer episodes of interaction between the Doctor and his companions and those beings from the past just would not be interesting.

Yet, as we saw in Series Nine, there is still plenty of room in the new Doctor Who for elements from classic tales. The two part format allowed for greater character development, even among minor characters that would have been overlooked in previous seasons. Perhaps, given that the slower paced episodes worked last year, we can see future episodes where the Doctor travels into the past, and his adventure involves the different cultures, as opposed to those past entities being threatened by some cosmic menace.

Next: Doctor Who: All in the Family

The past always has a way of reappearing on Doctor Who. It could be that the episode styles of the past, where any interactions with the lost and forgotten civilizations of Earth are more peaceful and without an alien threat, will return as well.

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