Doctor Who does history lessons better than any other show.
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00:00 From sexy fish vampires to flesh-eating shadows, there is no denying that the Doctor has encountered
00:06 some truly incredible creatures in Doctor Who. And while it is always exciting to see which new
00:12 creature will be appearing each week, it's equally just as exciting and also very moving when we see
00:17 the Doctor and particularly the companions encounter real-life historical figures.
00:22 Well, with that in mind then, I'm Ellie with WhoCulture, here with the 10 best historical
00:27 figures who have appeared in New Who. Number 10, Madame de Pompadour. Now,
00:33 series 2's The Girl in the Fireplace is a perfect example of the Doctor accidentally
00:38 stumbling into history when he somehow manages to place himself into the life of a young Renette
00:43 Poisson. Now, it is really entertaining when you see the Doctor suddenly discover that he's just
00:48 encountered someone significant and of course this episode adds that extra layer of comedy
00:52 by him only realising that after he's just snogged her. Although there is no written rule,
00:57 it is a common known law in the Doctor Who universe that history is not to be tampered with
01:04 and accidentally becoming the love obsession of the future mistress to the King of France just
01:08 seems a little bit risky on the course of history. His unintentional intrusion actually eliminates a
01:14 far greater threat on the timeline of Madame de Pompadour and it means that the Doctor can do
01:19 what he does best which is stop the baddies from destroying history. Now, Doctor Who has a really
01:24 clever way of being both entertaining but also educational and those windows into the different
01:30 stages of Madame de Pompadour's life mean that this episode not only calls for an epic shot of
01:35 the Doctor smashing through a mirror on horseback, but it also offers an almost accurate biography
01:41 on Madame de Pompadour's life. Number 9, William Shakespeare.
01:46 Even when the Doctor just simply intends to impress his new companion with a quick trip to
01:51 the past, he somehow manages to sniff out trouble. While meeting Shakespeare wasn't a complete
01:56 accident, fighting off the Carianites definitely wasn't part of the original plan. Now what's
02:00 really interesting about this episode is that the Doctor and Martha use their knowledge of history
02:05 to figure out that something's not right. The works of Shakespeare are famous throughout the
02:09 world, throughout history, so when there's a random play that doesn't exist in the future,
02:13 that obviously raises some questions. Also interesting about this episode is the subtle
02:17 touches upon a long-standing myth that Shakespeare was actually bisexual. Now,
02:22 they explore this through his attitudes towards both Martha and the Doctor and even the Doctor
02:29 remarks that 57 academics just punched the air in response to his flirtatious remarks towards him.
02:35 It is sometimes easy to forget that this is simply a fictional answer to a real life mystery and yet
02:40 somehow you still feel like you're satisfied regardless. As it so happens, Shakespeare isn't
02:46 the only historical figure to appear in this episode, but we'll get to that one later.
02:50 Number 8, Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens was the first historical figure to appear
02:56 in the 2005 reboot. We'd already seen the Doctor and Rose travel literally to the end of the world,
03:01 but this was the first time that Christopher Eccleston's ninth Doctor ventured into the past.
03:07 Now, like the Shakespeare Code had a fitting theme for its titular playwright,
03:11 The Unquiet Dead aptly followed the most appropriate Dickens theme of ghosts. But
03:17 while we're still on the subject of Shakespeare, one of the clever adjustments that Mark Gatiss
03:22 made to the script here is taking the common phrase of "what the Dickens" but having Charles
03:27 Dickens himself say "what the Shakespeare" and it's just simple changes like this that make these
03:32 characters seem so much more realistic, even though there are ghosts and zombies and a possessed maid.
03:37 But it is Doctor Who, so you have to have a little bit of leeway.
03:40 Charles Dickens did then reappear in The Wedding of Rivers Song, but this time his purpose was to
03:45 highlight the displacement of time, having Charles Dickens sat on BBC News talking about his new book
03:51 about ghosts and Christmas and the past and the present and the future. But the story of A
03:56 Christmas Carol is so appropriate and fitting for that episode, which is essentially the Doctor and
04:02 River getting their glimpse at Christmas future if they didn't fix the paradox, showing them
04:07 what could happen if they didn't change things.
04:10 Number 7, Nikola Tesla. Nikola Tesla appeared in the series 12 episode Nikola Tesla's Night of
04:16 Terror, and this episode really put a focus on how the success and significance of these historical
04:22 figures could attract the attention of other alien races throughout time and space. Now in this
04:28 instance it was the Queen of Scythra who had sought out the engineering genius of Nikola Tesla
04:33 to help fix her ship. But probably more significant in this episode is the exploration of the rivalry
04:40 between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison and the reality of his legacy. Now obviously the real
04:47 Nikola Tesla didn't fight aliens, but he did dedicate his life to a vision that was never truly
04:53 realized or appreciated in his lifetime. And the hope and optimism that's portrayed by actor Goran
04:59 Viznic, I think that's how you say his name, it's a very hard name to say, but the hope and optimism
05:05 that he portrays just makes it so much more heartbreaking when we as an audience know that
05:10 he never got the recognition that he deserved. And actually this is emulated in Yaz's disappointment
05:16 that his heroic efforts within this episode had no positive impact on his future. And this man
05:23 fundamentally changed the way we live and yet never knew how successful he actually was in his
05:30 endeavors. Now also the casting here of Goran Viznic was absolutely perfect because Nikola Tesla,
05:36 who although Serbian by blood, was actually born and raised in what would become Croatia,
05:42 which is where Goran Viznic is also from. And it's just little attentions to detail like this
05:48 that just show how much research and effort went into telling this historical story.
05:54 Number six, Winston Churchill. When Winston Churchill made his on-screen debut in series
05:59 five's "Victory of the Daleks", he seemed to already have an established acquaintance and
06:04 friendship with the Doctor. Now while this was the first time we'd seen it on screen, there are
06:08 several publications documenting encounters between the pair dating back to 1986. Now because
06:14 of this pre-existing relationship, it meant that this episode could explore a completely different
06:19 dynamic between the Doctor and a historical figure. Rather than being fearful or showing disbelief,
06:26 Winston Churchill kind of had the confidence here to utilize his friend and try and gain the upper
06:31 hand, use his foreknowledge of the future and history to try and win the Second World War
06:36 faster. Now of course the Doctor maintains that there are certain points in history that have to
06:41 be fixed and cannot be interfered with. Apparently the Daleks didn't get that memo.
06:47 Winston Churchill appeared a few more times throughout series five and six, first to just
06:51 emphasize the vast number of people who are connected to and rely on the Doctor in the
06:56 Pandorica Opens, and then again alongside Charles Dickens in the Wedding of River Song to just
07:01 highlight that topsy-turvy displacement of time. Now the inclusion of Winston Churchill here and
07:07 Hitler in Let's Kill Hitler managed to educate the targeted younger audience on those significant
07:13 figures during World War II without branching into anything more sinister or unsuitable for
07:19 the younger audience, just highlighting that there is a history lesson here but it's also for children
07:24 and entertaining at the same time. Number five, Queen Victoria. Tooth and Claw is an episode that
07:31 really upped the fear factor of Doctor Who. You have the ninja monks, the lycanthropic possession
07:37 and of course the alien werewolf. And Queen Victoria's presence only really adds to that
07:41 serious tone of the episode. Unlike most people who encounter the Doctor, she really doesn't
07:46 appreciate his daredevil energy and she really doesn't appreciate Rose's immature attempts to
07:51 get her to say "we are not amused". Now while she does honour them for saving her life, she's also
07:56 very eager to eliminate this threat on her empire. So much so that the events of this episode actually
08:03 result in Queen Victoria establishing the Torchwood Institute to protect the Earth not only from
08:09 aliens but also primarily from the Doctor himself. Now this episode is also a really good example of
08:15 the Doctor Who creatives giving a supernatural explanation for a real-life mystery. And in this
08:22 instance it's the suggestion that Prince Albert's obsession with having the Koh-i-Noor diamond recut
08:27 and resized is because he knew of the existence of this werewolf and was going to use the diamond
08:34 as a tool to destroy it. It also offers a rather ambiguous question surrounding the real-life blood
08:42 condition that Queen Victoria suffered from, suggesting that it was actually the result of
08:46 being bitten by a werewolf, with the Doctor saying that this unexplained haemophilia diagnosis was
08:53 actually just a Victorian euphemism for lycanthropic mutation. Number 4 - Rosa Parks.
08:59 Series 11's episode "Rosa" explored a different side to the Doctor's moral compass. Of course it
09:06 didn't come without its hardship and heartbreak but it really was a poignant predicament to
09:11 portray. So often we see the Doctor helping historical figures to overcome obstacles or
09:16 alien anomalies in their timeline but in this instance the obstacle was 100% human and yet
09:23 integral to the progression of humanity. What started as simply an effort to stop the time
09:30 travelling criminal Crasco from preventing the Montgomery bus boycott led to the Doctor, Yaz,
09:35 Ryan and Graham becoming vital parts in Rosa Parks' story. And that moment where they are
09:42 forced to stay seated on the bus in order to ensure that Rosa Parks gets arrested is one of
09:48 those rare occasions where the Doctor has to allow or even cause something awful to happen
09:54 in order to maintain the future. Now of course we have seen other moments of moral questioning
09:59 in Doctor Who in episodes such as "The Fires of Pompeii" and "The Waters of Mars", moments where
10:05 the Doctor really must adhere to those laws of a fixed point in time and use that as their
10:10 justification for not helping. Number 3 - Agatha Christie
10:14 The Unicorn and the Wasp is another example of the Doctor Who creatives offering a timey-wimey
10:20 explanation for a real life historical mystery. And in this instance it offers an explanation
10:26 to the 10 day disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1926. The episode plays out in the style of
10:32 an Agatha Christie murder mystery which subsequently turns out to be more than just a
10:36 coincidence. Lady Edison, a big fan of Agatha Christie's novels, had unknowingly filled the
10:42 mind of her long lost son with the notion of murder mysteries through a necklace which linked
10:47 the pair telepathically. The power of Agatha Christie's writings was so strong that they
10:52 became embedded within the psyche of this newly transformed Vesperform alongside his true identity
10:59 and resulted in his fictional misconception of the world. Agatha determines that the only way
11:03 to stop the giant wasp-like creature from killing people was to lure it away and drown it by
11:08 throwing the telepathic necklace into Silent Pool Lake. But her own connection to the jewel and the
11:14 Vesperform resulted in her losing consciousness and being taken to a hotel by the Doctor and
11:19 Donna, waking up 10 days later with total amnesia about the events. Now of course the real explanation
11:25 as to the amnesia and the disappearance is still a mystery but we have here an example of Doctor
11:31 Who creatives going "you know what, I'm going to put my own supernatural spin on this story".
11:36 Number 2 - Elizabeth I. When Elizabeth I entered the Globe Theatre in the Shakespeare Code,
11:42 she was not only aware of who the Doctor was, but she seemed to be extremely agitated by his presence.
11:49 Now at the time, both the Doctor and the audience were very confused about why she hated him so much.
11:55 And in the subsequent series between then and 2013's The Day of the Doctor, there were several
12:00 hints made that the Doctor was actually married to Elizabeth I. He boasts about his nuptials to
12:06 Ood Sigma in The End of Time, Liz 10 teases him about his less than virtuous activities with the
12:11 so-called Virgin Queen in The Beast Below, and he mentions in the wedding of River Song that
12:16 Elizabeth I is still waiting on a glade to elope with him. Now the events of The Day of the Doctor
12:21 would eventually confirm these boastful remarks to be the truth. The proposal was supposed to just
12:27 unveil a Zygon, but he unintentionally became the fiancé to Elizabeth I, and he did fulfil his
12:33 promise in a private ceremony witnessed by the 11th Doctor, the War Doctor and Clara Oswald as well.
12:39 He then promised that he would be right back. Judging by her animosity towards him almost 40
12:45 years later, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say he did not come right back.
12:50 Number 1 - Vincent van Gogh
12:51 Vincent and the Doctor is equally one of the most heart-breaking and heart-warming episodes of the
12:58 Matt Smith era. Unlike most encounters with historical figures, the Doctor purposely sought
13:03 out Vincent rather than just stumbling across him. Similarly to sensing trouble when Shakespeare
13:09 mentions a play that doesn't exist in the future, the Doctor and Amy notice a suspicious creature
13:14 lurking in the background of one of his paintings that shouldn't be there. The exploration of
13:19 Vincent's depression in this episode is particularly beautiful. Rather than suggest that the
13:24 Crephaeus creature is the cause of Vincent's troubled life, it instead suggests that his
13:30 alternative views on life are what give him the power to see things that others can't.
13:35 The whole premise of the storyline is just this beautiful metaphor for the inner demons of
13:42 depression and how they very much do exist, despite the fact that they appear invisible or non-existent
13:48 to the naked eye. It even goes as far as to explore how people trying to help can make the
13:53 day that much better, but can also make it much worse. And this is one of those very rare occasions
13:59 where the Doctor actually breaks his own rules and shows Vincent his future legacy. That moment
14:04 where Bill Nighy is delivering his beautiful monologue about the importance of van Gogh's work,
14:10 and Vincent himself is standing there becoming completely overwhelmed by what he's hearing and
14:15 what he's seeing, is arguably one of the most beautiful and greatest scenes in Doctor Who.
14:22 And that concludes our list. Obviously we couldn't cover every historical figure that has appeared
14:28 in Doctor Who since 2005, but if you think we've missed one that's really important,
14:32 then do let us know in the comments below. And while you're there, don't forget to like and
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14:42 @whoculture and Instagram as well. And I can be found across various social medias just by
14:47 searching Ellie Littlechild. I've been Ellie with Who Culture, and in the words of River Song herself,
14:52 goodbye, sweeties.