Many of Doctor Who's futures are lightyears away, but some are already in the distant past...
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00:00When Doctor Who started in the 1960s, dates like 1986 and 2020 felt impossibly far away.
00:07Surely Doctor Who wouldn't be on TV by then? And yet, the longer the show goes on,
00:11the more it risks crashing into its wild predictions for the future. And in case anyone's
00:16wondering, the next crossover point will be 2049, when the moon is revealed to be an egg.
00:20So make sure to put that date in your diary. Until then, many of Doctor Who's distant futures
00:24are now far behind us. I'm Ellie for Who Culture, here with 10 Doctor Who futures that are now
00:29in the past. Number 10, The Chase, 1966. Terry Nation's outright Dalek comedy The Chase takes
00:36place across all of time and space. One particular interlude in the Daleks' pursuit of the First
00:41Doctor and his companions is a trip to the observation deck atop the Empire State Building
00:46in New York. This took place on an undisclosed date in 1966, placing it at least a year after
00:52the actual broadcast of the episode. As far as historical records can tell, the Daleks never
00:57did visit the Empire State Building, so this prediction never came true in our own version
01:01of 1966. The closest the Daleks got to America was when the 1965 Peter Cushing movie, Doctor
01:07Who and the Daleks, premiered in the US in July 1966, to a less than enthusiastic commercial
01:13response. I tell you what, the producers missed a trick by not promoting the movie on top of
01:17the Empire State Building. Other notable Dalek events from 1966 included the broadcast of the
01:23Daleks' master plan, and a group of Daleks arriving at the Blue Peter studio to review
01:27cakes. Oh, Great Scarrow Bake Off, anyone? I'd watch that. Number 9, The Underwater Menace,
01:331970-ish. The exact date of The Underwater Menace is never made explicit, but Polly dates events
01:39to roughly 1970. That's because she finds a discarded 1968 Mexico Olympics bracelet. This effectively
01:46means that Doctor Who is predicting that a Professor Zaroff type will discover Atlantis in the years
01:51following The Underwater Menace's 1967 broadcast. While it seems like a wild prediction, it's clear
01:56that the writer, Geoffrey Orme, had read about the prophecies of American clairvoyant Edgar Case. In the
02:021930s, Case stated that, and I quote,
02:05"...a portion of the temples may yet be discovered under the slime of ages and seawater near Bimini."
02:10Expect it in 68 or 69. Well, perhaps Geoffrey had come across Case's prediction and turned it into
02:16the first of Doctor Who's many forays into the mythical lost city of Atlantis. However,
02:21the predictions didn't come true, and a mad scientist didn't use Atlantis to destroy the
02:25Earth in 1970. And yet, in 1968, a group of divers discovered Bimini Road, just off the coast of the
02:31North Bimini Island in the Bahamas. The mysterious rock formation was described by the divers as a,
02:36quote, pavement, and some believe it may be the road to Atlantis.
02:41Ooh.
02:42Number 8. The Tenth Planet, 1986.
02:46In the 1966 serial The Tenth Planet, Doctor Who confidently predicted that in 1986 we would
02:52discover a tenth planet in our solar system. In the real 1986, the Voyager space probe had only
02:58made it to Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun. The progress of human space exploration hadn't
03:03been nearly as quick as writers Kit Peddler and Jerry Davis predicted. William Hartnell's final
03:08Doctor Who serial also predicted that at the height of the space race, humanity would have abandoned
03:12national borders to embrace an international approach to space exploration. Well, sadly,
03:17this wasn't true either, and the Chernobyl disaster and ensuing Soviet cover-up was a particularly
03:21bleak example of the lack of trust between nations in 1986. The only saving grace of the Tenth Planet's
03:27vision of the future is that 1986 didn't see a race of cybernetically augmented humanoids and a
03:33Z-bomb nearly destroy the Earth. Silver linings.
03:35Number 7. The Chase, 1996.
03:3830 years after the Daleks landed on top of the Empire State Building, they rocked up at the
03:43Frankenstein's House of Horrors attraction at the 1996 Festival of Ghana. Haunted House attractions
03:48were much more technologically advanced in Doctor Who's version of 1996. The robotic Dracula and
03:54Frankenstein were so convincing that the first Doctor believed the TARDIS and the Daleks had
03:58somehow managed to materialise inside the dark recesses of the human mind. Perhaps the convincing
04:03nature of the horrifying monsters was why the attraction and the festival was apparently cancelled
04:08by Peking. Though quite what the People's Republic of China would have to do with a festival in a West
04:13African nation is anyone's guess. In that same year and a thousand miles away, the Eleventh Doctor
04:18crash-landed in the Garden of Amelia Pond at the start of the 2010 episode The Eleventh Hour. And now get
04:23ready to have your mind blown, because where 1996 was 30 years in the future for William Hartnell,
04:29it was already 14 years in the past for Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. Mind blown.
04:35Number 6. Battlefield, 1997.
04:38Set eight years after broadcast, Battlefield is a more accurate depiction of 1997 than the
04:44Underwater Menace's wild depiction of three years into the future. There are still good old-fashioned
04:48English country pubs, even if the price of a pint has gone up considerably. The Gore Crow Hotel,
04:53has its own microbrewery, a good decade before every Johnny-come-lately-craft-beer pub. Geopolitically,
05:00Battlefield reveals that things are still tense around the world as the battle between Morgaine
05:04and King Arthur becomes a metaphor for the futility of nuclear war. While nuclear holocaust wasn't as
05:09pressing an issue as it was during the Cold War, concerns about dangerous materials being ferried
05:14about places like Battlefield's fictional village were still on people's minds in 1997. So the only
05:19glaring difference from the real 1997, £5 for a water and a lemonade aside, is the fact that a group
05:25of Arthurian knights caused merry hell in an English village, nearly triggering a nuclear apocalypse.
05:31Far for the cause when it comes to Doctor Who, really.
05:33Number 5. The TV Movie, 1999-2000.
05:37At the turn of the millennium, the Master almost turned the universe inside out during his battle
05:42with the Eighth Doctor. With the Eye of Harmony open, the very fabric of reality became malleable,
05:47which would have only made the first hangover of 2000 even more painful.
05:51Thankfully, predictions of widespread devastation at midnight on the 1st of January 2000 never came
05:56to pass. We came close thanks to the millennium bug, but like the Master's plot with the Eye
06:00of Harmony, its effects were rolled back and caused minor disruptions. Airing in 1996,
06:06the Doctor Who TV Movie wasn't the only bit of science fiction to predict the end of life as we
06:10knew it as we inched closer to the year 2000, so it needn't feel bad for getting it wrong.
06:15Interestingly, Torchwood would later reveal that Captain Jack's predecessor killed himself
06:20and his team at the turn of the century, because he feared what was coming.
06:24The TV Movie did make one accurate prediction for the future, though. The Doctor would be
06:28doing a lot more kissing from the year 2000 onward. The Tenth Doctor certainly made good
06:32on that promise when he arrived in 2005.
06:34Number 4. Aliens of London, 2006.
06:38From the moment the Ninth Doctor accidentally drops off Rose 12 months later in the 2005 episode
06:43Aliens of London, the RTD era of Doctor Who takes place in the very near future.
06:48From the death of the Prime Minister to the rise and fall of Harriet Jones to the election
06:52of Harold Saxon, the big moments from RTD's Doctor Who lore took place roughly a year ahead
06:57of our own reality. Hilariously, the political unrest during this period of Doctor Who does
07:02bear comparison with parallel events in UK politics. After replacing the murdered Prime Minister
07:06at some point after Aliens of London and World War 3 in 2006, Harriet Jones is then ousted
07:12by the Tenth Doctor's whispered message,
07:14Don't you think she looks tired?
07:16In the real world, Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair in 2007 after a similar scandal involving
07:21what the Slothene refer to as massive weapons of destruction. Both Harriet Jones and Gordon Brown
07:27were then replaced by villainous politicians who ruined Britain's reputation on the world stage.
07:32So something else to add to Doctor Who's list of accurate predictions, I guess?
07:35Number 3. Dalek and Fear Her, 2012
07:38Utah, 2012. A narcissistic billionaire and powerful figure in the United States of America
07:43keeps a Dalek in his basement. After his recklessness almost causes global destruction at the hands
07:48of said Dalek, he's ousted from his position and will never ever again interfere in American
07:53politics. Written by Robert Sherman and set in 2012, 2005's Dalek seems utterly prophetic,
07:59albeit four years early and with a much happier ending for the American people. Across the Pond in 2012,
08:04as depicted in the 2006 episode Fear Her, the UK was preparing to host the Olympics,
08:10but disaster struck at the hands of some magic crayons. The opening ceremony was disrupted by
08:14the disappearance of the collected guests and athletes, who were captured inside a drawing.
08:19The day was saved, the attendees returned, and the Tenth Doctor heroically took up the Olympic
08:23torch and marked the start of the competition. Magic crayons aside, the Doctor did carry the Olympic
08:28torch in the real world 2012, but it was the eleventh incarnation and not the tenth, as David Tennant
08:34had regenerated a few years earlier. Number 2. The Enemy of the World, 2018
08:39The year 2018 must have seemed impossibly futuristic to David Whittaker when he was writing
08:44The Enemy of the World in 1967. Although the easy access to hovercrafts and the devastating
08:49volcanic eruptions in Central Europe never came to pass, there's still something quite prescient
08:54about Whittaker's view of 2018. At its heart, The Enemy of the World is Doctor Who doing a James
08:59Bond movie, with a charismatic villain and some big action set pieces. It's also a political thriller
09:04about how the rich can wheedle their way into global politics. If Whittaker had lived in 2018,
09:10he may have been alarmed at what he got right about humanity's future. Looking back on The Enemy of
09:15the World now, the themes of a tanned megalomaniac who feeds disinformation and fake news to his
09:20global audience feel all too real. Patrick Troughton's performance as Salamander may look
09:25outrageous and over the top, but is it any more outlandish than the performance of 2018's actual
09:30leader of the free world? Just saying. Number 1. The Hungry Earth, 2020
09:352020 will never be anyone's favourite year. But come on, let's not get into another debate about
09:40The Timeless Child. Of course, 2020 was a rough year for everyone as we lived with the COVID-19
09:45pandemic, and the world began to feel like a particularly bleak sci-fi dystopia. Doctor
09:49Who couldn't predict this, but it did visit 2020 in the Chris Chibnall penned two-parter
09:54The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood, which aired in 2010. In Chibnall's version of 2020, the Silurians
10:00awoke in a small mining town in Wales, where they attempted to retake Earth from the humans.
10:05After negotiations stalled, the Silurians were returned to their hibernation in the hope
10:09that one day a peaceful accord could be reached. Fast forward 10 years, and Chris Chibnall
10:13was Doctor Who's showrunner in 2020. He didn't revisit the Silurian revival, but there's
10:18nothing to say that it didn't still happen, while the 13th Doctor was dealing with Ruth
10:21and the Jadoon in Gloucester. One thing he did get wrong was that the future Amy and Rory
10:26wouldn't have turned up to greet their past selves on account of their deaths in New
10:29York decades earlier. Oh, and now I'm sad. And there you have it, but while we're on
10:34the topic of the future, why not check out 10 times Doctor Who accidentally predicted
10:38our future. In the meantime, I've been Ellie for Who Culture, and in the words of
10:42Riversong herself, goodbye, sweeties.