diff --git a/Lib/test/test_doctest.py b/Lib/test/test_doctest.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_doctest.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_doctest.py
@@ -2664,41 +2664,35 @@ These tests test this CLI functionality.
 We'll use the support module's script_helpers for this, and write a test files
 to a temp dir to run the command against.  Due to a current limitation in
 script_helpers, though, we need a little utility function to turn the returned
 output into something we can doctest against:
 
     >>> def normalize(s):
     ...     return '\n'.join(s.decode().splitlines())
 
-Note: we also pass TERM='' to all the assert_python calls to avoid a bug
-in the readline library that is triggered in these tests because we are
-running them in a new python process.  See:
-
-  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-readline/2013-06/msg00000.html
-
 With those preliminaries out of the way, we'll start with a file with two
 simple tests and no errors.  We'll run both the unadorned doctest command, and
 the verbose version, and then check the output:
 
     >>> from test import script_helper
     >>> with script_helper.temp_dir() as tmpdir:
     ...     fn = os.path.join(tmpdir, 'myfile.doc')
     ...     with open(fn, 'w') as f:
     ...         _ = f.write('This is a very simple test file.\n')
     ...         _ = f.write('   >>> 1 + 1\n')
     ...         _ = f.write('   2\n')
     ...         _ = f.write('   >>> "a"\n')
     ...         _ = f.write("   'a'\n")
     ...         _ = f.write('\n')
     ...         _ = f.write('And that is it.\n')
     ...     rc1, out1, err1 = script_helper.assert_python_ok(
-    ...             '-m', 'doctest', fn, TERM='')
+    ...             '-m', 'doctest', fn)
     ...     rc2, out2, err2 = script_helper.assert_python_ok(
-    ...             '-m', 'doctest', '-v', fn, TERM='')
+    ...             '-m', 'doctest', '-v', fn)
 
 With no arguments and passing tests, we should get no output:
 
     >>> rc1, out1, err1
     (0, b'', b'')
 
 With the verbose flag, we should see the test output, but no error output:
 
@@ -2751,27 +2745,27 @@ text files).
     ...         _ = f.write('       >>> 1 + 1\n')
     ...         _ = f.write('       2\n')
     ...         _ = f.write('       >>> "abc   def"\n')
     ...         _ = f.write("       'abc def'\n")
     ...         _ = f.write("\n")
     ...         _ = f.write('   \"\"\"\n')
     ...     import shutil
     ...     rc1, out1, err1 = script_helper.assert_python_failure(
-    ...             '-m', 'doctest', fn, fn2, TERM='')
+    ...             '-m', 'doctest', fn, fn2)
     ...     rc2, out2, err2 = script_helper.assert_python_ok(
-    ...             '-m', 'doctest', '-o', 'ELLIPSIS', fn, TERM='')
+    ...             '-m', 'doctest', '-o', 'ELLIPSIS', fn)
     ...     rc3, out3, err3 = script_helper.assert_python_ok(
     ...             '-m', 'doctest', '-o', 'ELLIPSIS',
-    ...             '-o', 'NORMALIZE_WHITESPACE', fn, fn2, TERM='')
+    ...             '-o', 'NORMALIZE_WHITESPACE', fn, fn2)
     ...     rc4, out4, err4 = script_helper.assert_python_failure(
-    ...             '-m', 'doctest', '-f', fn, fn2, TERM='')
+    ...             '-m', 'doctest', '-f', fn, fn2)
     ...     rc5, out5, err5 = script_helper.assert_python_ok(
     ...             '-m', 'doctest', '-v', '-o', 'ELLIPSIS',
-    ...             '-o', 'NORMALIZE_WHITESPACE', fn, fn2, TERM='')
+    ...             '-o', 'NORMALIZE_WHITESPACE', fn, fn2)
 
 Our first test run will show the errors from the first file (doctest stops if a
 file has errors).  Note that doctest test-run error output appears on stdout,
 not stderr:
 
     >>> rc1, err1
     (1, b'')
     >>> print(normalize(out1))                # doctest: +ELLIPSIS
@@ -2867,28 +2861,28 @@ success output for the tests in both fil
     2 passed and 0 failed.
     Test passed.
 
 We should also check some typical error cases.
 
 Invalid file name:
 
     >>> rc, out, err = script_helper.assert_python_failure(
-    ...         '-m', 'doctest', 'nosuchfile', TERM='')
+    ...         '-m', 'doctest', 'nosuchfile')
     >>> rc, out
     (1, b'')
     >>> print(normalize(err))                    # doctest: +ELLIPSIS
     Traceback (most recent call last):
       ...
     FileNotFoundError: [Errno ...] No such file or directory: 'nosuchfile'
 
 Invalid doctest option:
 
     >>> rc, out, err = script_helper.assert_python_failure(
-    ...         '-m', 'doctest', '-o', 'nosuchoption', TERM='')
+    ...         '-m', 'doctest', '-o', 'nosuchoption')
     >>> rc, out
     (2, b'')
     >>> print(normalize(err))                    # doctest: +ELLIPSIS
     usage...invalid...nosuchoption...
 
 """
 
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