William Hartnell
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An Adventure in Space and Time is a 2013 British biographical television film, starring David Bradley, Brian Cox, Jessica Raine and Sacha Dhawan. Directed by Terry McDonough, and written by regular Doctor Who writer Mark Gatiss, it premiered on BBC Two on 21 November 2013, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the science fiction television ...
An Adventure in Space and Time. An actor tapped by a succession of hard-man roles and a wannabe producer frustrated by the TV industry's glass ceiling find unlikely hope and unexpected challenges in the form of a Saturday tea-time drama, time travel and monsters.
- (7.6K)
- Biography, Drama, History
- Terry McDonough
- 2013-11-22
Nov 21, 2013 · A dramatised account of how Doctor Who was brought to the screen in 1963 by a young producer and an actor. Watch clips, see credits, and explore the Whoniverse on BBC iPlayer.
- Overview
- Synopsis
- Plot
- Cast
- Worldbuilding
- Notes
- Home video releases
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
, released in 2013 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, was a docudrama largely about William Hartnell's era as the First Doctor. Though marketed as the story of how Doctor Who was made, it was in fact much more of a limited biopic, giving much of its screentime to an investigation of Hartnell's portrayal of the Doctor. Because the script dealt with the entirety of Hartnell's reign on the programme, and ended with the regeneration in The Tenth Planet, Verity Lambert's struggles to produce the programme, though strongly featured, were a subplot.
The show was a labour of love by writer and executive producer Mark Gatiss, who had been trying to make it since before the 40th anniversary in 2003.
A young producer frustrated by British television's glass ceiling, a new executive at the British Broadcasting Corporation, a young director of Indian descent, and an older actor struggling for artistic legitimacy come together in 1963 to start a brand new television programme called Doctor Who. After initial difficulties, the show becomes a hit, l...
When boisterous Canadian TV producer Sydney Newman joins the BBC, he finds himself needing to fill a timeslot on Saturday afternoon. He decides to commission a science-fiction serial with an educational element. To produce the serial, he breaks with convention and hires a woman named Verity Lambert, who had previously worked with him as an assistant. He also hires Waris Hussein, the BBC's first director of Indian descent to helm the first few episodes.
Lambert encounters two challenges from the start: she isn't taken seriously by some of the "old boys club" at the BBC, and she has to find a suitable actor to play the lead character - a scientist known as the Doctor.
She approaches William Hartnell, an esteemed character actor who, of late, has become frustrated with being typecast as military or gangster figures. Although sceptical at first, Hartnell agrees to take on the role.
Initial production of the original episode is beset with problems, from the TARDIS doors malfunctioning to fire sprinklers going off in the middle of a scene. Even more concerning is the fact Hartnell is dissatisfied with how his character is written. Newman rejects the episode and considers firing Lambert and Hussein, but then opts to let them remount it after making improvements to the character of the Doctor. Lambert, however, refuses his order to replace the theme music.
The revised version of the episode goes over much better, and work begins on new scripts but Newman is initially upset at one of them featuring an alien menace known as the Daleks as it violates his No. 1 rule that there be no "BEMs" (bug-eyed monsters) in Doctor Who. The first broadcast is ultimately overshadowed by the assassination of John F. Kennedy. To make matters worse, one of the BBC Executives tells Newman that no new Doctor Who episodes are to be made. But Lambert convinces Newman to put the Dalek story into production and to arrange a rebroadcast of the first episode the following week.
The introduction of the Daleks launches the series into popular consciousness, and Hartnell finds himself the idol of children, at one point leading a group of children around a park, pretending to be on the hunt for Daleks.
•William Hartnell - David Bradley
•Sydney Newman - Brian Cox
•Verity Lambert - Jessica Raine
•Waris Hussein - Sacha Dhawan
•Heather Hartnell - Lesley Manville
•William Russell - Jamie Glover
•Verity Lambert and others watch Valentina Tereshkova launch into space, the first woman to do so.
•Sydney Newman rejects "tin robots," "mutations," "death rays" and "brains in a glass jar," all of which would soon feature prominently in the programme. His distaste for B.E.M.s, though — Bug-Eyed Monsters — is very much historically accurate, and on par with his comments on early concept drafts for Doctor Who.
•The assassination of John F. Kennedy is announced on TV. Lyndon B. Johnson is announced to have replaced Kennedy as President following the broadcast of An Unearthly Child.
•William Hartnell is shown the Doctor Who Annual 1966 while in his The Reign of Terror costume; he is delighted by this, having never experienced anything like this level of fame before.
•The final scene shows William Hartnell filming his final scenes in TV: The Tenth Planet. In this sequence, he literally looks into the future of Doctor Who, and sees Matt Smith next to him. Smith smiles at him and begins flipping switches on the console, a reference to the famous closing scenes of The Tenth Planet, where the switches on the console mysteriously begin moving by themselves.
•In an updated version of the film broadcast in 2023, the scene has replaced Matt Smith with Ncuti Gatwa. Gatwa winks and smiles at Hartnell before he flips the switches on the console in the same manner as Smith in the original.
•The Radio Times programme listing was accompanied by a small colour head-and-shoulders shot of David Bradley as William Hartnell, with the accompanying caption "An Adventure in Space and Time / 9.00 p.m. David Bradley stars as the Doctor's first screen incarnation". •The finale of the film includes footage of the real William Hartnell from TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth. This same footage was used to open the 20th-Anniversary special, TV: The Five Doctors, in which another actor, Richard Hurndall, stood in for Hartnell. The official YouTube channel of Doctor Who posted a video of Bradley doing the speech as Hartnell.
•The recreation of the prop used for the First, Second and Third Doctor's TARDIS console would go on to make several appearances in Doctor Who. It appeared as a console in a TARDIS stolen by the Twelfth Doctor in Hell Bent, as the console in First Doctor's TARDIS in Twice Upon a Time, as the console in a mysterious incarnation of the Doctor's TARDIS in Fugitive of the Judoon, and as the console in two TARDISes stolen by the Thirteenth Doctor in The Timeless Children, the first of which is seen again in Revolution of the Daleks.
•The film's original broadcast on BBC Two was immediately followed by a rebroadcast of all four episodes of An Unearthly Child on BBC Four.
•The film was re-broadcast on BBC Four on 23 November 2023, the 60th anniversary. In this broadcast, the film has received a few changes — notably scenes representing the original filming of An Unearthly Child have been altered, due to ongoing disputes with Stef Coburn, son of Anthony Coburn, over rights to the story, which have also prevented it from appearing on BBC iPlayer; and the scene of Hartnell seeing Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor was updated to replace Smith with Ncuti Gatwa as the then-incoming Fifteenth Doctor.
DVD releases
was released as both a single disc edition, and later as part of the 50th Anniversary Collector's Edition box set. Released in Brazil as a single disc edition entitled
Blu-ray releases
Although released as part of the 50th Anniversary Collector's Edition box set, the special did not receive its own individual Blu-ray release in the UK. In the US, the special was released on May 27 2014 as a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, and also includes An Unearthly Child and its special features on DVD as bonus content.
Digital releases
Following its broadcast on 23 November 2023, the re-release of An Adventure in Space and Time was added to BBC iPlayer's Whoniverse catalog of Doctor Who content, with the original 2013 release not being present as yet.
A 2013 docudrama about the origins of Doctor Who and the First Doctor, William Hartnell. It covers the creation of the show, the casting of Hartnell, the introduction of the Daleks, and his regeneration into Patrick Troughton.
Fun, clever, and eminently accessible, An Adventure in Space and Time offers entertaining viewing for Doctor Who newcomers and diehards alike. Read Critics Reviews
- (23)
- Terry Mcdonough
- TV-PG
- David Bradley
Travel through space and time in the TARDIS with the best episode clips dating back to the Doctor's first series in 1963, all the way through dozens of regenerations, from the latest clips of...
- 16 min
- 83.4K
- Doctor Who
An Adventure In Space and Time. BAFTA TV AWARD® nominee. Dramatised account of how Doctor Who was brought to the screen in 1963 by a young producer frustrated by TV's glass ceiling and an actor unhappy with a career of hard-man roles. 900. IMDb 8.2 1 h 22 min 2013 X-Ray 7+. Drama • Historical. Watch with BritBox. Start your 7-day free trial.
