There was a time when I hated Doctor Who and even now I kind of hate myself for enjoying it. I blame Tom Baker. The guy is just too damn likeable. I’m sure he has been the gateway drug to the series for a great many people. But it took a while to get into the other incarnations of The Doctor. Jesus, I’m even using their terminology now.
The most recent set we have started exploring is the second season for William Hartnell, the first actor to assume the role. An Adventure in Space and Time is a telemovie dramatizing the struggles behind-the-scenes to develop the show and continue it through the Hartnell years.
It’s hard to believe something which is still an ongoing concern was very nearly cancelled after its first four episodes. There were a number of elements behind the scenes that make Doctor Who more special than it might appear to casual fans such as myself.
Brian Cox plays the Head of Drama at the BBC. He envisions a sci-fi show for children. He doesn’t have many demands, but chief among them are no B.E.M.s (Bug-Eyed Monsters) or robots. Care to hazard a guess how long that policy stays in effect?
He appoints Verity Lambert (Jessica Raine) as producer. Having a woman as a producer was unheard of at the time and I’m sure the real-life Lambert went through far more struggles than the token disdain she’s shown at first here, before becoming a hero in everybody’s eyes once the show is a success.
If there’s one fault in this dramatization, it is it sells her short by not showing her struggling more. The worst we see here is many of the men ignoring her, and other women gossiping about her. “She didn’t get her promotion standing up.”
The casting of the actors for the show within the show alternate between extraordinarily spot-on or spectacularly off. David Bradley looks uncannily like William Hartnell, the actor who played the first Doctor. Hartnell is portrayed as prickly, to put it generously. I can’t know what he was like in real-life, but Bradley’s acting when he is portraying Hartnell acting on the show is eerily similar.
Even more uncanny is Jemma Powell, who seems to completely disappear into the role of one of the Doctor’s first companions, Jacqueline Hill. Not to be unfair, but I think the hairstyle is a major contributor to that similarity. That isn’t to dismiss her vocal inflection and facial expressions, which are so close to those of the person she’s emulating as to make one wonder if the original actress had travelled through time to play herself here.
Claudia Grant is convincing as Carole Ann Ford, who played the Doctor’s granddaughter in the first two years of the show. I wonder if they ever gave the title character any more blood relations in the course of its 60 years, but I doubt it.
Rounding out the original companions is Jamie Glover as William Russell, despite looking in no way whatsoever like the actor he is portraying. He’s barely in this movie, though fine when he is, but those who have seen any of the original show in its initial years may be wondering who that guy is supposed to be.
A couple of other notable people behind the scenes was Warris Hussein (played by Sacha Dhawan), the organization’s first director of Indian descent, and electronic artist Delia Derbyshire (played by Sarah Winter), who realized the show’s legendary theme tune. I was thrilled to even see somebody playing Derbyshire, as I am a huge fan of her work. Unfortunately, in real-life, the only credit for the theme was given to Ron Grainger, who wrote the piece.
You’ll see that credit at the end of the pilot and each of the first four episodes of the show that are included on a bonus DVD in the set. This is the perfect bonus content, as we can see the real versions of scenes recreated in the movie. So we can see first-hand how harsh the show was in the beginning—the Hartnell Doctor was initially a deeply unpleasant person.
To be fair, An Adventure in Space and Time is slightly better than your average biopic, but it doesn’t have much depth to it. Still, I’m not sure I would care for it be longer than its roughly 90 minutes, and I felt I learned as much as I cared to know. It is just good enough that I would even recommend it for the curious who aren’t fans of the show.
Dir: Terry McDonough
Starring David Bradley, Jessica Raine, Brian Cox
Watched on BBC blu-ray (region A)