An Adventure in Space and Time (2013) on Netflix
TV-PG20131h 26mBiographyDramaHistory
Sydney Newman, a drama chief, devises a Saturday tea-time science fiction serial called Doctor Who in 1963. Producer Verity Lambert and director Waris Hussein cast William Hartnell as the lead.
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- Netflix4.5/5
- IMDb8.2/107,914 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes96%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1963, Sydney Newman, a progressive head of drama, wants a Saturday tea-time program with youth appeal. He devises a science fiction serial called Doctor Who, about an august figure like a doctor who travels through time with companions. Newman engages Verity Lambert, an inexperienced young producer, to expand the idea. Lambert faces pushback from colleagues who doubt her. With Waris Hussein, a young Indian director, she persuades William Hartnell, a character actor typecast in military roles, to play the lead. Hartnell feels trepidation about committing to a long-running series. The production meets technical hiccups, and its first episode must compete with coverage of John F. Kennedy's assassination.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about An Adventure in Space and Time (2013)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- For the 40th anniversary, writer Mark Gatiss pitched a biographical film to BBC Four, but the proposal was rejected and he was told there was no available slot or budget.
- Gatiss gave David Bradley the role of William Hartnell, his first and only pick, as they watched Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee flotilla from the National Theatre roof.
- Claudia Grant, cast as Carole Ann Ford, did not realize that her agent Judith "Jessica" Carney was Hartnell's real-life granddaughter until after she got the part.
- An Adventure in Space and Time was the final drama recorded at BBC Television Centre, and the production was almost prevented from filming there over concerns it would disrupt the tour schedule.
- Gatiss hoped to cast the now-older Jean Marsh as May Warden's aged version of Sara Kingdom for a recreation of The Daleks' Master Plan, but the sequence was deemed too expensive; a recreated Zarbi costume for The Web Planet was also cut for cost.
- The brass pillars beside the TARDIS doors in the film are the original 1963 props, and it took three weeks to build the TARDIS studio set.
- On the morning of 17 February, filming in London had Dalek props cross Westminster Bridge to recreate The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
- When the film was rebroadcast on BBC Four on 23 November 2023 for Doctor Who's 60th anniversary, Matt Smith's cameo was replaced by Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor, and scenes with dialogue from An Unearthly Child were cut, which many assumed was due to writer Anthony Coburn's estate withholding licensing rights.
