An Adventure in Space and Time

With the conclusion of The Doctor Falls revealing that David Bradley will be appearing as the First Doctor, I finally broke down and bought a copy of An Adventure in Space and Time so I could finally see it. Despite this story being out for over three years, I couldn't find a copy to rent or borrow in all that time. Even buying was a bit limited as copies formatted for North America were somewhat hard to find. But I got a blue-ray edition and finally enjoyed what everyone else had been enjoying for a much longer time.

The story covers the basic outline of the creation of the show by Sidney Newman, his giving the running of the show to Verity Lambert and it's progress as William Hartnell both grows in popularity as the Doctor and also suffers health effects from the rigors of the work. It is obviously a simplified version with several people coalesced into a single individual or other people just given the minimalist treatment.

The folding of several people is very common and rather understandable, although usually they stick with people who are alive the whole time. Towards the end of the movie, Mervin Pinfield is shown discussing the need to replace William Hartnell with Sidney Newman, despite the fact that Pinfield had died a year earlier, but odds are pretty good that not a lot of folks in the audience would have been aware of that.

Overall, it was quite enjoyable. I thought David Bradley did a good job showing the transformation that William Hartnell went through, both in an enjoyment of his popularity (and finally being given a role outside of his normal casting) and in the degradation he underwent as the overwork and unhealthy habits of the 60's consumed him. Much like the show, although it starts with the focus on Newman and Lambert, the major driver of the story is Hartnell. I enjoy the stuff without Hartnell, but he is the key driver in the whole thing, the constant while so much changes around him.
I was actually surprised that some of the other cast didn't get as much screen time. After Hartnell, the cast member who was shown the most was actually Carol Ann Ford, with an extra little nod given to the spat she had with Hartnell near the beginning of filming of Marco Polo. Although, I wonder if some of that was just so that Mark Gatiss could recreate a bit of the Marco Polo set, as that is rather famous for it's elaborateness and that it is lost. But very little attention is given to William Russell or Jacqueline Hill outside of the suggestion that Jacqueline Hill might have gotten the job as Barbara due to a friendship with Verity Lambert.

Almost nothing is said about companions after that. We are treated to a few brief scenes detailing the passage of time with the only notation of the latest companions being the exterior photo shoots. Once Maureen O'Brien is introduced as Carol Ann Ford's replacement, most of the in set shots are dropped save for a couple of Hartnell by himself. If you didn't know, you wouldn't realize that the next shot is Peter Purves and Jackie Lane (Stephen and Dodo) followed by Michael Craze and Anneke Wills (Ben and Polly).

I was also a little surprised that very little mention was made of Hartnell's not getting on with the production teams that followed Verity Lambert. You get a hint of it as he gets annoyed with people trying to get the scene going and he is correcting them about not getting the props or scene right but the period after Verity leaves is heavily condensed and jumps quickly towards the end, focusing mostly on Hartnell's failing health and especially his memory problems.

The one thing that I thought was rather odd from a continuity standpoint was when Mrs. Hartnell came to see Verity about scaling back Bill's workload and Verity noting that she would pass it on to her successor. What's odd is that in the background, you can see several folks in Menoptra costumes, indicating that they are working on The Web Planet. While I don't doubt that Verity might have gone ahead and submitted a resignation letter by this point (second half of Season Two), her goodbye party seems to have taken place shortly after this (again, Menoptra costumes). Verity Lambert rather famously left after filming Mission to the Unknown, which was at the end of the recording block, even though it and Galaxy 4 kicked off Season Three. I say famously because the goodbye photos of the actors in costume from the Dalek/alien council are the only known evidence of what those costumes looked like. I suspect that Mark Gatiss was limited on budget and couldn't recreate that scene with similar costumes and instead opted for the The Web Planet as it would also have been distinctive.

Despite these historical quibbles, it flows very well. The only thing I would change is something that I understand for the time but it dates the story and that is the appearance of Matt Smith at the end. It's a nice scene, especially as this went out just before the 50th anniversary special, but as we are now anticipating the Thirteenth (and first female) Doctor, seeing Hartnell look across the console to see the Eleventh Doctor just makes it feel a little dated instead of the complete time capsule that it should be. It's a small thing but it is still something that I would like to have gotten rid of.

Nevertheless, it's still very enjoyable and an excellent bit of reenactment. It's also an excellent way to expose a new person or perhaps someone who has only seen the new series, to the older stories, especially in the Hartnell era which can be difficult to get into if you're not aware of how both TV was made and how stories were told in those days. But a very good story overall and I can only give it the best compliment I can think of, which is that I wish I could have seen more backstory and watched it continue to see how things progressed in the Patrick Troughton era.