For the 50th anniversary of the first screening of Dr Who on the BBC, infamously on the night of the JFK assassination, co-show-runner of the current globally successful re-boot of the programme, Mark Gatiss wrote and produced this gently reverent story of the initial conception and creation of the show.
To be truthful there's not that much of a story or too much drama either but with its accurate recreation of the time and respectful tributes to key figures like the veteran actor William Hartnell who played the first Doctor, larger-than-life commissioning producer Sydney Lotterby, his protégé, young go-ahead female producer Verity Lambert and the young Indian director of the first show Waris Hussein, it was always watchable and entertaining.
Conventionally told in chronological order, covering the time from 1963 up to Hartnell's departure from the show in 1966 to make way for the younger Patrick Troughton, there were nevertheless some nice ideas here, the passage of time denoted by a time-machine chronometer and the annual publicity photo-shoots for the Doctor's new companions, a great "from-the-floorboards-up" view of the operation of the first Dalek and the modest but effective display of the quickening popularity of the show amongst the young (a mother calling in her children playing outside to see "that programme you liked"). This was nicely rounded off at the finish with Hartnell slipping away quietly from an end-of-show party to the set of the TARDIS and looking across to see Matt Smith, the current incarnation opposite him, carrying the show onto new generations.
Sentimental it may have been at times but as someone who grew up with the series in my own teenage years (although Troughton and Jon Pertwee were more "my" Doctors), this was a well-made and well-acted tribute to a British TV institution which you didn't have be a Whovian anorak to appreciate.
To be truthful there's not that much of a story or too much drama either but with its accurate recreation of the time and respectful tributes to key figures like the veteran actor William Hartnell who played the first Doctor, larger-than-life commissioning producer Sydney Lotterby, his protégé, young go-ahead female producer Verity Lambert and the young Indian director of the first show Waris Hussein, it was always watchable and entertaining.
Conventionally told in chronological order, covering the time from 1963 up to Hartnell's departure from the show in 1966 to make way for the younger Patrick Troughton, there were nevertheless some nice ideas here, the passage of time denoted by a time-machine chronometer and the annual publicity photo-shoots for the Doctor's new companions, a great "from-the-floorboards-up" view of the operation of the first Dalek and the modest but effective display of the quickening popularity of the show amongst the young (a mother calling in her children playing outside to see "that programme you liked"). This was nicely rounded off at the finish with Hartnell slipping away quietly from an end-of-show party to the set of the TARDIS and looking across to see Matt Smith, the current incarnation opposite him, carrying the show onto new generations.
Sentimental it may have been at times but as someone who grew up with the series in my own teenage years (although Troughton and Jon Pertwee were more "my" Doctors), this was a well-made and well-acted tribute to a British TV institution which you didn't have be a Whovian anorak to appreciate.