The 60th anniversary Doctor Who celebrations are in full swing this week, as the BBC builds to the release of the first special episode The Star Beast this Saturday. To mark the milestone, over 800 episodes of the beloved show have been added to an extensive online archive on BBC iPlayer – which will soon include writer Mark Gatiss's TV film An Adventure in Space and Time following its broadcast on BBC Four this Thursday.
Made in celebration of the 50th anniversary a decade ago, the biographical film tells a dramatized story of the creation of Doctor Who, with David Bradley portraying actor William Hartnell (who, of course, played the First Doctor). Recently, rumors have been circling that an extra scene has been filmed for the movie's upcoming broadcast. That's because actor Ncuti Gatwa, who we will see later this year as the Fifteenth Doctor, recently stated at the GQ Men of the Year event that he shot a scene with Hartnell saying (as per The Mirror): "It has been a crazy year. I shouldn't say this but I shot a scene, somehow, with the first ever Doctor, William Hartnell. We end up in the same scene together at some point."
Given that Hartnell passed away in 1975, these quotes are puzzling. The theory is, then, that a new scene has been shot for the upcoming repeat of An Adventure in Space and Time, with Gatwa replacing Matt Smith's cameo at the end. As you may recall, the film originally ended with Bradley's Hartnell seeing a brief vision of Smith's Doctor, silently acknowledging his work. It makes sense, then, that to mark this anniversary, Smith will be replaced with the new Doctor... But, at the moment, that's just speculation.
For now, this is what Gatiss had to say to SFX magazine when we spoke to him earlier this year about the special:
We wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t ask about Doctor Who – would you be interested in returning to the series?
Well, I haven't been asked, I don't know. It's weird, isn't it? I'm very excited for this new/old era. I'm intrigued about David [Tennant] officially being the Fourteenth Doctor and what that actually means. I have no idea what's going on, which is really exciting. I guess, in a way, I think I've missed that element of not having a clue. It's a whole new world with the Disney+ collaboration and who knows what that's going to mean for the worldwide reception and impact of Doctor Who. It feels, in a very exciting way, like 2005 again. I mean, obviously there's some big similarities, but there's something in the air about it which is really nice. It’s a regeneration and that's always an exciting thing.
With it being 10 years since An Adventure in Space and Time, do you think we’ll get anything new or updated for that?
Oh, I hope so! I've no idea what the plans are. It would be nice, it would certainly be lovely. How can it be 10 years, Jesus Christ that’s terrifying. But I hope so. It feels like it'd be right to show it but I've no idea. It all depends on their plans for what else is shown around the anniversary, including the specials.
Is there extra footage? You could do a director’s cut!
Well, not really. I can't remember why we took out the scene with Delia Derbyshire. I've really no idea why now, isn’t it strange? Because it was rather nice. She was really good, that actress. Weirdly we did that little [post credits] tribute to William Hartnell just to fill in the extra five minutes or something, I remember.
There wasn’t much that wasn’t in there, I wish there were. My plans were ambitious and thwarted by money, of course. I remember BBC Worldwide basically giving us about three grand to make the sets of Vortis for The Web Planet bit, literally out of cardboard, because we had nothing left. Without it we wouldn't have had any Vortis. God bless them. But we were going to do the end of The Dalek Master Plan. I asked Jean Marsh, she was going to reprise her role as Sara Kingdom as the old version. This was all gonna happen. We couldn't do it. In the first couple of drafts actually we had a bit of The Masters Of Luxor, that it was going to be shot in black and white as if it was the actual episode. And then it sort of cuts to a planning meeting where David Whittaker or Verity Lambert says, ‘No, it's not going to work. Where’s Terry?’ [Laughs] So, there were all kinds of things, that I wish they were shot and then they were in a vault somewhere, but unfortunately, they weren't shot.
Can you remember anything else that wasn’t filmed?
I think my favorite bit, from a very, very early draft, maybe one of my first ideas, was the BBC designer production schedule, because you know Ridley Scott was the original designer of the Daleks? So, in this imagined thing Mervyn Pinfield gets a sheaf of Ridley’s designs for the Daleks and all you see is his face as he opens the folder, obviously implying that they look like seven-foot penises, like Alien, and then he just quietly closes it…
Doctor Who's 'The Star Beast', the first of the 60th anniversary specials, arrives on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK and Disney Plus in the rest of the world on November 25.
While you wait, check out our guide to all the best shows on Disney Plus to fill out your watchlist.
