An Adventure in Space and Time Review
An Adventure in Space and…
Über-prolific Brit's Brit Mark Gatiss would be an international treasure if only for his writing and acting on Sherlock, let alone for such gems as his History of Horror three-part masterpiece (check it out!). But unfortunately, despite his heart almost certainly being in the right place, Gatiss – perhaps out of sheer lack of hours in the day – has turned in, and thus caused to be filmed, a wretched script in An Adventure in Space and Time, a brilliant idea terribly executed.
The brilliant idea is to dramatise the birth of Dr. Who, using pioneering female producer Verity Lambert (feisty Jessica Raine) as a the protagonist, all flat shoes and red lipstick, versus an early-1960s BBC full of BritGents who look like they've just shot a pheasant, and first Doctor William Hartnell (David Bradley), the grumpiest character actor ever, as the antagonist. As Canadian-born head of drama at the BBC, Sydney Newman (Brian Cox) might have put it, "Ya got period, ya got a famous property, ya got youth versus age and all the glama of television – what could go wrong?"
What goes (horribly) wrong is that the thing is one huge cliché. When Lambert tells Dr. Who director Waris Hussein (Sacha Dhawan) that their show is a ratings hit, he decides to howl. Like a hyena. A grown man. In the halls of the BBC, where he's working. Oh, he jumps up and down, too. The whole thing is that sort of obvious. If it aspires to be Dr. Who, it achieves being K9 – way too cute, and pointless.
The script is essentially made up of real moments barely dramatised. We all know that Daleks are coming, so we have a scene talking about them with Sydney constantly mispronouncing the word Dalek. We see the opening theme being written, the opening credits envisioned. We see the set being designed (in 38 seconds: Really?) And all sorts of the show's creatives – particularly the early writers, Gatiss' forebears, and, presumably, semi-heroes – are name-dropped for the fanboys. All sorts. Endlessly.
The acting is all over the shop (why do Brits think Brian Cox can play North American???) and it's all directed so overtly that you're feel like a three-year-old: Now think this. The clanking script left little hope of any good coming out of it. Hartnell, despite Bradley's committed performance, is portrayed as such a grump from his opening scene that you just want to see him have a massive, and terminal, heart attack, and not for drama, but just to get him out of the picture (which is tough since he is the picture). Everything is underlined, overstated, highlighted, and relentlessly explained. Just like that last sentence.
It's a shame, and a seriously badly missed opportunity. The source material is so much fun, but the movie isn't, at all. Not so much an adventure in space and time as a waste of both.
CJ Johnson
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