Watched an Adventure in Space & Time yesterday. It was great, although I didn't expect them to focus on the tragic side of Hartnell's run so much, but I understand why they did it. David Bradley was great, a very moving performance. The other actors, although they gave fine performances, didn't really do it for me, but that's probably because I'm so familiar with the originals. Susan was okay, Barbara and Ian slightly less so, although they didn't have that much to do. Given the focus of the movie it was fine though. The only casting choice that really bugged me was Throughton. I know he was only in it for 30 seconds, and he's almost impossible to find a replacement for, but he just looked and sounded completely different. He wasn't even close. Still, it was a minor thing, and as long as they don't have that actor playing him in the special on saturday I won't keep complaining about it.
Still, besides those complaints, very happy that this got made. I've seen some people here who aren't happy about the
cameo, but that actually worked really well for me. Didn't see it coming, as the rest of the special seemed to be rooted very much in the real world, but I thought it was a nice bit of symbolism. You can see that scene in a couple of ways - it's basically your choice if you consider Matt's presence there as in-character (as the Doctor) or as himself, as an actor, and you can do the same for Hartnell. And it works in any configuration you can think of, and it changes the meaning slightly. I thought it was a rather nice moment really, just a tiny nod to the legacy Hartnell left. I can understand why some people here won't like it, but I guess I can accept a little bending of reality in a documentary about Doctor Who.
