Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

(sighs) ‘An Unearthly Child’ is the very first ‘Doctor Who’ story in the classic TV series and it’s by a writer named Anthony Coburn. In October 2023, the BBC announced that ‘An Unearthly Child’ wouldn’t be released on BBC iPlayer alongside other ‘Doctor Who’ stories on November the 1st, 2023. 😦

This is due to a copyright dispute between the BBC and Anthony Coburn’s son, Stef Coburn, who has claimed he withdrew the licensing rights for the BBC to repeat ‘An Unearthly Child’ following disagreements over compensation for his father. At the time of this blog post, the debate is ongoing.

Now these details aren’t really relevant to ‘An Unearthly Child’ and its production back in 1963, since this is something that’s recently occurred in today’s media. Therefore, I’ve not mentioned it in other blog posts until now nor have I updated it in reviews like ‘An Unearthly Child’ to establish these points.

However, in connection to the latest BBC Four repeat of ‘An Adventure In Space and Time’, which I’ll get into more shortly, if I don’t raise these issues now in connection to ‘An Unearthly Child’ – the story that began ‘Doctor Who’ in the first place – I’m likely to be asked why I didn’t mention it at all.

The thing is, I prefer to talk about pleasant stuff, such as storytelling and character development. I try my best not to talk about anything that’s unpleasant or politically topical in ‘Doctor Who’ unless I really have to. It’s why I’ve not brought up recent controversies on celebrities e.g., John Barrowman.

If I have to mention something that’s tragic or horrible, it’s only brought up because it’s important to know for the TV show. This includes Roger Delgado’s tragic death during Jon Pertwee’s era, and the fall-out between producer John Nathan-Turner and script editor Eric Saward during the mid-1980s. 😐

I can’t guarantee this is a policy I’ll always abide by, but hopefully I’ll do my best when moving forward in terms of checking out new ‘Doctor Who’ content as well as backwards when it comes to updating already-posted ‘Doctor Who’ reviews, including possibly updating my ‘An Unearthly Child’ review. 🙂

I don’t know if the ongoing dispute between the BBC and Anthony Coburn’s son will be resolved and whether we’ll get to have Season 1 of the classic ‘Doctor Who’ TV series released on Blu-ray. I hope I will get to update my Season 1 ‘Doctor Who’ reviews with or without the season being on Blu-ray.

We’ll have to wait and see. It’s a shame this has happened since I’ve enjoyed the very first ‘Doctor Who’ story with William Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill and Carole Ann Ford. Thankfully, I can enjoy the story on DVD as well as Britbox and I’ve purchased the four-part story via Google Play. 🙂

Sadly, the ‘An Unearthly Child’ dispute has had a knock-on effect on ‘An Adventure In Space and Time’, as demonstrated in the BBC Four repeat we’ve had lately. I was checking out a bit of ‘An Adventure In Space and Time’ on TV after watching ‘The Daleks in Colour’ on the 23rd of November.

I regard ‘An Adventure In Space and Time’ highly. I enjoyed watching it on Britbox earlier this year in March. So, it’s sad when checking out ‘An Adventure In Space and Time’ on BBC TV recently, noticeable cuts were made in the 2023 TV edit, specifically in scenes related to ‘An Unearthly Child’.

In the scenes where the actors are recording scenes as their characters in ‘An Unearthly Child’, the moments where they say the dialogue from the scripts are cut from the edit. This is clearly to avoid any copyright infringement due to the ongoing dispute between the BBC and Anthony Coburn’s son.

Realising what was happening, I stopped watching the 2023 edit of ‘An Adventure In Space and Time’. I appreciate the difficulties the BBC are going through concerning the dispute, but I found it easier to enjoy the original 2013 edit of ‘Adventure’ on Britbox and not the 2023 edit on BBC Four. 😐

Mind you, had I watched the rest of the 2023 edit of ‘Adventure’ on BBC Four, I would have been surprised to find a change had been made in the closing moments of the docu-drama. Instead of David Bradley as William Hartnell looking up and seeing Matt Smith as the Doctor, he sees Ncuti Gatwa. 😀

Now this isn’t a major issue for me, since I get why the 2023 edit features Ncuti Gatwa instead of Matt Smith. Ncuti Gatwa is the latest actor to play the Doctor in ‘Doctor Who’, so it makes sense for him to be there for the 60th anniversary version of ‘Adventure’ and give us a teaser of what’s to come.

Although wouldn’t it have made sense to have David Tennant instead of Ncuti Gatwa in that final scene? David is the current Doctor at this time, and we haven’t got to Ncuti’s era on TV yet. Also, Peter Capaldi wasn’t in ‘Adventure’ and yet he was cast as the Doctor in August 2013 following Matt Smith.

No disrespect to Ncuti Gatwa, but I prefer the 2013 edit of ‘Adventure’ featuring Matt Smith rather than the 2023 edit. Simply because ‘Adventure’ was made for the 50th anniversary celebrations first. Whilst I appreciate the 2023 edit reflects current times, I don’t like the idea of replacing Matt Smith.

What I think could have worked better in the 2023 edit is to have Doctors like Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, Jodie Whittaker and Ncuti Gatwa appearing at the same time to illustrate how far the TV series has come and how it’s progressed since it began in the 1960s.

Anyway, those are my current thoughts about ‘An Unearthly Child’ and ‘An Adventure In Space and Time’ in 2023. I don’t know how things will turn out for the BBC and whether they’ll get to repeat ‘An Unearthly Child’ on BBC iPlayer, but it’s fascinating to see Ncuti Gatwa appear in 2023’s ‘Adventure’.

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim 🙂