BBC Making a TV Movie to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of ‘Doctor Who’

Next year, it will have been a formidable half-century since “Doctor Who” was first broadcast back on November 23rd, 1963. The long-running, once-revived BBC sci-fi series has been through several (literal) incarnations, ingeniously including in its own concept the possibility for its main character to be regenerated with a new body (and in some ways a new personality), and to therefore be played by a new actor.

In honor of the series’ 50th anniversary, BBC has announced it’ll be making a special TV movie for next year — “An Adventure In Space And Time,” a drama that will tell the story of the genesis of “Doctor Who” and the people who created and helped shape the show.

According to Steven Moffat, the current lead writer and executive producer of “Doctor Who” and the executive producer of “An Adventure In Space And Time,” “The story of ‘Doctor Who’ is the story of television — so it’s fitting in the anniversary year that we make our most important journey back in time to see how the TARDIS was launched.” Moffat will executive produce the one-off drama, which will be written by Mark Gatiss — no casting’s yet been announced.

“Doctor Who” follows the adventures of the titular Time Lord, who explores the universe in his time machine, the TARDIS, alongside a series of companions. The current Doctor, the eleventh, is Matt Smith, who’ll be back in the seventh season of the revamped series later this year. William Hartnell played the first incarnation of the Doctor, from 1963-1966.