Doctor Who Doctor's nature, somewhere between the twelfth and final incarnation. On rare occasions, other actors have stood in for the lead. In "The Five Doctors", Richard Hurndall played the First Doctor due to William Hartnell's death in 1975; 34 years later David Bradley similarly replaced Hartnell in "Twice Upon a Time". In "Time and the Rani", Sylvester McCoy briefly played the Sixth Doctor during the regeneration sequence, carrying on as the Seventh. For more information, see the list of actors who have played the Doctor. In other media, the Doctor has been played by various other actors, including Peter Cushing in
An Adventure in Space and Time Who" in 1993, filmmaker Kevin Davies pitched an idea called "The Legend Begins" to the BBC. "The Legend Begins" would have mixed documentary interviews with those responsible for the creation of "Doctor Who" with a dramatised strand showing the programme's beginnings. Eventually, the dramatisation idea was abandoned in favour of a standard documentary format looking at the entire history of "Doctor Who", which was eventually broadcast on BBC1 as "" in November 1993. Ten years later, for the fortieth anniversary, writer and executive producer Mark Gatiss pitched the idea for the film to BBC Four, unaware of Davies's previous attempt.