Fans of Steven Moffat and David Nutter would be quick to point out that the two are no strangers to a good bit of time travel, being creatives behind great episodes of “Doctor Who” and “The Flash,” but their new series, “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is a whole new proverbial ball of time-slipping wax.
The new series follows a love story between two characters, Henry DeTamble (Theo James) and Claire Abshire (Rose Leslie), with one small hitch: Henry involuntarily slips through time and meets Claire again and again throughout her life. The show premiered this past weekend on HBO Max and will contain six episodes. Director David Nutter and writer Steven Moffat stopped by the Bingeworthy Podcast to chat about bringing the popular book to the screen as a series rather than another film adaptation.
“I keep saying, the limitation of having to tell that story in two hours is how much time you have to spend on the time travel,” Moffat said of the need for a longer format for this particular story. “It takes us about three episodes to nail down, for the audience, exactly how this works. That’s three hours! That’s not much time left, if you’re doing a one-off movie, to get into what it’s really about which is the wife. It’s not ‘The Time Traveler,’ it’s ‘The Time Traveler’s Wife’ … It’s not really about time travel. It’s not “Quantum Leap.” It’s not “Doctor Who.” It’s about love and loss.”
The show is led by two wonderful performances from Theo James and Rose Leslie. Leslie crossed paths with David Nutter previously on “Game of Thrones,” and Nutter almost immediately thought of her for the role.
“For the character of Claire, I read to around page 30, I closed the script, and I wrote Rose Leslie.” Nutter shared about how quickly Leslie got the part of Claire. “I worked with her on ‘Game of Thrones,’ and everything [Claire] says, every action she takes and does felt like Rose Leslie to me.”
Of course, as any chat with Steven Moffat should, it eventually turned to “Sherlock,” the hit BBC series that starred Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson. While it’s been some time since the last episodes aired, Moffat wasn’t quick to say that there won’t be anymore.
“Hey, ask Benedict and Martin. I’ll do it again! Mark [Gatiss] and I would do it again – and Sue [Vertue].” Moffat said of a potential return to 221B Baker Street. “It’s down to whether our two movie stars want to do it again, and I can understand why they might not want to. You know, come on, it’s probably peaked, in some ways. I mean, you’re not going to get a much bigger hit than that ever. But, if they were up for it and we could all recover from the loss of Una Stubbs as Mrs. Hudson, which is pretty tough for us, then, you know, I have certainly not closed the door on it. Ever! I love doing Sherlock Holmes.”
The first episode of “The Time Traveler’s Wife” is now streaming on HBO Max. You can listen to the entire conversation below:
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