Of all his post-Doctor Who work, this is the project we’re most excited about. 

Based on Audrey Niffenegger’s 2003 novel of the same name, The Time Traveler’s Wife tells the story of Henry DeTamble, an unwilling traveller in time. Born with a genetic disorder, Henry moves about in his own timeline. Through his travels, he forms a friendship with a girl, Clare Abshire, who later becomes his wife.

The story was brought to the screen as a 2009 movie, staring Rachael McAdams and Eric Bana. However, we imagine the story’s complex narrative will benefit from the much longer screentime of a six-part television adaptation.

We first heard of the project back in 2018, but filming didn’t actually take place until this year. With the series in the can, Steven Moffat has begun to talk about the show. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, he calls it a “dream project”:

“This is a story of loss but it’s not a tragedy. It’s about a time traveler but it’s not science fiction. Despite Clare and Henry’s time scrambled relationship, this is the tale of a grand, ordinary love – but not necessarily in that order. This is a dream project for me. I have always loved Audrey Niffenegger’s extraordinary, moving novel and it has inspired me many times, so to be adapting it for television is the thrill of a lifetime.”

The prism of time travel

He also has another crack at describing the genre-bending story:

“It uses the prism of time travel to brilliantly rearrange the details of an ordinary, yet very successful, love story. We often do tragic love stories and we often do divorces and we all do the story of how people first got together. These are the things that fiction tends to favor. The thing that we never ever write about is one of the most common phenomena in human history — the perfectly happy marriage.”

Obviously, for Doctor Who fans, the parallels between the Doctor and River Song’s relationship, and the Eleventh Doctor and Amy for that matter, are evident. So too, the Tenth Doctor’s relationship with Reinette from The Girl in the Fireplace. Steven Moffat acknowledged his admiration for the book on various occasions while in the big chair at Cardiff, while Niffenegger referenced the latter episode in her book Her Fearful Symmetry.

As part of their coverage, Entertainment Weekly also released an exclusive image from Henry and Clare’s wedding:

The Time Traveler’s Wife is being made for HBO by Hartswood Films, with Moffat, Sue Vertue and his former Doctor Who colleague Brian Minchin all executive producing.

Rose Leslie (Game of Thrones, Vigil) is playing Clare, with Theo James (Divergent, Sanditon) as Henry. Also cast are Desmin Borges as Gomez and Natasha Lopez as Charisse.

The show is directed by David Nutter, who has credits as diverse as Game of Thrones, The Sopranos and Band of Brothers. He is also an executive producer too, as is Joseph E. Iberti.

We know the show is coming to HBO Max, and presumably Sky in the UK, sometime in 2022.

While there’s no tx date as yet, CultBox will keep you updated.