3.07 The Celestial Toymaker
First Doctor with Steven and Dodo
Follows on from Season One, Season Two, Galaxy Four, Mission to the Unknown, The Myth Makers, The Daleks' Master Plan, The Massacre and The Ark
DOCTOR: We must proceed with cunning.
Overview
The Celestial Toymaker is another of those mostly missing Doctor Who adventures, with only one of its four episodes surviving to be watched as originally intended. So, it's back to the recons for this review. The background to this story was rather tumultuous, with the script re-written several times by different people, at very short notice, before going into production. William Hartnell was on holiday for the middle two episodes, leaving companion actors Peter Purves and Jackie Lane to carry the action, and the story was made at a time when his relationship with the production team had become acrimonious, which must have made for a difficult atmosphere on set.
The plot, in a nutshell, is this: the TARDIS travellers find themselves pawns of an extremely powerful and very bored being called the Toymaker, who forces them to play twisted versions of childhood games for the prize of their own lives and freedom.
This story is absolutely bonkers. It's an extremely imaginative, surreal concept, reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland, with Michael Gough's Toymaker making a strong antagonist for the Doctor it's just a shame about the execution of the idea. It is impossible now, of course, with only one orphaned episode and three soundtracks to go on, to appreciate what this serial actually looked like when it was completed and aired, reconstructions cannot hope to do justice to such a visual story, but given the difficult circumstances, low budget, outlandish yet undeveloped concept, and weak character writing, I'm not sure how successful the production would ever have been.
Writer Brian Hayles / Donald Tosh
Director Bill Sellars
Script editor Gerry Davis
Producer Innes Lloyd
Aired 2-23 April 1966
Observations
Random thoughts while watching:
Episode one: 'The Celestial Toyroom'
Previously on Doctor Who okay so the recon of episode one picks up with a reprise of the cliffhanger ending of the last episode. It is worth pointing out that Steven is at the controls as the TARDIS lands the first companion (other than Susan) able to operate TARDIS even a little. He's a trained space pilot, so it makes sense that he'd be interested in learning about the TARDIS controls, but I'd love to have seen the Doctor teaching him!
Anyway, the Doctor suddenly fades into invisibility, much to the consternation of his companions, and he dramatically proclaims that they are under attack, an attack powerful enough to penetrate even the TARDIS! I rather like how appalled Steven sounds at the idea of being attacked inside the safe haven of the TARDIS. He's grown used to uncertainty outside, but inside has always been safe.
There's a nice air of crisis in these early minutes of the episode the Doctor still talking but both invisible and intangible, unable to operate the controls. Just as well Steven can operate a few basic controls, then, but the scanner is blocked so they are unable to see where they are. Steven is all for getting out of here pronto if the Doctor will just tell him what to do, but the Doctor feels they must face up to their enemy.
Outside the TARDIS, the Doctor becomes visible once more, and I rather enjoy everyone's delight about this. The Doctor is still wary, though and rightly so. They have landed in a very strange, sparse landscape whose location is never explained. Steven is staggered when he looks at a nearby screen and sees images of himself, first on the planet Kembel and then in Paris. Dodo, meanwhile, sees her younger self on the day her mother died. We already knew that her parents were dead and that she lived with a great-aunt, but if only the visual for this scene survived we might have an idea of how old she was when she lost her mother always good to build on available backstory. The Doctor warns that this screen is hypnotic and they are not to look at it, which if I wanted to hypnotise someone with mesmerising images of their past, I can't help feeling I'd choose happy memories rather than traumatic ones! Anyway, the Doctor is figuring things out and realises that they are in the realm of the Celestial Toymaker which tells us that the Doctor has encountered the Toymaker before, in an unseen pre-series adventure that is only alluded to here. He warns his friends that they must not take anything they see at face value, to be wary of anything and everything in the Toymaker's realm, over which their enigmatic opponent has full control.
So the gang are trapped they can't escape in the TARDIS, because it has disappeared, and the Toymaker delights in playing tricks on people, revelling in their discomfort and confusion. Next thing, the Doctor also vanishes not just invisible and intangible this time but taken, leaving Steven and Dodo alone. While inexperienced Dodo frets and recriminates and asks all the obvious but useless questions, Steven sets his resolve: they have got to find the Doctor.
Easier said than done, however, as they are immediately confronted by a pair of clowns, playthings and tools of the Toymaker, designed to keep them from their goal. Steven, as is his wont, takes the situation extremely seriously, not the slightest bit amused by the clowns or their antics, but Dodo, dizzy, ditzy Dodo, seems to have forgotten the Doctor's warnings already, too busy laughing at the clowns as they torment the exasperated Steven. We saw in The Ark that Dodo rarely takes anything seriously, which makes for an effective contrast with Steven, who tends to take everything very seriously. Of course, the tables are turned when the clowns turn their jokes on Dodo and it is Steven's turn to laugh at her reaction. Neither one appreciates being the butt of a joke.
Steven and Dodo are looking extremely funky in this story, by the way, in a very '60s sort of fashion. Just saying.
When the Toymaker declares that the clowns are here to entertain, Steven gets back to business at once, demanding to know where the Doctor has been taken. The Toymaker menacingly explains that he and the Doctor are going to play a little game, which the others can watch on a screen but they must win their games before he does. After each game they win, they will find a TARDIS, which may or may not be the real one. If they lose, they will remain trapped here forever. Well, that sets up the remainder of the story for us: this is a pure comedy plot, in which the central motif is triumph over adverse circumstance, resulting in a successful or happy conclusion. The goal is not to acquire, learn or save anything, but simply to survive and escape.
A simple plot like this could be a great opportunity to explore the characters and develop their relationship Steven and Dodo don't know one another that well, after all, having only just met and been thrown together by circumstance. This is not a production team particularly interested in characters, however, and that combined with the behind-the-scenes difficulties during the writing and production of this story makes this a largely wasted opportunity, where the characters are concerned.
Dodo has almost completely lost her northern accent now, after it wavered throughout her first adventure evidently the production team were told that their main characters should have proper RP accents, so Dodo's had to change!
Anyway, Steven always so impatient and cynical is reluctant to go along with the Toymaker's games, not wanting such foolishness to distract them from the task at hand and disdainful of the notion of having to play childish games, but Dodo is clear-headed enough to realise that if they don't play along they might never be able to escape. Again, this is consistent characterisation for Dodo we saw in The Ark that she is capable of being surprisingly perceptive, beneath her more usual ditzy heedlessness. They have very little choice but to play along, and so the games begin.
The Doctor, meanwhile, is adopting much the same tactic as Steven, railing at the Toymaker and demanding an end to the jokes and games, with about the same level of success. His history with the Toymaker is tantalisingly hinted at, but never laid bare; although the Doctor does tell us that the Toymaker and his games are notorious, he never says among whom. We are told that the last time they met, the Doctor about turned and left immediately, thus avoiding being drawn into the Toymaker's games but we aren't told how he managed that, or why he couldn't do the same this time. Here and now, the Doctor is to play a tri-logic game a game for the developed mind, according to the Toymaker, who pricks at the Doctor's pride to goad him into playing. Pride has always been one of the Doctor's greatest weaknesses. He has 1,023 moves to complete the puzzle, no more and no less, and a single mistake will cost the entire game.
The character of the Toymaker is rather controversial, thanks in large part to the 'celestial' tag I think many people misinterpret the character as intended to be Chinese, and thus become outraged that he is played by a white man. As far as I can see, however, the character is not intended to be Chinese at all, but is rather a powerful eccentric alien who has adopted a variety of trappings from a variety of Earth cultures, 'celestial' being a play on words referring to both the Chinese robes he wears as an affectation (much like the Meddling Monk's 11th century friar's habit) and his heavenly origin. Michael Gough puts in an excellent performance, turning what could have been an extremely hammy character into a wonderfully sinister, if under-developed opponent. He falls into much the same antagonist category as the Meddling Monk before him and the Master many years later: he is a trickster of dubious origin, a mercurial opponent who plays games with the lives of others mainly for his own amusement, charming, unpredictable and ruthless. This story aired in the spring of 1966, a few months before the launch of Star Trek over in the United States, and I mention this because that first season of Star Trek is jam-packed with characters like the Toymaker, mercurial and utterly unexplained god-like alien beings playing games with the lives of others for their own amusement. It was evidently a fashionable trope to play with at the time!
Steven and Dodo's first game is a bizarre combination of Blind Man's Bluff and Snakes & Ladders. Serious-minded Steven still finds all this too absurd for words, but Dodo seems to feel that since they have no choice anyway, they may as well have some fun with it it's a reasonable attitude to take, making the best of the situation, but she doesn't seem to grasp that there could be any serious danger here. The Doctor manages to get a message to the pair, warning them that the game they are going to play is not as innocent as it seems. They already knew that, of course the clowns have made it clear that if they lose they will be stuck here forever, and Steven definitely grasped the implications, even if Dodo didn't. So the Doctor's warning is fairly pointless, other than to make the Toymaker angry with him for interference. As punishment he is dematerialised, left with only one hand with which to play his tri-logic game. That's one way to get around Hartnell's absence for the next two episodes!
Steven and Dodo's game begins, and this right here is the problem with this story in its current format: the visuals no longer exist, and it is an intensely visual story. We need to be able to see what's going on, in this story more than perhaps any other. Without that, it's just long stretches of comedy music with occasional scrolling text/linking narration. It's a shame, as it must surely have been more engaging to watch than it is to listen, weak though the story is. The gist here is that the clowns successfully navigate the course first, the one blindfolded and guided by the other via a buzzer system, but when Steven takes his turn, guided by Dodo, the clowns cheat and start moving the pieces, much to both of their exasperation Dodo is taking the game seriously now, absolutely furious with the clowns (although more on principle than out of any sense of actual danger), although there isn't much she can do about it.
I think that's another problem this story has it mostly requires the characters to be reactive, rather than proactive, which makes it all rather flat and meaningless. It comes as a relief when Steven at last tears his blindfold off and rips into the clowns, discovering that the clown Joey's blindfold has holes in it, allowing him to see. He blindfolds the clown properly this time and makes him start the game again this one scene of Steven taking charge of the situation comes as such a relief after the meandering audio that preceded it!
Unable to cheat, Clown Joey becomes very sombre and unsteady Dodo feels sorry for him, soft-hearted to a fault, but pragmatic Steven reminds her that it is them or the clowns. Finally, Clown Joey falls, losing the game, and he and Clown Clara turn back into dolls. The TARDIS appears but it is an empty shell. Dodo is indignant, while Steven is resigned. Inside the empty TARDIS is a note bearing a riddle and at the back is a door gullible Dodo hopes it might lead them to the real TARDIS, but Steven, always cynical and far more realistic, is resigned to the likelihood that it will only lead to another game. Either way, they have little choice but to continue.
Episode two: 'Hall of Dolls'
As Steven and Dodo find their way to their second game, the Doctor, watching on a screen, tries to get a warning to them and is punished by the Toymaker by being rendered dumb as well as intangible. So the Doctor will exist only as a silent, disembodied hand for the next two episodes while William Hartnell is on holiday
Steven and Dodo's next opponents are conjured up out of a deck of cards. As you do. They try to work out the meaning of the riddle they were given as a clue Dodo proves to have a good memory, able to recite the riddle back easily, having only read it through once. Steven is determined not to engage with their fellow players at all, bustling Dodo off into another room in search of more clues. The test, in essence, is this: there are seven chairs, six of which are dangerous the challengers must find the one safe chair in order to win. This time Dodo is taking the test deadly seriously, and it is she who urges Steven not to try sitting in any of the chairs himself for fear of what might happen. There are four cupboards shaped like the TARDIS and in them are a number of dolls, which Dodo realises can be used to test the chairs. She is capable of being quite perceptive when she takes the situation seriously and thinks it through.
The game is complicated by the presence of the playing card people, who Steven at first dismisses as mere playthings of the Toymaker, while Dodo giggles that they almost seem real much to their indignation, as they insist that they are real, previous victims who lost their game and have been trapped here ever since. This detail is largely glossed over, the significance of these unfortunate beings never fully addressed, but means that this is a real competition, as the Toymaker's playthings also want their freedom. Dodo naively almost gives away any advantage she and Steven might have, guileless and thoughtless as she is, but Steven manages to shut her up. Dodo is such a contradictory character, capable of being perceptive one moment and completely clueless the next. I do appreciate, though, that her open-mindedness can be both a strength and a weakness her willingness here to view the Toymaker's playthings as people does her credit, as does her compassion for them, but on the flip side it can also lead her to make serious mistakes. Steven's cynicism and pragmatism are sorely needed to keep her head in the game.
Dodo does manage to ask one important question: why. Why is the Toymaker doing all this? Why does he want to keep them here? Alas that question is never really answered. Because he is bored and wants to be entertained, and apparently for no better reason than that there is no attempt to explore the concept or characters in any depth.
There is a lot of time wasting chit-chat here I don't often accuse stories of padding, as much of what gets called 'padding' can also be viewed as insightful character material, valuable as such, but this story is definitely padded in an attempt to spin out a painfully thin plot over four episodes. These games could and should have been played out in a fraction of the time they take. This is the episode which is primarily castigated for containing 'racist content' a single word spoken by the King of Hearts as part of a familiar counting rhyme, inappropriate to modern audiences but innocuous enough at the time; the word is omitted from the reconstruction I watched, and is masked by linking narration in the official audio release.
One by one the dolls are sacrificed to the chairs, and suffer a variety of nasty fates. The playing card people come close to ruthlessly sacrificing one of their own before Steven stops them he may not see them as real people, but he still doesn't want to see them commit murder and then Dodo carelessly gives away their only advantage to the opposition. I have to hand it to Jackie Lane, she plays Dodo's cluelessness well, making that thoughtless, heedless chatter a natural part of the character, so that slips like this feel genuine rather than contrived. Steven the pessimist believes she has lost them the game and is furious with her, prompting Dodo to make amends by trying one of the remaining chairs herself to make up for her mistake. It's probably her strongest character moment in the story, a pro-active choice motivated by impulsive, resentful remorse but she has chosen the wrong chair, and it immediately begins to freeze her. Steven's recriminations are instantly forgotten as he tries to pull her free, and I really appreciate the way he keeps talking to her throughout this sequence, encouraging her to save herself by fighting the effects. Both actors put in a really good performance in this scene, if the vocals are anything to go by it's the first real character work they've had in this episode, a bonding moment for them. Dodo is grateful to Steven for saving her, while he insists they did it together and admits that the Doctor would never have forgiven him if he'd let anything happen to her he doesn't mention how important it is to him personally not to lose anyone else, after a long string of losses this season, but the sentiment is there in Peter Purves' delivery, even if not in the writing.
We could argue that it's a shame to damsel Dodo by placing her in peril and requiring her to be saved, but turnaround is fair play Steven was the one in distress in their first adventure together.
The playing card people have squabbled among themselves and chosen the wrong chair, despite holding the advantage there is only one chair now remaining, which must be the safe one. Steven and Dodo have won their second game and are presented with another TARDIS but it is another fake. There are still two episodes to go.
Hey, and then the TARDIS telephone rings the first time in the show's history that phone has ever been made use of except that it isn't the real TARDIS, of course. It is only the Toymaker, calling to gloat and offer more enigmatic warnings. The clue to the next game is another riddle.
Episode three: 'The Dancing Floor'
The Toymaker congratulates the silent, invisible Doctor on his choice of friends, calling them 'a very astute couple'. The playing card people referred to them as a 'couple' as well; it's very shippy language for a very non-shippy era of the show! With Hartnell on holiday, Michael Gough has to carry the Doctor's scenes with the Toymaker on his own, keeping that sub-plot ticking over, and he does a splendid job in the circumstances, with nothing to play off.
Steven and Dodo's next game is hunt-the-key, the location for it an old Victorian kitchen with two more of the Toymaker's playthings there as a distraction: Sergeant Rugg and Mrs Wiggs. Steven's exasperated remark that all the Toymaker's creations look the same to him could be considered a very modern sort of meta commentary on the fact that they are all played by the same actors!
While Dodo is poking around in search of the key, Steven allows himself to be riled by the play people Steven's impatience and hot temper have always been his greatest weaknesses, and here the bubbly, cheerful Dodo comes into her own, defusing him before he can explode. Their two personalities do make an effective contrast, balancing one another well. Then Dodo has a go at using her feminine wiles on Sergeant Rugg to persuade him to help, which is amusing.
Again, we spend a lot of time with the Toymaker's people in this episode, lengthy scenes which may well have been a lot more entertaining to watch than they are to listen to, but which are ultimately without any substance. These are not real people and we are not actually getting to know them; their supposedly comedic antics are intended purely to divert Steven and Dodo from their goal, designed quite literally to waste time text book filler, in fact! Comic, perhaps, but too much of it weakens a story that was already painfully thin.
Steven, impatient and hot-tempered though he is, is much better at focusing on the task in hand than Dodo, who keeps getting distracted by her instinctive concern for the people around her, unable to see them as anything other than real, while Steven is able to dismiss them as mere figments of the Toymaker's imagination. There's a potentially interesting reading to this, as on the one hand Dodo is right, these beings are also victims of the Toymaker, or what's left of them, but on the other hand Steven is right, if they are ever to escape they must keep their eye on the prize, can't allow themselves to be distracted.
At last Steven and Dodo find the key and make their escape, and it's kind of cute that even at the last Dodo can't resist calling back a farewell and apology to the Toymaker's people.
In the next room, annoyingly boppy music plays while a large dance floor populated by ballerina dolls separates Steven and Dodo from another TARDIS. The Toymaker tasks Sergeant Rugg and Mrs Wiggs with keeping them from it on pain of total destruction.
Steven tries making a dash across the dance floor but is instantly compelled to dance to the music, much to Dodo's amusement. I appreciate her good humour, but it isn't well written, making her come across as dim-witted, given the circumstances. She has plenty of potential as a character, but much of that potential is wasted by poor writing; only rarely in this story is she allowed realistic reactions to anything. She jumps onto the dance floor after Steven, and is likewise compelled to dance. Sergeant Ruggs and Mrs Wiggs also make their way onto the dance floor, anxious to get to the TARDIS first, and by now Steven has figured out what to do. The ballerina dolls change partner every time a new person steps onto the dance floor, so he picks his moment and takes the opportunity to grab Dodo. Now they are dancing together and are able to dance their way toward the TARDIS, able to jump down from the dance floor when they get to the other side. They have won their third game and this is the first victory they have actually earned, rather than just getting lucky. But this TARDIS, too, is a fake.
Here Steven and Dodo have yet another of their discussions about the Toymaker's play people, Steven still determined that they are entirely fictional, while Dodo is able to see that although the Toymaker brings them into being in these games, they have minds and wills of their own and thus make mistakes, which is why they are able to lose and why she has sympathy for them but on the other hand, she does still see them as animated toys, rather than toys animated with the residual consciousness of the Toymaker's victims. I'm not sure either of them fully grasps that aspect of the games, which is never dwelt on. The overall implication is that these are real beings, or at least the remains of real beings, transformed to appear in any guise the Toymaker chooses their consciousness used to animate his creations but retaining enough self to want their freedom. There's something rather macabre about that, and if that angle had been explored a bit more, it could have brought a lot of depth to the story.
Entering the next room, Steven and Dodo find their next riddle and encounter 'Cyril the Schoolboy', played by a 40-something actor, fat and jolly and mean known to his friends as 'Billy', the closest they can get to actually calling him 'Billy Bunter', which the character is based on but can't be called for reasons of copyright (they got into trouble over him as it was). He manages to scare Dodo with a trick spider very clichéd writing both for the prank-loving schoolboy and for a female character and tricks Steven into an 'electric shock' handshake. Steven snipes at him angrily while Dodo attempts to make peace, which has been the pattern for the entire serial so far. So much for episode three's cliffhanger ending.
Episode four: 'The Final Test'
The fourth episode of the serial sees a welcome return to live action at last some Doctor Who stories work out reasonably well as reconstructions, the audio providing enough that the imagination can fill in the rest, but this is not one of them. This is a story that really needs to be seen, but we can't and that damages it. Still, one episode is better than none, I suppose.
Cyril spends rather a lot of time explaining the final game to Steven and Dodo. It involves throwing dice and jumping from square to square, with the added frisson of danger in the form of an electrified floor. Delightful. And the Toymaker continues to take great delight in taunting the Doctor. There's nothing here we haven't heard before, but at least we can see the performances now. It does make a difference.
We spend a lot of time watching Steven, Dodo and Cyril jumping around from square to square, bickering about the rules as they go, while the Toymaker continues to taunt the silent, invisible Doctor. I rarely agree with people who say that this or that serial could have been over and done with in half the time, but it really is true of this one. There's been no actual plot advancement since episode one and we haven't learned anything meaningful or new about the characters in that time, either, or seen them do anything truly significant or interesting. Party games are all well and good at a party, but trying to make a handful of games fill entire episodes for four weeks in a row wasn't a great idea, and there's no excitement or urgency that might have livened it up, either, no sense that the characters are truly being tested or that they are learning and growing as a result of the experience. I do enjoy Steven's sarcasm, always, but it's otherwise terribly flat and dull.
Since the Toymaker is so confident that he will win, he gives the Doctor his voice back and the Doctor promptly throws shade at him. Now that's more like it.
Dodo is still trying to enjoy herself while playing the games, and she's still more concerned with 'playing fair' (by playground standards, against opponents she knows will cheat shamelessly) than the consequences of losing. It's her character, I suppose, that she's so sunny and tries to make the best of things, but it doesn't exactly sell the gravity of the situation the danger never feels real, more especially when undercut like that. Poor Steven is beside himself with furious exasperation when, despite his frantic warnings, she falls for Cyril's underhand tactics yet again when he pretends to be hurt. You'd think she was in the school playground among children rather than fighting for her very life against cunning and dangerous opposition. Falling for such a trick once might have been fair enough, back at the start of the story, demonstrating her kind and generous heart, but to have her make the same mistake over and over, never learning to exercise any restraint or caution, just makes her look stupid. If a character whose very existence is at stake fails to take the situation remotely seriously, why should I? This was an opportunity for her to experience a steep learning curve and come out of it wiser and better equipped for the future, but unfortunately she doesn't learn a thing and almost costs her friends' lives, as well as her own, several times over as a result of her heedlessness. It's incredibly poor character writing, weakening a very new and already poorly established character tremendously.
Not for the first time, Steven and Dodo manage to win their game only because their opponent makes a silly mistake perhaps the intention was to show their opponents as human and fallible, but I think it would have strengthened the story considerably if our protagonists had been set challenges that required them to really think their way out of trouble, demonstrating their ingenuity and skill. As it is, they've effectively played rather undemanding games of chance and got lucky each time. At least Dodo looks suitably appalled to see Cyril electrified and turned back into a doll.
The Doctor is visible again at last and gloats that Steven and Dodo's victory has broken the Toymaker's little trick. He stalks off to check on the TARDIS without making his final move finally, some pro-activity! And oh, look how happy they all are to see each other again! The trio have a joyful reunion, which is very cute to watch after treading water for so long.
The Toymaker, however, taunts them that they cannot win completely, as if they do, he and the Doctor must go down together. The Doctor immediately looks as if he's sucked a lemon, so his friends immediately know that something is wrong. He ties to fob them off, but finally has to admit that the Toymaker might be able to drag them down with him, and he couches it all in double-talk that has Dodo thoroughly confused not that that's hard, in this serial! The trouble is, though, that there isn't really a good explanation for anything in this story, so every explanation the Doctor tries to give is of necessity woolly in the extreme. There is an amusing moment when Steven loses his temper and tries to smack the Toymaker, only to feel the force of the blow himself! Peter Purves is the only thing in this serial worth the trouble of watching.
The Doctor sends Steven and Dodo into the TARDIS while he confronts the Toymaker, who tries to tempt him with offers of power well, his future self won't be moved by such offers when the Master tries it, and he isn't moved now. He is stymied, however, when he realises that he can't dematerialise the TARDIS until he has completed his final move in the tri-logic game but he also can't complete that final move without destroying himself along with the Toymaker's world (although not the immortal Toymaker himself, as he can just make himself a new world, apparently). It's a knotty problem.
Steven offers to go out and make the final move so that the Doctor can dematerialise the TARDIS in the same moment, saving himself and Dodo it's a brave, self-sacrificial offer and one of only a handful of solid character moments in the story; as poor as the writing has generally been, I absolutely believe that this is something Steven would do, especially after everything he's been through.
The Doctor is having none of it, though. He has said from the start that they must use their cunning to win, and he finally manages just that. First, he has Steven pre-set the TARDIS controls for dematerialisation, cementing what we learned earlier: that Steven is able to fly the TARDIS, at least at a very basic level, the first non-Gallifreyan companion to do so. Then the Doctor mimics the Toymaker's voice to call out instructions to the game through the TARDIS door we've seen throughout that it takes verbal commands, as the Toymaker has used this ability to cheat his way through four episodes now, so it's fitting that the Doctor should use the function against him. Even as the automatic system completes the final move, winning the game, the TARDIS dematerialises the travellers have won and the Toymaker is defeated.
At last.
Dodo randomly decides to celebrate with a bag of sweets, which Cyril the Schoolboy gave her earlier. The Doctor takes one and promptly breaks a tooth on a toffee. I rather enjoy the way he buries his face in Steven's shoulder when the pain kicks in, but as cliffhanger endings go, I've seen better!
Quotable Quotes
DODO: We'd better play his silly games, Steven.
STEVEN: I don't see why we should humour him. He's obviously around the bend.
DODO: That's just it. If we don't do as he says, we may never get out of here.
TOYMAKER: Patience, Doctor, patience. You've only just got here. Relax. It's so nice to see you again.
DOCTOR: And now you have, so let us go.
TOYMAKER: You're so innocent, Doctor. The last time you were here, I hoped you'd stay long enough for a game, but you had hardly time to turn around.
DOCTOR: And very wise I was, too. You and your games are quite notorious. You draw people here like a spider does to flies.
TOYMAKER: How absurd. It amuses me to give amusement.
DOCTOR: And should they lose the game they play, you condemn them to become your toy forever.
DOCTOR: The tri-logic game?
TOYMAKER: The tri-logic game. A game for the mind, Doctor, the developed mind. Difficult for the practiced mind. Dangerous for the mind that has become old, lazy or weak.
DOCTOR: You infer that my mind is getting weak and old?
TOYMAKER: Well now, we shall see. Perhaps it is merely lazy.
DOCTOR: How dare you.
TOYMAKER: So you still think that you can pit your mind against mine?
DOCTOR: Of course I can.
TOYMAKER: Good. I hope that the time you have spent dabbling in your researches round the universe hasn't dulled you. I need you.
DOCTOR: You need me?
TOYMAKER: Yes. I'm bored. I love to play games, but there's no one to play against. The beings who call here have no minds and so they become my toys. But you will become my perpetual opponent. We shall play endless games together, your brain against mine.
STEVEN: Oh, it's a great future the Toymaker's got mapped out for us.
DOCTOR: I haven't made a mistake yet.
TOYMAKER: Let's hope not, Doctor. I would hate you to end up in my dolls' house. I reserve that fate for your two friends.
DOCTOR: They'll win, too.
TOYMAKER: No, they will lose one game, and then, like the clowns, they'll become my toys, and we shall be able to amuse ourselves through all eternity.
DODO: Don't risk it. None of the Toymakers' toys are just jokes. Six of these chairs will destroy us.
STEVEN: It's a charming thought, but you're probably right.
KING: Charming couple, aren't they?
QUEEN: It isn't very charming to be told you're not real. We were not amused.
DODO: Is that fair? They seem quite nice and friendly.
STEVEN: Can't you understand? We've got to win every game, otherwise we'll never see the TARDIS again. This isn't a children's party.
DODO: Oh, thank you. You did it.
STEVEN: Oh, we did it together.
DODO: Oh no, I couldn't do a thing. I couldn't move.
STEVEN: Thank goodness you're safe. The Doctor would never have forgiven me if anything had happened to you.
TOYMAKER: I congratulate you, Doctor, on your choice of friends. A very astute couple. Neither of my teams have been able to beat them yet. I think they have earned a little amusement. Now, what have we here to amuse them?
DODO: Honestly, Steven. If they're not real, how can you lose your temper with them? You can't have it both ways, you know.
STEVEN: Come on, don't lose heart now. We've been through too much.
STEVEN: Look, you still believe in these creations of the Toymaker, don't you? You can't see that they're just phantoms, things created in his mind.
DODO: If that's so, why do they lose to us? And always through doing something silly and human?
STEVEN: Oh, I don't know. Maybe they get out of his control.
DODO: There, that's just what I meant.
STEVEN: What are you talking about?
DODO: Look, he can bring them to life, but they have wills and minds of their own. I'll never be able to look at a doll or a playing card again with an easy mind. They really do have a secret life of their own.
CYRIL: If you don't abide by the rules, you can't possibly win the game.
DODO: He's right, Steven. We must play fair.
DOCTOR: Well, I was right.
DOCTOR: Oh, my dear friend, don't waste our time on trivial formalities. You have been defeated, so now leave us alone.
DODO: Well, do we have a chance to escape?
DOCTOR: Yes, we still have a chance, but we must proceed with cunning.
TOYMAKER: Doctor, I offer you power. Power to corrupt, to destroy. Think of the exhilaration of that power. Serve me and live.
DOCTOR: Never! Never, my friend. You have been defeated.
TOYMAKER: Make your last move, Doctor. Make your move.
DOCTOR: But if I do, this place vanishes.
TOYMAKER: And then you have won completely.
DOCTOR: And if this place vanishes, then the TARDIS and the rest of us, will vanish also.
TOYMAKER: Correct. That is the price of success. Make your last move, Doctor. Make your last move.
DOCTOR: It's no use.
STEVEN: What's he done?
DOCTOR: If we destroy the Toymaker, we destroy this world.
STEVEN: Well, is that bad?
DODO: Surely, that's a good thing. This is really a very sad place.
DOCTOR: I don't think neither of you understand. As the games are over, and won by us, everything outside the TARDIS disappears. And if we are there, we disappear also.
DODO: But we have won and it hasn't happened yet.
DOCTOR: But it will, my dear, the moment I go out there and make the final move of the tri-logic game.
STEVEN: Why doesn't he just let us go? He can't want to be destroyed.
DOCTOR: Oh, he won't be.
DODO: But if everything disappears, why not him?
DOCTOR: If the Toymaker loses the game, his world will vanish, but he has the power to build a new one.
DODO: How?
DOCTOR: The Toymaker is immortal. He's lasted for thousands of years. Very occasionally, of course, he loses a game, and then he has to pay the price.
STEVEN: And that price is the loss of his world?
DOCTOR: Yes, but he himself is not destroyed. He goes on forever.
STEVEN: Doctor, let me go out and make that move for you.
DOCTOR: Oh, nonsense, dear boy. You don't want to disappear.
STEVEN: At least you and Dodo would get away.
DOCTOR: Yes, well, that's very noble and kind of you, but I absolutely forbid it. You've done quite enough in getting the TARDIS back.
STEVEN: All right, but something's got to be done. We can't just stand here and talk our way out of this.
DOCTOR: We can! That's just it. That's just what we can do.
The Verdict
Overall and taken as a whole, I've got to be honest and admit that this is probably my least favourite First Doctor story the only thing I really enjoyed was Steven's sarcasm, but it wasn't enough. Of course, with three-quarters of the serial missing, it is impossible to really judge it, the loss of visuals being especially damaging for such an intensely visual story, but especially given the sparse set dressing and pedestrian direction on display in the extant final episode even if all four episodes did still exist to be viewed, I'm afraid the painfully thin plot and woefully weak characterisation would still be a fatal flaw. It is the combination of the two that is the real problem I don't usually have a problem with thin plots if the characters are well written, while weak character work can often be forgiven in an otherwise really well-drawn story, but the two combined is almost impossible to recover from. The concept is potentially intriguing, but is not successfully sustained across four episodes, and nothing is ever actually explained or truly resolved. How did the travellers end up in the Toymaker's realm? Where is it? Who is he? Where does he come from? What is the source of his power? None of these questions are ever actually answered. This is more of an exercise in treading water than a story nothing that happens comes out of what went before, the characters don't learn anything that they can draw on to help them succeed, and they don't really do anything to earn their victory. They just play childish games, very slowly, until the story is over.
The Doctor is missing for most of the adventure, and although the companions do their best to carry the story, there is precious little for the actors to get their teeth into. The story does at least succeed in showcasing the contrast between the new pairing of Steven and Dodo, who balance one another well his cynicism versus her naivety, her sunny nature tempering his impatience and irritability, his resourcefulness offsetting her gullibility, her compassion leavening his sometimes ruthless pragmatism. It's just a shame there's so little depth to the writing for them here, and that Dodo in particular is so poorly served by an atrocious script and even worse characterisation. Both actors do their best with poor material, however Peter Purves in particular always brings great conviction to his performance as Steven, able to sell even the most stilted of dialogue. He deserved better than this!
Follows on from Season One, Season Two, Galaxy Four, Mission to the Unknown, The Myth Makers, The Daleks' Master Plan, The Massacre and The Ark
DOCTOR: We must proceed with cunning.
Overview
The Celestial Toymaker is another of those mostly missing Doctor Who adventures, with only one of its four episodes surviving to be watched as originally intended. So, it's back to the recons for this review. The background to this story was rather tumultuous, with the script re-written several times by different people, at very short notice, before going into production. William Hartnell was on holiday for the middle two episodes, leaving companion actors Peter Purves and Jackie Lane to carry the action, and the story was made at a time when his relationship with the production team had become acrimonious, which must have made for a difficult atmosphere on set.
The plot, in a nutshell, is this: the TARDIS travellers find themselves pawns of an extremely powerful and very bored being called the Toymaker, who forces them to play twisted versions of childhood games for the prize of their own lives and freedom.
This story is absolutely bonkers. It's an extremely imaginative, surreal concept, reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland, with Michael Gough's Toymaker making a strong antagonist for the Doctor it's just a shame about the execution of the idea. It is impossible now, of course, with only one orphaned episode and three soundtracks to go on, to appreciate what this serial actually looked like when it was completed and aired, reconstructions cannot hope to do justice to such a visual story, but given the difficult circumstances, low budget, outlandish yet undeveloped concept, and weak character writing, I'm not sure how successful the production would ever have been.
Writer Brian Hayles / Donald Tosh
Director Bill Sellars
Script editor Gerry Davis
Producer Innes Lloyd
Aired 2-23 April 1966
Observations
Random thoughts while watching:
Episode one: 'The Celestial Toyroom'
Previously on Doctor Who okay so the recon of episode one picks up with a reprise of the cliffhanger ending of the last episode. It is worth pointing out that Steven is at the controls as the TARDIS lands the first companion (other than Susan) able to operate TARDIS even a little. He's a trained space pilot, so it makes sense that he'd be interested in learning about the TARDIS controls, but I'd love to have seen the Doctor teaching him!
Anyway, the Doctor suddenly fades into invisibility, much to the consternation of his companions, and he dramatically proclaims that they are under attack, an attack powerful enough to penetrate even the TARDIS! I rather like how appalled Steven sounds at the idea of being attacked inside the safe haven of the TARDIS. He's grown used to uncertainty outside, but inside has always been safe.
There's a nice air of crisis in these early minutes of the episode the Doctor still talking but both invisible and intangible, unable to operate the controls. Just as well Steven can operate a few basic controls, then, but the scanner is blocked so they are unable to see where they are. Steven is all for getting out of here pronto if the Doctor will just tell him what to do, but the Doctor feels they must face up to their enemy.
Outside the TARDIS, the Doctor becomes visible once more, and I rather enjoy everyone's delight about this. The Doctor is still wary, though and rightly so. They have landed in a very strange, sparse landscape whose location is never explained. Steven is staggered when he looks at a nearby screen and sees images of himself, first on the planet Kembel and then in Paris. Dodo, meanwhile, sees her younger self on the day her mother died. We already knew that her parents were dead and that she lived with a great-aunt, but if only the visual for this scene survived we might have an idea of how old she was when she lost her mother always good to build on available backstory. The Doctor warns that this screen is hypnotic and they are not to look at it, which if I wanted to hypnotise someone with mesmerising images of their past, I can't help feeling I'd choose happy memories rather than traumatic ones! Anyway, the Doctor is figuring things out and realises that they are in the realm of the Celestial Toymaker which tells us that the Doctor has encountered the Toymaker before, in an unseen pre-series adventure that is only alluded to here. He warns his friends that they must not take anything they see at face value, to be wary of anything and everything in the Toymaker's realm, over which their enigmatic opponent has full control.
So the gang are trapped they can't escape in the TARDIS, because it has disappeared, and the Toymaker delights in playing tricks on people, revelling in their discomfort and confusion. Next thing, the Doctor also vanishes not just invisible and intangible this time but taken, leaving Steven and Dodo alone. While inexperienced Dodo frets and recriminates and asks all the obvious but useless questions, Steven sets his resolve: they have got to find the Doctor.
Easier said than done, however, as they are immediately confronted by a pair of clowns, playthings and tools of the Toymaker, designed to keep them from their goal. Steven, as is his wont, takes the situation extremely seriously, not the slightest bit amused by the clowns or their antics, but Dodo, dizzy, ditzy Dodo, seems to have forgotten the Doctor's warnings already, too busy laughing at the clowns as they torment the exasperated Steven. We saw in The Ark that Dodo rarely takes anything seriously, which makes for an effective contrast with Steven, who tends to take everything very seriously. Of course, the tables are turned when the clowns turn their jokes on Dodo and it is Steven's turn to laugh at her reaction. Neither one appreciates being the butt of a joke.
Steven and Dodo are looking extremely funky in this story, by the way, in a very '60s sort of fashion. Just saying.
When the Toymaker declares that the clowns are here to entertain, Steven gets back to business at once, demanding to know where the Doctor has been taken. The Toymaker menacingly explains that he and the Doctor are going to play a little game, which the others can watch on a screen but they must win their games before he does. After each game they win, they will find a TARDIS, which may or may not be the real one. If they lose, they will remain trapped here forever. Well, that sets up the remainder of the story for us: this is a pure comedy plot, in which the central motif is triumph over adverse circumstance, resulting in a successful or happy conclusion. The goal is not to acquire, learn or save anything, but simply to survive and escape.
A simple plot like this could be a great opportunity to explore the characters and develop their relationship Steven and Dodo don't know one another that well, after all, having only just met and been thrown together by circumstance. This is not a production team particularly interested in characters, however, and that combined with the behind-the-scenes difficulties during the writing and production of this story makes this a largely wasted opportunity, where the characters are concerned.
Dodo has almost completely lost her northern accent now, after it wavered throughout her first adventure evidently the production team were told that their main characters should have proper RP accents, so Dodo's had to change!
Anyway, Steven always so impatient and cynical is reluctant to go along with the Toymaker's games, not wanting such foolishness to distract them from the task at hand and disdainful of the notion of having to play childish games, but Dodo is clear-headed enough to realise that if they don't play along they might never be able to escape. Again, this is consistent characterisation for Dodo we saw in The Ark that she is capable of being surprisingly perceptive, beneath her more usual ditzy heedlessness. They have very little choice but to play along, and so the games begin.
The Doctor, meanwhile, is adopting much the same tactic as Steven, railing at the Toymaker and demanding an end to the jokes and games, with about the same level of success. His history with the Toymaker is tantalisingly hinted at, but never laid bare; although the Doctor does tell us that the Toymaker and his games are notorious, he never says among whom. We are told that the last time they met, the Doctor about turned and left immediately, thus avoiding being drawn into the Toymaker's games but we aren't told how he managed that, or why he couldn't do the same this time. Here and now, the Doctor is to play a tri-logic game a game for the developed mind, according to the Toymaker, who pricks at the Doctor's pride to goad him into playing. Pride has always been one of the Doctor's greatest weaknesses. He has 1,023 moves to complete the puzzle, no more and no less, and a single mistake will cost the entire game.
The character of the Toymaker is rather controversial, thanks in large part to the 'celestial' tag I think many people misinterpret the character as intended to be Chinese, and thus become outraged that he is played by a white man. As far as I can see, however, the character is not intended to be Chinese at all, but is rather a powerful eccentric alien who has adopted a variety of trappings from a variety of Earth cultures, 'celestial' being a play on words referring to both the Chinese robes he wears as an affectation (much like the Meddling Monk's 11th century friar's habit) and his heavenly origin. Michael Gough puts in an excellent performance, turning what could have been an extremely hammy character into a wonderfully sinister, if under-developed opponent. He falls into much the same antagonist category as the Meddling Monk before him and the Master many years later: he is a trickster of dubious origin, a mercurial opponent who plays games with the lives of others mainly for his own amusement, charming, unpredictable and ruthless. This story aired in the spring of 1966, a few months before the launch of Star Trek over in the United States, and I mention this because that first season of Star Trek is jam-packed with characters like the Toymaker, mercurial and utterly unexplained god-like alien beings playing games with the lives of others for their own amusement. It was evidently a fashionable trope to play with at the time!
Steven and Dodo's first game is a bizarre combination of Blind Man's Bluff and Snakes & Ladders. Serious-minded Steven still finds all this too absurd for words, but Dodo seems to feel that since they have no choice anyway, they may as well have some fun with it it's a reasonable attitude to take, making the best of the situation, but she doesn't seem to grasp that there could be any serious danger here. The Doctor manages to get a message to the pair, warning them that the game they are going to play is not as innocent as it seems. They already knew that, of course the clowns have made it clear that if they lose they will be stuck here forever, and Steven definitely grasped the implications, even if Dodo didn't. So the Doctor's warning is fairly pointless, other than to make the Toymaker angry with him for interference. As punishment he is dematerialised, left with only one hand with which to play his tri-logic game. That's one way to get around Hartnell's absence for the next two episodes!
Steven and Dodo's game begins, and this right here is the problem with this story in its current format: the visuals no longer exist, and it is an intensely visual story. We need to be able to see what's going on, in this story more than perhaps any other. Without that, it's just long stretches of comedy music with occasional scrolling text/linking narration. It's a shame, as it must surely have been more engaging to watch than it is to listen, weak though the story is. The gist here is that the clowns successfully navigate the course first, the one blindfolded and guided by the other via a buzzer system, but when Steven takes his turn, guided by Dodo, the clowns cheat and start moving the pieces, much to both of their exasperation Dodo is taking the game seriously now, absolutely furious with the clowns (although more on principle than out of any sense of actual danger), although there isn't much she can do about it.
I think that's another problem this story has it mostly requires the characters to be reactive, rather than proactive, which makes it all rather flat and meaningless. It comes as a relief when Steven at last tears his blindfold off and rips into the clowns, discovering that the clown Joey's blindfold has holes in it, allowing him to see. He blindfolds the clown properly this time and makes him start the game again this one scene of Steven taking charge of the situation comes as such a relief after the meandering audio that preceded it!
Unable to cheat, Clown Joey becomes very sombre and unsteady Dodo feels sorry for him, soft-hearted to a fault, but pragmatic Steven reminds her that it is them or the clowns. Finally, Clown Joey falls, losing the game, and he and Clown Clara turn back into dolls. The TARDIS appears but it is an empty shell. Dodo is indignant, while Steven is resigned. Inside the empty TARDIS is a note bearing a riddle and at the back is a door gullible Dodo hopes it might lead them to the real TARDIS, but Steven, always cynical and far more realistic, is resigned to the likelihood that it will only lead to another game. Either way, they have little choice but to continue.
Episode two: 'Hall of Dolls'
As Steven and Dodo find their way to their second game, the Doctor, watching on a screen, tries to get a warning to them and is punished by the Toymaker by being rendered dumb as well as intangible. So the Doctor will exist only as a silent, disembodied hand for the next two episodes while William Hartnell is on holiday
Steven and Dodo's next opponents are conjured up out of a deck of cards. As you do. They try to work out the meaning of the riddle they were given as a clue Dodo proves to have a good memory, able to recite the riddle back easily, having only read it through once. Steven is determined not to engage with their fellow players at all, bustling Dodo off into another room in search of more clues. The test, in essence, is this: there are seven chairs, six of which are dangerous the challengers must find the one safe chair in order to win. This time Dodo is taking the test deadly seriously, and it is she who urges Steven not to try sitting in any of the chairs himself for fear of what might happen. There are four cupboards shaped like the TARDIS and in them are a number of dolls, which Dodo realises can be used to test the chairs. She is capable of being quite perceptive when she takes the situation seriously and thinks it through.
The game is complicated by the presence of the playing card people, who Steven at first dismisses as mere playthings of the Toymaker, while Dodo giggles that they almost seem real much to their indignation, as they insist that they are real, previous victims who lost their game and have been trapped here ever since. This detail is largely glossed over, the significance of these unfortunate beings never fully addressed, but means that this is a real competition, as the Toymaker's playthings also want their freedom. Dodo naively almost gives away any advantage she and Steven might have, guileless and thoughtless as she is, but Steven manages to shut her up. Dodo is such a contradictory character, capable of being perceptive one moment and completely clueless the next. I do appreciate, though, that her open-mindedness can be both a strength and a weakness her willingness here to view the Toymaker's playthings as people does her credit, as does her compassion for them, but on the flip side it can also lead her to make serious mistakes. Steven's cynicism and pragmatism are sorely needed to keep her head in the game.
Dodo does manage to ask one important question: why. Why is the Toymaker doing all this? Why does he want to keep them here? Alas that question is never really answered. Because he is bored and wants to be entertained, and apparently for no better reason than that there is no attempt to explore the concept or characters in any depth.
There is a lot of time wasting chit-chat here I don't often accuse stories of padding, as much of what gets called 'padding' can also be viewed as insightful character material, valuable as such, but this story is definitely padded in an attempt to spin out a painfully thin plot over four episodes. These games could and should have been played out in a fraction of the time they take. This is the episode which is primarily castigated for containing 'racist content' a single word spoken by the King of Hearts as part of a familiar counting rhyme, inappropriate to modern audiences but innocuous enough at the time; the word is omitted from the reconstruction I watched, and is masked by linking narration in the official audio release.
One by one the dolls are sacrificed to the chairs, and suffer a variety of nasty fates. The playing card people come close to ruthlessly sacrificing one of their own before Steven stops them he may not see them as real people, but he still doesn't want to see them commit murder and then Dodo carelessly gives away their only advantage to the opposition. I have to hand it to Jackie Lane, she plays Dodo's cluelessness well, making that thoughtless, heedless chatter a natural part of the character, so that slips like this feel genuine rather than contrived. Steven the pessimist believes she has lost them the game and is furious with her, prompting Dodo to make amends by trying one of the remaining chairs herself to make up for her mistake. It's probably her strongest character moment in the story, a pro-active choice motivated by impulsive, resentful remorse but she has chosen the wrong chair, and it immediately begins to freeze her. Steven's recriminations are instantly forgotten as he tries to pull her free, and I really appreciate the way he keeps talking to her throughout this sequence, encouraging her to save herself by fighting the effects. Both actors put in a really good performance in this scene, if the vocals are anything to go by it's the first real character work they've had in this episode, a bonding moment for them. Dodo is grateful to Steven for saving her, while he insists they did it together and admits that the Doctor would never have forgiven him if he'd let anything happen to her he doesn't mention how important it is to him personally not to lose anyone else, after a long string of losses this season, but the sentiment is there in Peter Purves' delivery, even if not in the writing.
We could argue that it's a shame to damsel Dodo by placing her in peril and requiring her to be saved, but turnaround is fair play Steven was the one in distress in their first adventure together.
The playing card people have squabbled among themselves and chosen the wrong chair, despite holding the advantage there is only one chair now remaining, which must be the safe one. Steven and Dodo have won their second game and are presented with another TARDIS but it is another fake. There are still two episodes to go.
Hey, and then the TARDIS telephone rings the first time in the show's history that phone has ever been made use of except that it isn't the real TARDIS, of course. It is only the Toymaker, calling to gloat and offer more enigmatic warnings. The clue to the next game is another riddle.
Episode three: 'The Dancing Floor'
The Toymaker congratulates the silent, invisible Doctor on his choice of friends, calling them 'a very astute couple'. The playing card people referred to them as a 'couple' as well; it's very shippy language for a very non-shippy era of the show! With Hartnell on holiday, Michael Gough has to carry the Doctor's scenes with the Toymaker on his own, keeping that sub-plot ticking over, and he does a splendid job in the circumstances, with nothing to play off.
Steven and Dodo's next game is hunt-the-key, the location for it an old Victorian kitchen with two more of the Toymaker's playthings there as a distraction: Sergeant Rugg and Mrs Wiggs. Steven's exasperated remark that all the Toymaker's creations look the same to him could be considered a very modern sort of meta commentary on the fact that they are all played by the same actors!
While Dodo is poking around in search of the key, Steven allows himself to be riled by the play people Steven's impatience and hot temper have always been his greatest weaknesses, and here the bubbly, cheerful Dodo comes into her own, defusing him before he can explode. Their two personalities do make an effective contrast, balancing one another well. Then Dodo has a go at using her feminine wiles on Sergeant Rugg to persuade him to help, which is amusing.
Again, we spend a lot of time with the Toymaker's people in this episode, lengthy scenes which may well have been a lot more entertaining to watch than they are to listen to, but which are ultimately without any substance. These are not real people and we are not actually getting to know them; their supposedly comedic antics are intended purely to divert Steven and Dodo from their goal, designed quite literally to waste time text book filler, in fact! Comic, perhaps, but too much of it weakens a story that was already painfully thin.
Steven, impatient and hot-tempered though he is, is much better at focusing on the task in hand than Dodo, who keeps getting distracted by her instinctive concern for the people around her, unable to see them as anything other than real, while Steven is able to dismiss them as mere figments of the Toymaker's imagination. There's a potentially interesting reading to this, as on the one hand Dodo is right, these beings are also victims of the Toymaker, or what's left of them, but on the other hand Steven is right, if they are ever to escape they must keep their eye on the prize, can't allow themselves to be distracted.
At last Steven and Dodo find the key and make their escape, and it's kind of cute that even at the last Dodo can't resist calling back a farewell and apology to the Toymaker's people.
In the next room, annoyingly boppy music plays while a large dance floor populated by ballerina dolls separates Steven and Dodo from another TARDIS. The Toymaker tasks Sergeant Rugg and Mrs Wiggs with keeping them from it on pain of total destruction.
Steven tries making a dash across the dance floor but is instantly compelled to dance to the music, much to Dodo's amusement. I appreciate her good humour, but it isn't well written, making her come across as dim-witted, given the circumstances. She has plenty of potential as a character, but much of that potential is wasted by poor writing; only rarely in this story is she allowed realistic reactions to anything. She jumps onto the dance floor after Steven, and is likewise compelled to dance. Sergeant Ruggs and Mrs Wiggs also make their way onto the dance floor, anxious to get to the TARDIS first, and by now Steven has figured out what to do. The ballerina dolls change partner every time a new person steps onto the dance floor, so he picks his moment and takes the opportunity to grab Dodo. Now they are dancing together and are able to dance their way toward the TARDIS, able to jump down from the dance floor when they get to the other side. They have won their third game and this is the first victory they have actually earned, rather than just getting lucky. But this TARDIS, too, is a fake.
Here Steven and Dodo have yet another of their discussions about the Toymaker's play people, Steven still determined that they are entirely fictional, while Dodo is able to see that although the Toymaker brings them into being in these games, they have minds and wills of their own and thus make mistakes, which is why they are able to lose and why she has sympathy for them but on the other hand, she does still see them as animated toys, rather than toys animated with the residual consciousness of the Toymaker's victims. I'm not sure either of them fully grasps that aspect of the games, which is never dwelt on. The overall implication is that these are real beings, or at least the remains of real beings, transformed to appear in any guise the Toymaker chooses their consciousness used to animate his creations but retaining enough self to want their freedom. There's something rather macabre about that, and if that angle had been explored a bit more, it could have brought a lot of depth to the story.
Entering the next room, Steven and Dodo find their next riddle and encounter 'Cyril the Schoolboy', played by a 40-something actor, fat and jolly and mean known to his friends as 'Billy', the closest they can get to actually calling him 'Billy Bunter', which the character is based on but can't be called for reasons of copyright (they got into trouble over him as it was). He manages to scare Dodo with a trick spider very clichéd writing both for the prank-loving schoolboy and for a female character and tricks Steven into an 'electric shock' handshake. Steven snipes at him angrily while Dodo attempts to make peace, which has been the pattern for the entire serial so far. So much for episode three's cliffhanger ending.
Episode four: 'The Final Test'
The fourth episode of the serial sees a welcome return to live action at last some Doctor Who stories work out reasonably well as reconstructions, the audio providing enough that the imagination can fill in the rest, but this is not one of them. This is a story that really needs to be seen, but we can't and that damages it. Still, one episode is better than none, I suppose.
Cyril spends rather a lot of time explaining the final game to Steven and Dodo. It involves throwing dice and jumping from square to square, with the added frisson of danger in the form of an electrified floor. Delightful. And the Toymaker continues to take great delight in taunting the Doctor. There's nothing here we haven't heard before, but at least we can see the performances now. It does make a difference.
We spend a lot of time watching Steven, Dodo and Cyril jumping around from square to square, bickering about the rules as they go, while the Toymaker continues to taunt the silent, invisible Doctor. I rarely agree with people who say that this or that serial could have been over and done with in half the time, but it really is true of this one. There's been no actual plot advancement since episode one and we haven't learned anything meaningful or new about the characters in that time, either, or seen them do anything truly significant or interesting. Party games are all well and good at a party, but trying to make a handful of games fill entire episodes for four weeks in a row wasn't a great idea, and there's no excitement or urgency that might have livened it up, either, no sense that the characters are truly being tested or that they are learning and growing as a result of the experience. I do enjoy Steven's sarcasm, always, but it's otherwise terribly flat and dull.
Since the Toymaker is so confident that he will win, he gives the Doctor his voice back and the Doctor promptly throws shade at him. Now that's more like it.
Dodo is still trying to enjoy herself while playing the games, and she's still more concerned with 'playing fair' (by playground standards, against opponents she knows will cheat shamelessly) than the consequences of losing. It's her character, I suppose, that she's so sunny and tries to make the best of things, but it doesn't exactly sell the gravity of the situation the danger never feels real, more especially when undercut like that. Poor Steven is beside himself with furious exasperation when, despite his frantic warnings, she falls for Cyril's underhand tactics yet again when he pretends to be hurt. You'd think she was in the school playground among children rather than fighting for her very life against cunning and dangerous opposition. Falling for such a trick once might have been fair enough, back at the start of the story, demonstrating her kind and generous heart, but to have her make the same mistake over and over, never learning to exercise any restraint or caution, just makes her look stupid. If a character whose very existence is at stake fails to take the situation remotely seriously, why should I? This was an opportunity for her to experience a steep learning curve and come out of it wiser and better equipped for the future, but unfortunately she doesn't learn a thing and almost costs her friends' lives, as well as her own, several times over as a result of her heedlessness. It's incredibly poor character writing, weakening a very new and already poorly established character tremendously.
Not for the first time, Steven and Dodo manage to win their game only because their opponent makes a silly mistake perhaps the intention was to show their opponents as human and fallible, but I think it would have strengthened the story considerably if our protagonists had been set challenges that required them to really think their way out of trouble, demonstrating their ingenuity and skill. As it is, they've effectively played rather undemanding games of chance and got lucky each time. At least Dodo looks suitably appalled to see Cyril electrified and turned back into a doll.
The Doctor is visible again at last and gloats that Steven and Dodo's victory has broken the Toymaker's little trick. He stalks off to check on the TARDIS without making his final move finally, some pro-activity! And oh, look how happy they all are to see each other again! The trio have a joyful reunion, which is very cute to watch after treading water for so long.
The Toymaker, however, taunts them that they cannot win completely, as if they do, he and the Doctor must go down together. The Doctor immediately looks as if he's sucked a lemon, so his friends immediately know that something is wrong. He ties to fob them off, but finally has to admit that the Toymaker might be able to drag them down with him, and he couches it all in double-talk that has Dodo thoroughly confused not that that's hard, in this serial! The trouble is, though, that there isn't really a good explanation for anything in this story, so every explanation the Doctor tries to give is of necessity woolly in the extreme. There is an amusing moment when Steven loses his temper and tries to smack the Toymaker, only to feel the force of the blow himself! Peter Purves is the only thing in this serial worth the trouble of watching.
The Doctor sends Steven and Dodo into the TARDIS while he confronts the Toymaker, who tries to tempt him with offers of power well, his future self won't be moved by such offers when the Master tries it, and he isn't moved now. He is stymied, however, when he realises that he can't dematerialise the TARDIS until he has completed his final move in the tri-logic game but he also can't complete that final move without destroying himself along with the Toymaker's world (although not the immortal Toymaker himself, as he can just make himself a new world, apparently). It's a knotty problem.
Steven offers to go out and make the final move so that the Doctor can dematerialise the TARDIS in the same moment, saving himself and Dodo it's a brave, self-sacrificial offer and one of only a handful of solid character moments in the story; as poor as the writing has generally been, I absolutely believe that this is something Steven would do, especially after everything he's been through.
The Doctor is having none of it, though. He has said from the start that they must use their cunning to win, and he finally manages just that. First, he has Steven pre-set the TARDIS controls for dematerialisation, cementing what we learned earlier: that Steven is able to fly the TARDIS, at least at a very basic level, the first non-Gallifreyan companion to do so. Then the Doctor mimics the Toymaker's voice to call out instructions to the game through the TARDIS door we've seen throughout that it takes verbal commands, as the Toymaker has used this ability to cheat his way through four episodes now, so it's fitting that the Doctor should use the function against him. Even as the automatic system completes the final move, winning the game, the TARDIS dematerialises the travellers have won and the Toymaker is defeated.
At last.
Dodo randomly decides to celebrate with a bag of sweets, which Cyril the Schoolboy gave her earlier. The Doctor takes one and promptly breaks a tooth on a toffee. I rather enjoy the way he buries his face in Steven's shoulder when the pain kicks in, but as cliffhanger endings go, I've seen better!
Quotable Quotes
DODO: We'd better play his silly games, Steven.
STEVEN: I don't see why we should humour him. He's obviously around the bend.
DODO: That's just it. If we don't do as he says, we may never get out of here.
TOYMAKER: Patience, Doctor, patience. You've only just got here. Relax. It's so nice to see you again.
DOCTOR: And now you have, so let us go.
TOYMAKER: You're so innocent, Doctor. The last time you were here, I hoped you'd stay long enough for a game, but you had hardly time to turn around.
DOCTOR: And very wise I was, too. You and your games are quite notorious. You draw people here like a spider does to flies.
TOYMAKER: How absurd. It amuses me to give amusement.
DOCTOR: And should they lose the game they play, you condemn them to become your toy forever.
DOCTOR: The tri-logic game?
TOYMAKER: The tri-logic game. A game for the mind, Doctor, the developed mind. Difficult for the practiced mind. Dangerous for the mind that has become old, lazy or weak.
DOCTOR: You infer that my mind is getting weak and old?
TOYMAKER: Well now, we shall see. Perhaps it is merely lazy.
DOCTOR: How dare you.
TOYMAKER: So you still think that you can pit your mind against mine?
DOCTOR: Of course I can.
TOYMAKER: Good. I hope that the time you have spent dabbling in your researches round the universe hasn't dulled you. I need you.
DOCTOR: You need me?
TOYMAKER: Yes. I'm bored. I love to play games, but there's no one to play against. The beings who call here have no minds and so they become my toys. But you will become my perpetual opponent. We shall play endless games together, your brain against mine.
STEVEN: Oh, it's a great future the Toymaker's got mapped out for us.
DOCTOR: I haven't made a mistake yet.
TOYMAKER: Let's hope not, Doctor. I would hate you to end up in my dolls' house. I reserve that fate for your two friends.
DOCTOR: They'll win, too.
TOYMAKER: No, they will lose one game, and then, like the clowns, they'll become my toys, and we shall be able to amuse ourselves through all eternity.
DODO: Don't risk it. None of the Toymakers' toys are just jokes. Six of these chairs will destroy us.
STEVEN: It's a charming thought, but you're probably right.
KING: Charming couple, aren't they?
QUEEN: It isn't very charming to be told you're not real. We were not amused.
DODO: Is that fair? They seem quite nice and friendly.
STEVEN: Can't you understand? We've got to win every game, otherwise we'll never see the TARDIS again. This isn't a children's party.
DODO: Oh, thank you. You did it.
STEVEN: Oh, we did it together.
DODO: Oh no, I couldn't do a thing. I couldn't move.
STEVEN: Thank goodness you're safe. The Doctor would never have forgiven me if anything had happened to you.
TOYMAKER: I congratulate you, Doctor, on your choice of friends. A very astute couple. Neither of my teams have been able to beat them yet. I think they have earned a little amusement. Now, what have we here to amuse them?
DODO: Honestly, Steven. If they're not real, how can you lose your temper with them? You can't have it both ways, you know.
STEVEN: Come on, don't lose heart now. We've been through too much.
STEVEN: Look, you still believe in these creations of the Toymaker, don't you? You can't see that they're just phantoms, things created in his mind.
DODO: If that's so, why do they lose to us? And always through doing something silly and human?
STEVEN: Oh, I don't know. Maybe they get out of his control.
DODO: There, that's just what I meant.
STEVEN: What are you talking about?
DODO: Look, he can bring them to life, but they have wills and minds of their own. I'll never be able to look at a doll or a playing card again with an easy mind. They really do have a secret life of their own.
CYRIL: If you don't abide by the rules, you can't possibly win the game.
DODO: He's right, Steven. We must play fair.
DOCTOR: Well, I was right.
DOCTOR: Oh, my dear friend, don't waste our time on trivial formalities. You have been defeated, so now leave us alone.
DODO: Well, do we have a chance to escape?
DOCTOR: Yes, we still have a chance, but we must proceed with cunning.
TOYMAKER: Doctor, I offer you power. Power to corrupt, to destroy. Think of the exhilaration of that power. Serve me and live.
DOCTOR: Never! Never, my friend. You have been defeated.
TOYMAKER: Make your last move, Doctor. Make your move.
DOCTOR: But if I do, this place vanishes.
TOYMAKER: And then you have won completely.
DOCTOR: And if this place vanishes, then the TARDIS and the rest of us, will vanish also.
TOYMAKER: Correct. That is the price of success. Make your last move, Doctor. Make your last move.
DOCTOR: It's no use.
STEVEN: What's he done?
DOCTOR: If we destroy the Toymaker, we destroy this world.
STEVEN: Well, is that bad?
DODO: Surely, that's a good thing. This is really a very sad place.
DOCTOR: I don't think neither of you understand. As the games are over, and won by us, everything outside the TARDIS disappears. And if we are there, we disappear also.
DODO: But we have won and it hasn't happened yet.
DOCTOR: But it will, my dear, the moment I go out there and make the final move of the tri-logic game.
STEVEN: Why doesn't he just let us go? He can't want to be destroyed.
DOCTOR: Oh, he won't be.
DODO: But if everything disappears, why not him?
DOCTOR: If the Toymaker loses the game, his world will vanish, but he has the power to build a new one.
DODO: How?
DOCTOR: The Toymaker is immortal. He's lasted for thousands of years. Very occasionally, of course, he loses a game, and then he has to pay the price.
STEVEN: And that price is the loss of his world?
DOCTOR: Yes, but he himself is not destroyed. He goes on forever.
STEVEN: Doctor, let me go out and make that move for you.
DOCTOR: Oh, nonsense, dear boy. You don't want to disappear.
STEVEN: At least you and Dodo would get away.
DOCTOR: Yes, well, that's very noble and kind of you, but I absolutely forbid it. You've done quite enough in getting the TARDIS back.
STEVEN: All right, but something's got to be done. We can't just stand here and talk our way out of this.
DOCTOR: We can! That's just it. That's just what we can do.
The Verdict
Overall and taken as a whole, I've got to be honest and admit that this is probably my least favourite First Doctor story the only thing I really enjoyed was Steven's sarcasm, but it wasn't enough. Of course, with three-quarters of the serial missing, it is impossible to really judge it, the loss of visuals being especially damaging for such an intensely visual story, but especially given the sparse set dressing and pedestrian direction on display in the extant final episode even if all four episodes did still exist to be viewed, I'm afraid the painfully thin plot and woefully weak characterisation would still be a fatal flaw. It is the combination of the two that is the real problem I don't usually have a problem with thin plots if the characters are well written, while weak character work can often be forgiven in an otherwise really well-drawn story, but the two combined is almost impossible to recover from. The concept is potentially intriguing, but is not successfully sustained across four episodes, and nothing is ever actually explained or truly resolved. How did the travellers end up in the Toymaker's realm? Where is it? Who is he? Where does he come from? What is the source of his power? None of these questions are ever actually answered. This is more of an exercise in treading water than a story nothing that happens comes out of what went before, the characters don't learn anything that they can draw on to help them succeed, and they don't really do anything to earn their victory. They just play childish games, very slowly, until the story is over.
The Doctor is missing for most of the adventure, and although the companions do their best to carry the story, there is precious little for the actors to get their teeth into. The story does at least succeed in showcasing the contrast between the new pairing of Steven and Dodo, who balance one another well his cynicism versus her naivety, her sunny nature tempering his impatience and irritability, his resourcefulness offsetting her gullibility, her compassion leavening his sometimes ruthless pragmatism. It's just a shame there's so little depth to the writing for them here, and that Dodo in particular is so poorly served by an atrocious script and even worse characterisation. Both actors do their best with poor material, however Peter Purves in particular always brings great conviction to his performance as Steven, able to sell even the most stilted of dialogue. He deserved better than this!