The Celestial Toymaker

Without doubt the worst Doctor Who I’ve seen. There are several stories from the sixties I haven’t yet watched but I really doubt they’ll be worse than this one.

The concept is an interesting one and the Toymaker is character that could work very well, indeed Big finish have done some great stories with him.

The games in this however are barely games at all, only episode 4 has a game that could really be considered one. The characters encountered are mostly annoying and nobody gets out of this withought some badly written dialogue.

It’s a shame how disappointing this story was but I just can’t think of anything to recommend it. Watch The Mind Robber to see the show do surreal properly.

A bit of a mixed story. On one hand, Michael Gough makes a truly memorable villain as the Celestial Toymaker, the guest actors all turn in good performances, and even from what we can still see, the set pieces look rather nice. The ending also has a nice bit of suspense thrown in.

On the other hand, the games aren't anything spectacular and a few of them drag on a bit (particularly in Episode 1.) The Doctor's absence from most of the story is felt and Dodo's clulelessness in the face of the toymaker's dolls can be exasperating at times.

Still, I think the story is more enjoyable than not, and worth experiencing for it's memorable titular villain.

I decided to watch the recon of this. Partly because the main defence of it is that it relies heavily on the visual elements and directing, so if it does ever turn up I don't think it will have lost any appeal. Especially, as there isn't much of a plot anyway. They were going to get another actor to come back in Hartnell's place, but instead, he limped on till Tenth Planet. Michael Gough is excellent as The Toy Maker, a villain that the Doctor recognises as soon as he sees what is outside the Tardis? Was the Toymaker meant to be a Timelord originally? Either way, both Gough and the Toymaker are great but his involvement with the Doctor is reduced to a disembodied hand playing a meaningless game with Steven and Dodo play even more arbitrary games that The Toymaker tries to bend in his favour? Surely, it would be more exciting for him to risk losing and making things more even? There is just no menace in this and the characters are annoying, especially, Dodo who doesn't take anything seriously. 'The Mind Robber' did surreal so much better. Although, I do like The Doctor's ventriloquist trick he does to escape the Toymakers world, I thought that was a very good idea. It lacks pace and excitement.

This is a bloody blast, the story is inventive, the celestial toymaker makes for one of the more interesting villains, Hartnell is insanely brilliant here however the writers mistaked Dodo for being stupid at some points when she's really not, the writer just decided to make her stupid a lot of the time which annoyed me. I really did like this story even if parts 2 and 3 are sort of filler, they're great set ups for episode 4 and I would be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued at the very least. I really liked this one and I would recommend it for people new to reconstructions and the time just flied by for me and I wasn't bored at all. To be honest it's easily one of my favourites of Hartnells era. Steven shines through his one and I absolutely loved him through this one.