The Doctor, Steven and Dodo arrive in the realms of the Celestial Toymaker, who forces them to play his deadly games.The Doctor, Steven and Dodo arrive in the realms of the Celestial Toymaker, who forces them to play his deadly games.The Doctor, Steven and Dodo arrive in the realms of the Celestial Toymaker, who forces them to play his deadly games.
Photos
- Director
- Writers
- Brian Hayles
- Gerry Davis(uncredited)
- Sydney Newman(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaProducing The Celestial Toymaker wasn't easy, even by Doctor Who standards. Most of the difficulties stemmed from the fact that it arose at a time of transition in the production office. Though commissioned by the team of producer John Wiles and script editor Donald Tosh, it was ultimately completed by the new team of Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis. The two sides simply had very different ideas about how the story should proceed. All four episodes were in fact written three different times. Brian Hayles had delivered all four original scripts, likely in late 1965. Tosh and Wiles had immediately seen that the scripts could not be practically realised, and thus Tosh rewrote them entirely. By the time he was finished, though, he was no longer script editor. Davis, his replacement, now had to deal with the fact that Tosh had inserted the use of the title characters from a play called George and Margaret by Gerald Savory without obtaining permission. Since Savory was now Head of Serials, and had the power to veto scripts, he quickly rejected Tosh's approach to The Celestial Toymaker.
Davis therefore had to tackle the scripts again. These rewrites got Savory's approval, but the old production team were left wondering what had happened to their scripts. Tosh opined that Davis' approach was "much lighter, more pantomime" than his own. The results were no more pleasing to John Wiles, who wrote a memo to Savory on 25 February 1966, after he had technically left the Doctor Who production office. In it, he claimed that the central battle of wills between the Doctor and the Toymaker had been downplayed to the benefit of new elements involving a more childish confrontation between the companions and the Toymaker's creations. Ultimately, Wiles would have liked to have seen the entire production halted, since its commissioning producer and script editor had gone - and with them, the original, more adult intent of the story.
- Quotes
The Celestial Toymaker: 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.
- ConnectionsReferenced in The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Day of the Clown: Part Two (2008)
Featured review
It's a pretty good start.
The Doctor, Steven and Dodo land in the world of The Celestial Toymaker, a powerful being, and a dangerous one.
It feels like the beginning of the end for William Hartnell, he's still wonderful, but his health had taken a downward turn, partly why he's invisible for most of this.
It's very different, it ventures into the world of surrealism and fantasy, and would set the precedent for episodes like The Mind Robber and Night Terrors.
It's very difficult to review this story as a whole, as it does vary enormously in quality, this first episode though, is quite good.
Michael Gough is great here as The Toymaker, it's such a shame that Colin Baker's Doctor never went to Blackpool for The Nightmare Fair. You wouldn't know it was Carmen Silvera.
It's not a very talky episode, so the audio really does rely on a strong narration, otherwise it would have big gaps, I'm prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt.
I think it's a good start, 7/10.
It feels like the beginning of the end for William Hartnell, he's still wonderful, but his health had taken a downward turn, partly why he's invisible for most of this.
It's very different, it ventures into the world of surrealism and fantasy, and would set the precedent for episodes like The Mind Robber and Night Terrors.
It's very difficult to review this story as a whole, as it does vary enormously in quality, this first episode though, is quite good.
Michael Gough is great here as The Toymaker, it's such a shame that Colin Baker's Doctor never went to Blackpool for The Nightmare Fair. You wouldn't know it was Carmen Silvera.
It's not a very talky episode, so the audio really does rely on a strong narration, otherwise it would have big gaps, I'm prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt.
I think it's a good start, 7/10.
helpful•21
- Sleepin_Dragon
- Mar 4, 2021
Details
- Runtime25 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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