Doctor Who: Series 3, Episodes 30-33 – “The Celestial Toymaker” (1966)

Given the recent 60^th anniversary special, it seemed appropriate to look back on this First Doctor story. I enjoy the really out-there serials, and it seems like classic Who’s black-and-white years are the best place to find them.  While three of the four episodes in this story are unfortunately lost, I can make do with pictorial reconstructions synced the the audio tracks (the things we do for Who!) for this imaginative serial that fits in well with the crazy likes of “The Web Planet,” “The Macra Terror,” and “The Mind Robber.”

The First Doctor has a problem—he’s gone incorporeal (don’t you just hate it when that happens?)  He, Steven, and Dodo arrival in a strange mystery realm where the culprit, the Toymaker, steps forward.  The Toymaker is a being of immense power who gets off on plucking people out of time and space and forcing them into twisted games for his amusement.  In the case of our heroes, the Toymaker traps them in his realm and sends Steven and Dodo on a series of challenges/rigged games while he himself goes up against the Doctor in a game of wits.

Lots of neat ideas woven in here.  Sure, on the face of it, the thought of someone as powerful as the Toymaker spending all his time making mortals play with dolls is super weird, but that just adds to the demented eeriness of the whole proceedings.  And anyway, it gives us an excuse to see his creepy toyroom, which features dolls and playing cards come to life, foreboding nursery rhymes, and all sorts of children’s entertainments repurposed as deathtraps. Doesn’t get much more classic nightmare fuel than that! (Side note: I bet Moffat adores this serial so hard.)

With all that’s going on, it holds my attention pretty well.  One, Steven, and Dodo are far from my favorite team TARDIS (not that they make a terrible trio or anything—they just don’t really grab me,) and as such, their serials can drag for me at times because the combination of personalities isn’t enough to hold me through the slower stretches of the story.  Here, though, things clip along at a good pace with a fine ebb and flow of suspense.  There’s the Doctor’s head-to-head with the Toymaker, the assorted perils Steven and Dodo are thrown into, and an incredibly important race against time just for kicks.

What with being invisible, intangible, and—for about half the serial—inaudible, the Doctor doesn’t get much to do until the finale, where he steps up with some clever machinations (this was near the end of William Hartnell’s tenure, and the whole incorporeal business is a clear justification to give him some time off.)  Steven and Dodo, however, are constantly on their feet, evading physical dangers and trying to puzzle out the Toymaker’s mind games.  Like I said, they’re not my favorites, but I think they might be at their most entertaining as a twosome here.  At this point in the season, they’re not really that close yet, and they bicker over their plans of action even as they manage to keep scraping through the games with their lives.  There’s also this amusing air hanging over their plot, because although they’re fully aware of the danger, they’re also aware of how bizarre and ridiculous the whole thing is.  Steven in particular comes off as slightly embarrassed that he’s doing any of this, making him even more impatient with Dodo than usual.