The Celestial Toymaker

“The Celestial Toymaker” is one of the first Doctor’s most recognised stories, a curious feat considering that William Hartnell is hardly in it and that only one out of the four episodes exists today. Perhaps this story is so well remembered because it is well and truly “out there”; a highly experimental “sideways” story which seems to have paid off. Michael Gough has to be given a tremendous amount of credit for his fantastic performance as the Toymaker. He spends half the story playing a game against a silent, disembodied hand and yet he still manages to impress!

However, despite the imagination of the story and the brilliance of the Toymaker himself, I don’t think that this serial quite deserves its lofty reputation. The ‘Trilogic Game’ (which so much of the story revolves around) completely lacks suspense; as the audience is ignorant of the rules the only suspense comes from how few moves are left, meaning that Steven and Dodo’s race against time to win the Toymaker’s games (and thus get the TARDIS back) has to really hold the audience’s attention, and in my case at least, it doesn’t. On the whole, with the notable exceptions of “The Myth Makers” and “The Daleks’ Master Plan” I am not a fan of Season Four, and this has a lot to do with the Doctor’s rather dull and predictable companions. Steven may have his moments, but at heart he’s just a rather generic male character merely thrown into the mix to handle the physical side of things; not a patch on the far more interesting Ian Chesterton. As for Dodo, she’s just plain stupid. Time after time in this story she falls for the Toymaker’s tricks, befriending his minions and almost getting herself killed in the process. Nevertheless, some of the games are entertaining to watch – particularly the game against Peter Stephens’ grotesquely superb ‘schoolboy’ Cyril in “The Final Test”, the serial’s orphaned episode.

“…then your battle will never end?”

All things considered, “The Celestial Toymaker” was ahead of its time and even as it exists today (as three audio-only episodes and one complete episode) is still an enjoyable piece of entertainment. With more involvement from William Hartnell (who goes missing part way through episode one and doesn’t show up until six minutes into “The Final Test”) it could have been so much better; if his sparring with the Toymaker in the final episode could have been spread across the whole story it would have really given the early episodes that little bit of steel that they are lacking. At least the resolution of the serial is brilliantly executed, in a way mirroring Rassilon’s riddle in “The Five Doctors” – “To win is to lose, and he who wins shall lose” – perhaps explaining why only the first Doctor knew what to do in that story! The sequel that never materialised (at least on TV) is also wonderfully set up; it is a real tragedy that we never got to see Michael Gough vs Colin Baker…