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The Celestial Toymaker was the seventh story of Season 3 of Doctor Who, and the first to be produced by Innes Lloyd. It was at one point considered writing out William Hartnell as The Doctor in this story, but the idea was vetoed.
Synopsis
The travellers arrive in a strange domain presided over by the Celestial Toymaker – an enigmatic, immortal entity who forces them to play a series of games; failure at which will render them his playthings for all eternity. The Doctor has to solve the complex Trilogic game while Steven and Dodo are faced with defeating a succession of apparently child-like but potentially lethal animated toys in contests such as 'blind man's buff', musical chairs and 'hunt the key'.
The Doctor finally overcomes the Toymaker by imitating his voice in order to complete the Trilogic game from within the TARDIS, which then dematerialises as his foe's universe is destroyed.
Plot
Part One: The Celestial Toyroom
Aboard the TARDIS, The Doctor suddenly vanishes from sight. The Doctor says it's some sort of powerful attack, leaving him invisible as well as intangible, unable to touch the TARDIS controls. He tells Dodo and Steven to turn on the scanner, but nothing appears. He has them open the doors, and they head outside.
Steven and Dodo find the Doctor, now visible once more. Steven sees images himself on a screen on Kembel during DW: The Daleks' Master Plan and in Paris during DW: The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve. The Doctor realizes where they are, and not to look at the screen. They are in the world of the Celestial Toymaker, and that the screen is a trap designed to let him get into their minds. The Doctor explains that the Toymaker is an evil force that traps people and turns them into his playthings. The Toymaker appears and tries to get Dodo to watch the screen, which shows herself on the day her mother died. Dodo suggests they escape in the TARDIS, prompting the Toymaker to show them hundreds of TARDISes on his screen, before vanishing with the Doctor.
The Toymaker sends two clown dolls from his doll house, Joey and Clara, which he makes into full-sized people, to play a game with Dodo and Steven while he plays a game with the Doctor. He explains that after each game Steven and Dodo win, they'll find a TARDIS which may or may not be the real one. They must find the real TARDIS before the Doctor has finished his game.
The game he assigns to the Doctor is called the Trilogic game, which appears to be identical to the classic puzzle Tower of Hanoi, using 10 discs. He tells the Doctor he has exactly 1023 moves to complete the game; one wrong move, and he will lose and be kept there forever. He points out a counter to keep track of how many moves the Doctor has taken. To prevent the Doctor from stalling in order to give Steven and Dodo more time, the Toymaker has the ability to command the Trilogic Game to move ahead to a specific move. The Toymaker explains that he specifically brought the Doctor to his world because he's been bored, and if he can trap the Doctor, he'll have a brilliant mind to play against for all time. The Toymaker mentions that he and the Doctor had met once before, but that the Doctor escaped before they could even play one game. The Doctor remarks that it was wise of himself to do so.
Steven and Dodo, meanwhile, are pitted against the two clowns in "Blind Man's Bluff." One teammate will move around an obstacle course blindfolded, being guided only by coded buzzes from their partner. If the blindfolded person falls over, they lose. The Doctor tries to call out to warn Steven and Dodo about the game, but The Toymaker cuts him off, and, as punishment, makes him intangible once more (except for one hand, so he can still play his game). Joey goes first and effortlessly succeeds. Steven goes next, but has a hard time, especially because Joey has moved some obstacles around. Steven seems to fail, but they inspect Joey's blindfold, and it's see-through, meaning the clowns had been cheating all along. They demand a re-match, and this time Joey falls, and Clara suddenly collapses.
A TARDIS appears, but it's a fake. Steven and Dodo find a piece of paper with a riddle on it: "Four legs, no feet; Of arms no lack; It carries no burden on its back; Six deadly sisters, seven for choice; Call the servants without voice." They looks back, and the clowns have become figurines.
Part Two: The Hall of Dolls
Steven and Dodo move on through the false TARDIS into the next room, which contains different sizes and shapes of chairs in two adjoining rooms - three in one room, four in the other. The Doctor, who is apparently familiar with the Toymaker's games, cries out, "It's chair number-" but is cut off by the Toymaker before he can give them the answer to the game. The Toymaker takes away the Doctor's ability to speak and commands the game to go to move 444. He picks up a deck of cards and declares that he will send the "Heart Family" to play against Steven and Dodo next. The pair are joined in the chair room by people dressed as the King, Queen, and Jack of hearts, as well as the Joker. They realize that the line from the riddle they found earlier, "Six deadly sisters, seven for choice" means one chair is the correct choice, and the other six are deadly. They find seven dolls in TARDIS-shaped cabinets and decide to test out the chairs with them, assuming them to be the "servants without voice." The King and Queen see the dolls and demand they be shared, so Steven and Dodo hide three of them and the four players take one doll each. They split up between the rooms, and each try a chair. The King puts his doll in a chair, and the chair shakes violently until the doll's head falls off. Dodo throws her doll into a chair, and it is electrocuted. Steven tries another, and a knife cuts the doll in half. The King puts the last doll into a chair, and it simply vanishes. Steven and Dodo have one chair left in their room, but left the extra three dolls in the room the King and Queen are in. As Steven heads for the other room, Dodo sits down in the remaining chair. The Toymaker taunts the Doctor, now on move 690, telling him Dodo has chosen the wrong chair - the "freezing" chair. Steven notices, and rushes to her. She says she suddenly feels cold, and cannot move. Steven manages to pull her free from the chair. Meanwhile, the King and Queen try to convince the Joker to test a chair for them, but he catches on to their plan and runs away. Unable to agree on who should try a chair next, the two sit in one of the two remaining chairs together. For a moment, nothing happens, and it appears they won, until the chair suddenly collapses on them. Dodo suggests they go to help them, but Steven realizes there's only one chair left, and sits in it, winning the game. A TARDIS appears, but it's another fake. Recalling that they haven't solved the entire riddle, they try to "call the servants without voice" and call the remaining three dolls to them. Just then, the TARDIS' phone rings. Steven answers, and it is the Toymaker, delivering the next clue: "Hunt the key, to fit the door; That leads out on the dancing floor. Then escape the rhythmic beat; Or you'll forever tap your feet." The phone goes dead. They notice the King and Queen have become cards. As the two continue on, the three remaining dolls come to life and start to pursue them..
Part Three: The Dancing Floor
To be added
Part Four: The Final Test
To be added
Cast
- Dr. Who - William Hartnell
- Steven Taylor - Peter Purves
- Dodo Chaplet - Jackie Lane
- Toymaker - Michael Gough
- Joey the Clown / King of Hearts / Sgt. Rugg - Campbell Singer
- Clara the Clown / Queen of Hearts / Mrs. Wiggs - Carmen Silvera
- Cyril / Kitchen Boy / Knave of Hearts - Peter Stephens
- Joker - Reg Lever
- Dancers - Beryl Braham, Ann Harrison, Delia Lindon
Crew
- Assistant Floor Manager - Elisabeth Dunbar
- Choreographer - Tutte Lemkow
- Costumes - Daphne Dare
- Designer - John Wood
- Incidental Music - Dudley Simpson
- Make-Up - Sonia Markham
- Producer - Innes Lloyd
- Production Assistant - Snowy White
- Script Editor - Gerry Davis
- Special Sounds - Brian Hodgson
- Studio Lighting - Frank Cresswell
- Studio Sound - Alan Fogg
- Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
- Title Music - Ron Grainer
References
- Steven sees himself on the planet Kembel and in 16th century Paris in flashbacks to The Daleks' Master Plan and The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve respectively, and also refers to the Monoids from The Ark.
- Dodo initially speculates that the Doctor's intangibility is due to the Refusians.
- When the Doctor imitates the Toymaker's voice, the last piece of the Trilogic moves over slowly, whereas when the Toymaker commanded the pieces they moved instantly.
Story Notes
- This story had working titles The Trilogic Game and The Toymaker.
- The Celestial Toymaker was to return in The Nightmare Fair, and Michael Gough was approached to reprise his role, but this was never made due to BBC-1 Controller Michael Grade having unexpectedly decided to postpone the series for eighteen months. This was part of the unmade Season 23 in 1986.
- Radio Times credits 'Michael Gough as the Toymaker' for all four episodes and 'Dancers: Beryl Braham, Ann Harrison, Delia Lindon' for The Dancing Floor, with the other supporting cast members credited without specific roles under the heading 'with' in the programme listings for all four episodes.
- In The Hall of Dolls, whilst deciding which of the seven chairs – six of which are deadly, while one remains safe – to choose, the King of Hearts recites a politically incorrect version of the children's counting rhyme "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe" (used to select a person to be 'it' for games and similar purposes), which includes the racial slur "nigger" in the second line. On BBC Audio's CD release of the story, this offending section has been obscured by placing part of Peter Purves's narration over the top.
Ratings
- The Celestial Toyroom - 8.0 million viewers
- The Hall of Dolls - 8.0 million viewers
- The Dancing Floor - 9.4 million viewers
- The Final Test - 7.8 million viewers
Myths
to be added
Filming Locations
Production errors
- When the Doctor is on move 905, he moves a piece so it counts as move 906. However, when the Celestial Toymaker asks the pieces to go to move 930, they only jump 21 times so it should be move 927.
- In one spot of the Trilogic Game, the smallest piece can be seen to be on top of the 5 piece. In order to get the minimum 1023 moves for the game, the smallest piece can never be put on top of another odd numbered piece – so the Doctor shouldn't be able to do it in 1023 moves.
- Also, at 1000 moves, there are pieces on all three edges of the board. In the optimum solution of 1023 moves, one of the edges should be blank at 1000 moves.
Continuity
- The Celestial Toymaker reappears in PDA: Divided Loyalties, DWM: End Game, BFA: The Magic Mousetrap and BFA: The Nightmare Fair.
- The Doctor cries out in pain in the cliffhanger that concludes the story; later revealed to be caused by a toothache triggered by biting into a hard candy, this event leads into the next serial, The Gunfighters. Despite the rather painful carryover, the next episode carries the title "A Holiday for the Doctor".
Timeline
- This story occurs after DW: The Ark
- This story occurs before DW: The Gunfighters
DVD, Video and Other Releases
- The surviving episode, The Final Test, was released on VHS as part of Hartnell Years (with the "Next Episode" caption rather clumsily cut from the cliffhanger scene, as it was at the time missing from the existing 16mm Black & White Film telerecording).
- The Final Test was also released in digitally re-mastered form on the Lost in Time DVD box set (with the "Next Episode" caption reconstructed and restored).
- Editing of surviving episodes DVD release completed by Doctor Who Restoration Team.
Novelisation
- Main article: The Celestial Toymaker (novelisation)
- Novelised as The Celestial Toymaker by Gerry Davis and Allison Bingeman in 1986.
See also
to be added