Today there are 3 missing eps and the curious coda of the ep4. It seems rushed and handwaving in it's denouement and boring and pointless for the first 3 eps. (Hartnell is on holidays for ep 2 and 3.)
The third producer in the same series takes over with this one. Also the new story editor is now in charge.
There is little actual record of it but Wiles tenure as producer seems uncommitted and rocking. Rumours of clashes with Hartnell are not unbelievable but my feeling is that Wiles was not suited to what he was being asked to do. It took just four stories for this to become obvious.
This story is a radical departure from what went before. It is unlikely that this is solely due to the new regime, but Innes Lloyd's and Gerry Davis' names are on the credits.
Precisely what is different?
- The Toymaker is presented as a mythic almost God like figure. (New, tick)
- The Doctor knows who he is and the Toymaker knows who the Doctor is. (Not new, see the Meddling Monk).
- Unlike the Monk, the Toymaker's domain is not normal or 'real' but wholly arbitrary and fantastical. (New, tick)
- The Toymaker is NOT a Time Lord (or a one of the Doctor's people) however. (New (to DW, anyway), tick)
The Toymaker is an intriguing and almost unprecedented type of character. It will be tried again. But it doesn't actually work in 1966.
What are we actually watching in this story?
The actual story is bizarre even for DW. The plot is: the TARDIS is hijacked (how? why?) by the Toymaker, the Doctor is placed in invisible, intangible limbo playing a longwinded logic game while Steven and Dodo participate in 'games' (tests?) to get back to the TARDIS (which appears to have been changed arbitrarily into a cupboard). This is repeated for each of the four episodes until well I don't get the denouement at all. On the final move of the game the choice for the Doctor is either ceding ownership of the domain from the Toymaker or condemning the Toymaker to continued entrapment in it. Yet simultaneously the Toymaker claims he can create any other world at his own will whenever he chooses (however this may wipe any beings in the previous domain). So somehow the Doctor just blows it all up, releasing himself, companions and the Toymaker (presumably). (Rugg and Clara and them are wiped I suppose...)
Up to this point stories in DW are either historical episodes of meeting people and places in Earth history or visits to apparently alien worlds where there are people or things with some kind of civilisation or society which purports to be as real as the historical episodes only more distant in time and space. To give a specific example: Vortis in the Isop galaxy is populated by Zarbi, Menoptera, Optera and Venom Grubs. If we were able to travel there we too could meet all these creatures and characters and talk with them.
So what and where/when is the Toymaker and his domain? Where do the characters/populace come from? There are several references in the script to these people (Rugg, Wiggins, Cyril etc) being captured, being victims who lost against the Toymaker on prior occasions. But this explains little.
So what is going on? What are we watching? It is some kind of absurd pantomime? If so then everything on screen is representational or figurative. Nothing on screen is literal or real.
So it's not a sci-fi on some planet or in some historical time anymore? Uh-huh. Either this story lacks credibility or it is some kind of allegory. For what?
Read Sandifer's Eruditorium ( http://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-most-totally-closed-mind-the-celestial-toymaker/ ) for an extreme (and ugly, awful) interpretation of this allegory.
I cannot agree with Sandifer's interpretation for these reasons.
- Michael Gough **is not** affecting a Chinese accent at any point. He uses the same voice he uses in everything else he was ever in. (See The Man in the White Suit (1951) or The Arc of Infinity (1983) or Batman (1991) or The Avengers - The Cybernauts (1965).)
- The Eeny Meeny nursey rhyme has shifted in acceptability since the 1960's. I heard this frequently in the 60's and 70's when I was a child **with** the n word. Other stuff changes too. Look up the history of Robertson's jam in the UK (**Golliwogs** on the labels until the 1990's FFS).
- The 'celestial' aspect of the main character's name is not obviously Chinese.
I'm going for badly written misfire.
Production history says this story was rewritten at least twice. Hayles originally submitted script was quite different to what ended up on the screen, It is entirely possible that a racist fantasy allegory was clumsily misproduced as absurdly allegorical 'playtime' panto. The Toymaker's costume could have been a Santa suit but they chose a some kind of cr*p magician's outfit.
I think Wiles and Tosh were unexpectedly dumped when the ratings took a dive in The Massacre. (Maybe they were ready to go anyway?) Lloyd and Davis were propelled into their new chairs with a 'just do your best' sorta orientation instruction.... and the only script in the fridge was this.
Whatever the explanation, The Celestial Toymaker is very boring and pointless.
Yet the ratings indicate, somehow, they got away with it (almost). In my view this is a failed experiment and an indulgent one.
Lloyd and Davis are taking DW on a journey. In the next two series it has a chance to learn how to change and it discovers that change is needed to survive...
ABM Rating 1.00/4.00
LJM Rating 1.5/5.00
SPJ Rating 2.5/10.00
No. 24 (out of 24)
Link to Cumulative Rankings
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