The Celestial Toymaker

Lady luck will show the way, win the game or here you'll stay.

I'm not sure I understand the dislike for this one. Is it a great episode; no. But is the spawn of the devil; also no.

The story is very simple. An entity known as the Celestial Toymaker (one might assume he is is in the same vein as the White and Black Guardians) captures the Doctor and his companions. He sets the Doctor to a logic game while Steven and Dodo must play games against opponents of his creation. If Steven and Dodo lose or the Doctor solves the logic puzzle before Steven and Dodo get through their games, the Toymaker wins and Steven and Dodo will be turned into dolls for his collection while the Doctor will remain the Toymaker's prisoner and play in a continuous match of wits.

Episode one sets the premise and starts the games which continue through episodes two, three, and the first part of four. The story ends with the Doctor figuring out how to escape as the completion of the logic game will cause the world to be destroyed, taking them with it. The Doctor ends up using a voice trick to make it seem as though the Toymaker solved the puzzle, allowing him and his companions to dematerialize before the planet is destroyed.

First, the elephant in the room, there is casual racism in this episode. Celestial was word used in the 19th century to refer to Chinese people, especially those who had emigrated to English speaking countries. The fact that the Toymaker wears Chinese robes that would have been period to this time reinforces the idea that this was an implied meeting. Of course, the Toymaker himself is not Chinese and the term in this context had fallen into disuse even by the 1960's. So this is more subtle and would go over nearly everyone's head, even at the time.

The second piece of racism is more historical. In episode two, the King of Hearts recites an old nursery rhyme to decide which chair to test first and the nursery rhyme contains the "n" word. In the Loose Cannon recon, the audio of the rhyme is turned way down so that it sounds more like the King is just mumbling to himself. If you weren't paying close attention, you would probably miss it. This is an unfortunate artifact of the time. Nursery rhymes containing this word were common up through WWII (see Ten Little Indians). It seems odd that the production would have been able to get away with saying it even in 1966, but it is there. However, I view this as an artifact of the time and while we might cringe at these things from a modern perspective, I don't think it is blatant or vile enough to denigrate the story as a whole.

There are good elements in this story. In many ways, it's not that far removed from Amy's Choice. A powerful entity sets the rules for a contest that the Doctor and his team must manipulate to first stay alive and then to win outright. The premise is interesting and Steven and Dodo do a decent job of showing a proper sense of tension due to the stakes applied in not only losing the games, but even in being delayed.

Episodes two and three also do well in introducing opponents who are not simple caricatures of henchmen, but actually have personalities and provide entertainment in their own right. In a way, though they are not real, you can almost feel a bit bad that Steven and Dodo have to beat them to advance. The King and Queen of Hearts do an especially good job of noting that they view themselves just as real as Steven and Dodo and wish their liberty just as much. The clowns and Cyril fall more in the vein of unsympathetic competitors whom you are happy to see Steven and Dodo triumph over.

Of course, there are poor elements to this story as well. Probably most annoying is the fact that Steven and Dodo do not really win any of their games, they simply fail to lose:

Against the clowns, they stop the clowns from cheating and Joey falls from the course allowing them to win by default.

The cards end up with a 50-50 chance of winning and only lose because they select the wrong chair. You could argue that if only one had sat in the chair rather than both they would have won, but it was still a lucky chance that they picked the wrong chair.

Steven and Dodo would have lost the dancing trap if Sergeant Rugg and Mrs. Wiggs hadn't stepped on to the dancing floor to try and get to the TARDIS, allowing the dancer dolls to capture other players.

Cyril did win the hopscotch challenge but slipped on one of his own traps which again allowed Steven and Dodo to win by default.

I know that bringing the dolls to life allowed them to be fit with human failings and sympathies, but to have all four games end because the opponent made a mistake is a bit unsatisfying. It seems like Steven and Dodo should have won at least one of the games by outright skill to make it more believable.

Also on the subject of the games, Dodo became more and more annoying. She was repeatedly taken in by the opponents into things that cost time or might have cost them the game outright. Some of her sympathies towards the King and Queen of Hearts or Sergeant Rugg and Mrs. Wigg might be understandable, but giving in to Cyril despite Steven's repeated warnings and reminders just made her look foolish.

One final notch on the negative side is the acting of the Toymaker himself. He seemed rather stiff and his speech was stilted. I don't know if that should be chalked up to the director or to the fact that he was acting against an empty room for the majority of the story (the Doctor was invisible and mute for most of episode two, all of episode three, and part of episode four). But it made the Toymaker a bit less convincing as a villain when he came across as so wooden.

Despite all of these faults, I found myself enjoying this story. I would put the weight of that on the enjoyability of the opponents in episodes two and three. If things had gone along the lines of episodes one and four where Steven and Dodo have to carry the attention against annoying opponents, it would have been a lot less enjoyable, especially since they did not win outright in any case. As it exists mostly in recon form, I doubt I would pull this off to watch again, but if it was discovered, I think I would watch it again without any reservation.

Overall personal score: 3 out of 5