The Celestial Toymaker

Story Title: The Celestial Toymaker
Series: 3 Story No: 7 Episode Count: 4
Doctor: 1st Companions: Steven & Dodo
Date(s) Watched: Monday 29th June 2009

A rather strange story this one of which the only other story you can really compare it with is The Mind Robber. The Celestial Toymaker is pleasant enough a story but doesn’t hit all the right notes. Loose Canon have yet again done a great recon, especially with the lack of telesnaps that were available, unfortunately the story itself would probably have got more marks from me had another episode had existed, in particular Episode 1.

Steven & Dodo carry the story well enough & the support cast are very good, with Michael Gough as the Toymaker and Peter Stephens as Cyril. Unfortunately the Doctor’s absence is all too apparent in Episodes 2 & 3 and I feel he really would have added something to the games that Steven & Dodo were playing.

The sets, costumes & musical pieces were rather fitting though & there’s some nice banter between The Doctor & The Toymaker. Dodo throughout the story proves to be a little to dim & too caring at times when she falls for all of the Toymakers toys tricks in every game & Steven has to keep reminding her that she has to ignore them & that they have to fight against them to survive.

It’s a rather interesting experiment but ultimately doesn’t fully work, the absence of The Doctor just sticks out too much & you just feel it would be a bit better if he had been there. Nether the less it’s still not too bad a story and still has enough going for it to make it interesting at least. Rather interestingly at one point this story was almost considered to be Hartnell’s swansong. Thankfully however, the producers decided against this in the end.

Interestingly enough though, to me, this story along with The Daleks Master Plan all contributed to the deteriorating health of the First Doctor, which continues into the next story when the Doctor suddenly hurts his tooth on a sweet. More on that in the next story.

Overall Rating: 3.75/5 – An interesting experiment with some great ideas in it & a great support cast, unfortunately it just doesn’t gel together fully enough and to me is only a rather good story than a great story.