The Celestial Toymaker

The TARDIS has been waylaid in a mysterious dimension ruled by the enigmatic Celestial Toymaker. The Doctor knows this being of old and warns Steven and Dodo not to fall victim to his tricks before he himself is taken away from them and forced to play a trilogic game. Steven and Dodo are thrust into the Toymaker’s games with his collection of dolls as their opponents, and they must finish playing them before the Doctor makes the 1023^rd move in his game, otherwise they will all be doomed to remain in the Toymaker’s realm as his playthings. The saying is it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye, but the stakes are significantly higher in the Toymaker’s realm…

Science fiction loves to make toys into sinister objects, and sometimes what is produced borders on the horrific. Toymaker is by no means an Annabelle but the toys that do inhabit the dollhouse are in some ways creepier when the viewer realizes that these are actual people who did not escape the Toymaker’s games. Their motivation to play the games is to beat Steven and Dodo and win their own freedom back, or that’s at least the subtext, and they cheat, they lie and resort to all sorts of dirty tricks. Each game that Steven and Dodo are forced to play has a deadly consequence to losing, be it to get stuck dancing forever or being electrocuted stepping on the wrong part of the floor and the prize at the end of the game is the TARDIS… or a fake one. The rogues gallery they face is comprised of some of what one might find in a 1960s child's toy collection: a toy soldier, royalty from a deck of cards and even some creepy expressionless dancing dolls. The worst of their competition? It’s a tie between the nasty Cyril or the clown duo Clara and Joey. 

But Steven and Dodo prove to be an effective team together, effectively carrying the weight of the story between them with the Doctor sidelined. While Dodo just gets to act spunky as usual we see Steven has progressed in stature on board the TARDIS and looks like he is helping pilot the ship as the story opens, and again at the end. Continuity wise there is a mention of the Refusians when the Doctor starts to fade off, but as far as anyone can tell there could have been any amount of time passing between the conclusion of The Ark and the start of Toymaker.

The Doctor is hardly in the story, at least physically. William Hartnell needed another vacation and the Doctor was thus cleverly rendered invisible by the Toymaker, so the most that is seen of him for the bulk of the story is one hand floating about moving the pieces of the trilogic game. An interesting bit of background on this one: the original plan with making the Doctor disappear was to make him reappear in a new body with a new actor, thus removing William Hartnell from the title role (he was becoming a problem to work with due to his failing health and the production team realized they were going to have to do something to replace him - but that was not yet to be). The Doctor does, however, know the Toymaker, and speaks to him as if he were speaking once more to the Monk. Does this mean the Toymaker is one of the Doctor’s own people? His power over the Doctor suggests that he is not of the same race and may well be his match and potential nemesis, but there’s no more background given to how the Doctor knows this man and what happened the first time they met. The Toymaker is often referred to as malevolent, but I don’t see him dripping with that same brand of evil; he’s just bored and powerful and something of a psychopath.

 

I came across another review of this one some time ago and found a fascinating rant about how the Toymaker’s character is actually a tremendous racist jab at the Chinese as the Toymaker dresses in Chinese garb but does not go so far as to don the dreaded yellowface. Even the word “celestial” seems to have been a word attributed to the Chinese, or at least in times past it was common to refer to China as the Celestial Empire. The commentary I read after the article had one voice demanding that the episode tapes be burned, which made me wonder if this was a sincere reaction or someone who knew right well that episodes 1, 2 and 3 are missing and was just taking the piss out of another revisionist politically correct fan. Yes, all that exists of the tale is the last episode and the lead in material at the conclusion of The Ark; the rest I enjoyed on audio MP3. The first time I enjoyed the story, though, was by reading the Target novel penned by script editor Gerry Davis and newcomer Alison Bingeman back in 1986, and it was as true to the original as it could be given the lack of source reference material.

But we all know this is not going to end the Toymaker's way, and there's going to be a clever escape, and a lead right into the next episode... yur darn tooin'...

NEXT EPISODE: THE GUNFIGHTERS

The Ark

In the far far future the Earth is doomed, and humanity has exited en masse on board a giant spaceship headed for the planet Refusis where they hope to start again. A race of reptilian cyclops called Monoids have tagged along as well and are earning their passage on the human ship by assisting with the work that needs to be done. It is a journey which will take 700 years. The TARDIS arrives and although the travellers are initially welcomed as esteemed guests, Dodo's head cold begins to spread like wildfire among the humans and the Monoids and they are soon on trial for their lives. The Doctor is determined to find a cure if they
will let him, but even curing this plague will not be enough as its long term effects will be felt far into the future.... 700 years into the future to be exact.

So this is Dodo's actual introduction story, on television anyway. She tends to rush headlong into things and at first does not believe that the TARDIS has actually left Earth, thinking it to just be a time machine for localized travel. In Salvation she was carefully kept away from Steven so their banter in episode one here is still a genuine first conversation about the perils of time and space travel. The Doctor is amused by her, even if he doesn't care for her language skills.

Where the humans and Monoids are concerned this is very much a tale of equality, or its absence under the guise of benevolence. The humans do not treat the Monoids like dirt but they certainly do not treat them as equals, developing a simple sign language to communicate with them as they are unable to speak and sending them off to do the dirty work. There's a certain amount of lip service paid to the aliens and their friendship with humanity and the value of their contribution to the ship's well being but it's all very condescending. The true read of their status comes when one of the humans remarks how the plague is bad enough but imagine if a human were to die from it - this while Monoids are dying all around them. Comeuppance, though, is inevitible, and halfway through the story the TARDIS departs, only to return 700 years later when the Monoids have risen up and made mankind their bitch. Humiliation and cruelty reign supreme, and it's no loner in silence once the Monoids develop speech.

I have a few questions about design, though. The first is the Monoids themselves; they seem to be reptiles but they have this funny kind of carapace like a skirt which covers their legs down to the floor and they have the oddest two-toed feet of any aliens so far. This design doesn't give them a great deal of mobility and they shuffle around the sets - sometimes for their lives - with only a bit less sure-footed grace than that of the Voord in Keys of Marinus with their big flippers. The one big staring eye roughly where the mouth should be is creepy enough, but then there's that big mop of hair, sometimes black and sometimes ginger. I don't get it. My other question is about the attire of the humans in the future - strappy tops over speedos and sandals? Is it really hot on the Ark? Are the environmental controls out? And out of the whole male cast there are really only two men who have the arms to carry off that look and they get rid of one early in episode one and the other we only see from the back briefly in episode four. Yes, I look for these things.

One of two men in the serial who could get away with the costume

The pace of the story is a bit slow, though, even if it if chock full of dialogue and the direction seems to be taking a bit of a turn to more modern storytelling with a lot of overhead shots and some decent location work for the jungle scenes. Something just made me nod off a bit. It is all on DVD though so it can be enjoyed in its entirety, which is rare for a story from this season. I first saw it on a WNED 17 omnibus edition as if it were a film back in the 80s and at the time was bewildered by who this Dodo person was, and Steven as well for they only showed complete stories and the last complete one they had was The Time Meddler. So at a first time view I was interested, but any subsequent views were like.... zzzzz. Even the enhanced special effects the series was starting to dabble with at the time didn't make it a stellar viewing experience... although... seeing the Earth burning as it headed into the sun was a bit disturbing.

I got my hands on the novel of the story sometime after though, and found that it had a lot more going on within its pages, with the Doctor taking a long leave of absence from Steven and Dodo and travelling to the different areas of the Ark looking for the cure for the plague, including to a farm homestead where a widow confides to the Doctor that she had actually buried her late husband in the ground rather than commit his body to space. That part felt a bit Starlost to me but added a bit more to the idea of the Ark being a vast environment and not a control room with people in speedos wandering around. I don't know if this was all some sequence author Paul Erickson wanted to put in but it was cut, or if it was something he thought of later to enhance the experience. Maybe he liked Starlost.

Doctor Who does not always go out of its way to preach about morals but the message sent by the tale of the Monoids here is pretty simple: treat everyone fairly or else. It's not the last time the show will go here, either. But once the Doctor and company have shown everyone else how to be better people they're off again, right back into danger...

NEXT EPISODE: THE CELESTIAL TOYMAKER

Salvation

Young Dorothea (who prefers to be caled Dodo) Chaplet escapes from being forcibly confined by a being she knows is not human and runs right into a blue police box on the Wimbledon Common. But rather than get the help of the police she finds herself in the company of the Doctor and Steven, and their hasty departure in the TARDIS takes them to New York City on the same day, where it turns out they are not the only visitors. A group of beings have come to town with the power to give people what they want, and they are drawing attention and growing in power and influence. The military wants them gone, they know a threat when they see one. Steven, his faith in the Doctor shaken by the recent death of Anne Chaplet, finds himself wanting something to believe in. And Dodo realizes that one of the beings is the same one who she has encountered before.

Despite having a pretty drab cover like the other BBC Books PDAs of its time, Salvation is easily one of the more engaging tales of the line. I'd first acknowledge the use of New York City as a backdrop to the tale as a fitting place for the story to take place; given the time it is set in there is not yet a military order in the UK to deal with alien menaces so the next best thing is the paranoid armed forces of the United States of America with all their secret Roswell stuff and their not so secret fears about the Russians, and with the Vietnam war boiling away across the Pacific. Unlike some adventures in the eleventh Doctor's time (looking ahead) this isn't some big suck up to an emerging market stunt.

I had said before that Dodo's appearance on board the TARDIS at the conclusion of The Massacre was not exactly the most clever companion introduction ever, but here there's an attempt to make it a little bit more credible. Well sort of. Escaping from a stranger who kept her locked up for days and attempted to molest her might rattle someone a bit and cast a bit of doubt on her easygoing manner at landing inside the TARDIS, unless we want to write that off as shock. Given that Dodo herself is not the deepest companion on screen she here is given a lot of rich backstory with her parents dead and her cold distant aunt a peripheral figure in her lie when she needs guiding adult influence in her life more than ever. Her almost instant bond with the Doctor is a lot more credible now, and his with her is easier to buy into as Steven has walked out on him. Sadly though this is really the only time Dodo is going to be an effective companion who is more than her brief of a plucky teenage girl from London.

Steven is haunted by the guilt of not having helped someone in his past and has been using his time with the Doctor as a means to make a difference, but with the death of Anne Chaplet and the Doctor's refusal to help her comes a new feeling of shame. The gods will make everything right, and after they intervene to save Steven himself he is a believer, and is now on the opposite side from the Doctor. Deep down Steven knows that the Doctor is probably right, though, but the gods have him in their thrall - him and a growing mass of New Yorkers who all want something.

Without Steven at his side the Doctor is forced to carry on himself, protecting Dodo and trying to make the bull-headed General Marchant see how to combat the gods without conventional weapons. The Doctor sees the gods for what they are and refuses to let them affect him, even if they can see right into his mind and pluck at his past failures to save people (Sara, Anne, and there is even a reference to Rebecca Nurses' fate in author Steve Lyons' previous book, The Witch Hunters). Lyons is very good at getting Hartnell's Doctor on page - you can hear him when you read the lines.

There's a lot of other things and characters happening in Salvation from the supporting military personnel to a crooked PR man and a pushy journalist but to me the real standout is just the regular cast, even if they are not all working together properly right now. Dodo must be confused by the tension between the Doctor and Steven as they work out their differences but she still chooses to become part of the crew This crew combo suffers as far as history of the show is concerned because they only get four complete stories together (and only half of those are complete in themselves to be seen) and Dodo does not stay long once Steven makes his eventual departure. If they had been written this way, or if this story had been around back then even, maybe things would have been different. But whatever has happened, Salvation can be dropped right in after The Massacre to give Dodo that proper introduction without disrupting any of the continuity into what comes after...

NEXT EPISODE: THE ARK

The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve

The TARDIS makes a return to France, this time in 1572. It may be an earlier period than the Doctor's previous visit during the Revolution but it by no means any less dangerous; tensions between the Catholic and Protestant citizens is on the rise and a royal marriage arranged to ease them has failed. The Doctor wishes to see a man named Preslin about his work in science and takes his leave of Steven, advising him to steer clear of any local trouble stemming from religion or politics, The dire warning does no good, though, and Steven finds himself alone in Paris in the days leading up to a bloody slaughter.

This one has interested me for a long time, going way back to when I first read the Target novelization of the script in 1987. As the episode doesn't exist on film or video I had very little to go on content-wise aside from the odd photo of the Doctor and Steven in period dress and a few details of the plot. Along came John Lucarotti's novelization of the tale and I was intrigued by its depth and detail and the sequences involving not only the Doctor's resemblance to the vile Abbot of Amboise but the Doctor's journey under Paris through the tunnels on a dog cart, the attempted burning of the TARDIS, and of the Massacre itself. Moreover I was surprised that the whole book was written as if the Doctor was on trial somewhere for interfering in history, and the events of the tale were being presented as evidence - this very thing had just been done on TV a year earlier in 1986. And at the end of the book there was no new companion introduced as I had expected; a girl named Dodo Chaplet was merely mentioned in passing as having joined the TARDIS crew sometime after the adventure. I wasn't sure what to make of it, but I knew I wasn't getting the whole story, brilliant as the novel was.

Then I got my hands on the audio recording of the original episode, narrated by Peter Purves, and it was almost a completely different story. The Doctor was hardly in it, and not once did he cross paths with the Abbot. There was no dog cart, there were no catacombs, and the TARDIS was not proclaimed and abomination and set on fire. And when Dodo Chaplet finally did arrive, it was in a hurried sequence at the end of episode four with no proper intro.

It is possible to reconcile both versions of the story, though, as the Doctor is missing for most of the televised serial and could have been getting up to all sorts of adventure while Steven tries to help a girl named Anne Chaplet avoid the clutches of the Abbot and the Catholic conspirators. The harder parts to explain away involve the Doctor and the Abbot meeting face to face, as the Abbot's fate was sealed before the Doctor returned to the screen. What was presented in the novel is apparently the original draft of the show before things had to be altered to accommodate a vacation for William Hartnell and remove some of the more challenging visual sequences. In an interview I read once before Lucarotti stated that the trial part was his own idea but he did not know that it was being used in the (at the time) current series.

Steven's about at breaking point in his relationship with the Doctor. Having seen so many friends die in the fight against the Daleks he is horrified that the Doctor will not do anything to try and save Anne Chaplet from the tide of history, and effectively sends her out into the night streets of Paris knowing right well that come morning thousands of Protestants (also called Hugenots) will be slaughtered in a religious cleansing by the Catholics. The Doctor knows he cannot interfere, and has an interesting soliloquy inside the TARDIS on his own, reflecting on his companions and their inability to understand his responsibilities as a time travellers, and he even muses about going home.

And along comes your Dorothea Chaplet, who prefers to be called Dodo, at the end of episode four when the TARDIS arrives in modern day London. As her surname matches Anne's the Doctor offers that consolation to Steven that maybe Anne survived and this is one of her descendants.

I don't like how Dodo just blunders into the TARDIS and is immediately accepted and taken away without any real consideration. Her only personailty trait seems to be she's upbeat, even in the revelation of her lack of parents and a great aunt who won't care if she doesn't come home. Oh, fine, welcome aboard then. It just feels like she was thrust into the series for the sake of having a female companion around and not have it just the Doctor and Steven travelling together. Oh if only someone had written a backstory for her, or at least a better introduction.

Oh wait, someone has...

NEXT EPISODE: SALVATION

The Daleks' Master Plan (episodes 8 - 12)

When the Daleks discover that the taranium element they recovered from the Doctor is a fake they dispatch another of their time machines from Skaro to once more track the TARDIS through time and space to get it back. The Doctor realizes that the Daleks would eventually be after him, but they are not the only ones, as the Monk appears looking for revenge. But while the Doctor must outwit a second foe, the alliance assembled by the Daleks is starting to waver, with Mavic Chen himself teetering on the edge of megalomania and the fate of the universe itself hanging in the balance.

I think the break provided by Big Finish's new material served its purpose well; with the threat of the Daleks left behind for a while we got to know the TARDIS crew a lot better, in particular Sara Kingdom, before the pace was once more hectic. Having Sara come into her own as a proper companion makes her eventual death that much more poignant... because it's no secret that Sara is the next casualty of the Dalek plan. She doesn't necessarily go as heroically as Katarina, but nevertheless her death is felt by Steven most of all, which would allow for Big Finish's attempt to play with the formation of a relationship between the two of them. When Steven tallies up the dead - Katarina, Bret, and now Sara - his grief is there for all to see (or in this case hear because only episode 10 exists to be seen). The Doctor? He calls all this death "a waste".

This part of the epic is really just borrowed from The Chase but thankfully is nowhere near as lame or as long. The TARDIS lands at a cricket match and its presence is narrated away by the observing radio commentators who try to make sense of its presence in a very calm and British sort of way. There's only one more stop, which is in Egypt, where the shifty Monk tries to ally himself with Chen and the Daleks to get his revenge on the Doctor and ends up with another serving of comeuppance. I'm not sure if the Monk was really necessary; I think he was supposed to provide some comic relief,
or the incidental music in his scenes seems to suggest that he was. After episode 7's lapse into hilarity, though, I'm not entirely sure that was needed, unless it was to take some of the edge off the Daleks and Chen who are actually pretty nasty and brutal this time around. But why wouldn't they be? They're pissed. Without the taranium there's no time destructor, and Chen is always quick to point out that if it had not been for him there would be no taranium. You can see and hear the Daleks barely tolerating his presence, and you know it's not going to end well for him once they get that taranium back.

As with the first portion of the story it's almost all on audio, save for episode 10, which makes for good car ride material or just something to enjoy with your tea or what have you. First time I got the sense of the serial, though, was the second volume of John Peel's novelization under the title The Mutation of Time  back in the 90s. Intriguingly it featured a red Dalek on the front which did not appear at all in the televised serial, but hey it made for a very striking novel cover and a custom action figure idea in later years. A few action figures as it happens.

NEXT EPISODE : THE MASSACRE OF ST BARTHOLOMEW'S EVE

An Ordinary Life

It's London in the 1950s and the TARDIS makes an emergency landing. The Doctor is unwell and Steven and Sara find themselves locked out of the TARDIS with no idea how to care for him until they are taken in by the Newman family. The Newmans are recent immigrants from the West Indies and face their own challenges as newcomers in an age where racial tensions are high, so taking in three strangers would be the last thing expected of them when they have themselves to look after. But without the Doctor and the TARDIS, Steven and Sara must learn for themselves what it means to be strangers in a strange land.

There is of course a sci fi story in there eventually, a very much Invasion of the Bodysnatchers inspired plot in the background, but the original intent was to actually remove science fiction from the plot altogether and make a purely modern historical tale out of this one. While listening to the tale I did not know it was coming, and when there were muttered chants of "we are coming" from mindless masses at the climax of episode twoI thought this was somehow linked to a Torchwood episode, but that was set in 1965 so no go. There was indeed something else coming, which although as I said was not exactly an original concept was still a good one and realized quite well on audio. If this had been a simple Companion Chronicle release then it could have easily been a tale of racism in a not so distant past in two episodes but it would hardly have warranted the full cast treatment and something would have been lost in that. No, this worked out best. I'm just a bit wary of how this is the second tale in this era of Sara with the crew where the TARDIS is once again malfunctioning to such a degree as the crew need to abandon it as a premise.

Steven and Sara only have brief knowledge of the Earth in this time, and Sara's is only what she experienced recently when the TARDIS made a series of short stops over Christmas in Liverpool and Hollywood, and she is not entirely keen. There's a bit more about Sara here now that there's more chance for her to act independently; it is revealed that when she signed on for Space Security detail she waived any notions of having children (whether this is voluntary sterilization of a vow of chastity is not revealed), and she gets to show an unexpected gentle side when caring for the Newmans' baby girl. Steven is getting to know Sara a bit more as the threat of the Daleks has lessened a bit, but the notion of being stuck in the past on Earth (and he knows that they are not exactly alone - Ian and Barbara are not far away geographically but not in the right order) has replaced it. Still, he muses about what it might be like to stay here. The two of them. Yes the unlikely romance is still there in the background - I suppose since it happens in the new series it needs to happen here too? It was brushed on in The Anachronauts and I had hoped it was going to be a fleeting thing.

The new team of the Doctor, Sara and Steven is turning into quite the ensemble, even if they know they will have to face the Daleks again as long as they are carrying the Taranium core of the Time Destructor. If nothing else it cements Sara as more of a companion now than before with only two visual episodes left to see her in; the Big Finish material is expanding nicely on her mythology. Next year there's a further collection of Early Adventures from the Hartnell era and there is one slated with Jean Marsh as Sara and Peter Purves as Steven (and doing an excellent turn once again as the Doctor) but alas not in time to be included in this journey... otherwise we would see how the clone race called Sontarans would have fared against the crew.

But with the supplemental material finished, it's time to rejoin the television series after some time has passed...

NEXT EPISODE: THE DALEKS' MASTERPLAN (episodes 8 - 12)

The Anachronauts

Steven remembers how shortly after he, Sara and the Doctor toasted Christmas Day together their momentary respite from the Daleks came to a crashing halt; another time travelling ship collided with the TARDIS and dropped both crews on a strange world's beach. The two crews combine forces to survive in the alien environment but there is never a complete bond of trust; the Doctor is wary of the strange crew and their attempts to master the realm that his own people view as exclusively theirs, and the leader of the other crew, Natalie, eyes the Doctor with equal suspicion and some envy when she realizes what the TARDIS could represent. Steven and Sara soon find themselves in Berlin on the wrong side of the wall as captives, and they have to make some terrible choices in order to survive.

The was the first Companion Chronicle where Steven and Sara were paired up to provide the narrative and dialogue to tell the tale, with Peter Purves and Jean Marsh doing such a good job you can't help but wish they'd done this sort of thing back in the sixties. Sara is still hard edged as a Space Security agent even if her beliefs in the system have been shaken to the core by Mavic Chen's betrayal. Steven is still young and impatient and looks back upon Sara with something akin to regret, wondering if things could have been different between them. The Doctor certainly seems to think that there could be, and advises Sara at one point to spend time with Steven and talk to him, and make the most of their time together. The sly old fox. And in the face of possibly losing the TARDIS forever, he is surprisingly coy when it comes to Steven and Sara, perhaps as a means to avoid thinking too much about the loss of his ship. Finding the food machine sitting on its own on the island would seem to confirm that the skip was lost forever, although the absence of other debris leaves the point open.

Despite having owned this audio for quite some time I had not listened to it until now, and when I got to the closing moments of episode 2 I thought that the story was over and that the second disc was just going to be a heap of interviews and extras. Not so! Suddenly it's somewhere else and Steven and Sara are on their own without the Doctor or Natalie and her crew, leaving me wondering if this was going to take the story to a bad disjointed place. As it turns out I need to learn to have more faith in the style of Simon Guerrier - there was nothing to worry about, and the air of menace which had permeated the first two episodes was back.

Placing the tale in the middle of The Daleks' Master Plan was a bit of a gamble given that I wasn't sure if it might give away the ending of that adventure (even though I already knew it), but the fates of everyone were left alone so a first time listener if they were to pursue the series the way I am doing would not have the end spoiled for them. Steven's point of perspective is not revealed, either, so it's not as if this story needs to be placed in sequence after he leaves the TARDIS in future. There were, however, a couple elements of the story that are obviously borrows from the future of the series... the Doctor makes reference to how horrific it would be for a war to be fought across time (which happens in the new series of 2005) and the actual physical destruction of the TARDIS comes from not only the broadcast episode Frontios but owes a lot to the novel Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible. But when it comes to the more immediate future of the Doctor and company, Sara is forbidden to know the fate of Mavic Chen and the outcome of the Dalek plan to conquer the solar system. Tidy, that.

So far so good for the expanded universe adventures of the Doctor, Steven and Sara.

NEXT EPISODE: AN ORDINARY LIFE