The Celestial Toymaker

Dear Gary—

I’m struggling with what to say about The Celestial Toymaker, Gary. For years the one surviving episode of this story was my only exposure to Steven and Dodo. This one episode (the last of 4) was intriguing to me and I always wished I could see the first 3 to round out this tale. Now I do have access to reconstructed versions of these episodes and they do not disappoint. Yet I am still having trouble coming up with something to say.

Perhaps I should start with episode 4, since that was my own personal starting point for this story. The Doctor for some reason is invisible, with only his hands appearing on screen as they move game pieces around a board. He is mute as well; only the Toymaker speaks. Dodo and Steven, meanwhile, are playing their own game with a rotund and sinister Cyril. Cyril cheats at this high stakes board game that uses Dodo, Steven, and Cyril as the living playing tokens. One slip off a playing square, we learn, means death (the board beneath is electrified).

This fascinating snapshot of the story begs for more. Why must Steven and Dodo play against Cyril in a race for the finish line where the TARDIS awaits? Why do Steven and Dodo have their doubts that the TARDIS is real? Why can’t the Doctor be seen or heard? Who is this Toymaker? Why does the Doctor silently play the Trilogic game with the Toymaker? And what exactly will happen when they reach move 1023?

“This place is a hidden menace—nothing is just for fun.” The place is a world created by the Toymaker to entrap the unwary, and apparently a place that the Doctor is familiar with. It makes me wonder why he decides to exit the TARDIS, putting himself and his companions at risk of the malevolent whim of the Toymaker.

It is a shame that the first 3 episodes are lost. While the gist of the story is evident from the surviving audio, much is lost by not being able to see the playfully wicked games the Toymaker lays out for Steven and Dodo. Fittingly, the first game is one of blind man’s bluff, but it would be much more effective if the audience was not as blind as the players to the hidden dangers and sly cheating that challenge our two companions.

The next game is a rather twisted version of musical chairs with Steven and Dodo competing against several living playing cards to see who can find the one chair that won’t in some way maim or kill. Then we have a food fight in a kitchen while Steven and Dodo search for a hidden key.  Finally they have to make their way across a demented dance floor.

Each of these fiendish games would be far more effective if we could actually see them. And I have to say, Gary, that it becomes rather tiresome viewing all of these reconstructed episodes, especially when faced with the prospect of the majority of the Troughton years lost to the time swirl looming ahead of me. I long to just pop in a VHS or DVD, strecth out on my couch under Greenie with the Harpo Cat on my lap, and watch a full episode. But I must soldier on.

“It is all very simple; it’s a matter of a battle of our brains.” Yes, a battle of brains, and I must get my brain in gear for the upcoming reconstructions.

To make things worse, Gary—I know that The Gunfighters is coming next. Not a reconstruction, but why, of all the episodes that are lost, couldn’t The Gunfighters have been one of them?

Sorry, back to our present story, although it is winding to a close.

“I’m a bad loser; I always destroy the destroyer.” So says the Celestial Toymaker. If the Doctor loses his game, he, Steven, and Dodo will be destined to live for all time trapped in the Toymaker’s game world. If the Doctor wins, they will be destroyed, along with the Toymaker’s creation (the price of success).

The Toymaker is after more than mere playthings, however. To entice the Doctor to stay with him, the Toymaker offers him power—“power to corrupt and destroy.” We know the Doctor better, Gary. The Doctor will resist this temptation.  We have come to know the Doctor since our first encounter in the junk yard. The journey he has taken us on leaves no doubt in our minds.

“We must proceed with cunning.” This, too, we know. The Doctor is nothing if not cunning. With his voice restored, the Doctor makes his last move from within the TARDIS, mimicking the Toymakers voice, and dematerializes before the Toymaker’s world can be destroyed. (Interesting side note here, Gary—the Doctor instructs Steven to preset the TARDIS for dematerialization.)

But this is not the end for the Toymaker. No, the Toymaker will simply construct a new world and lure more unsuspecting travelers in to his nefarious house of cards. So says the Doctor as he munches on another souvenir of his travels—a bag of candy from Cyril. Oh that ill-fated bag of candy. Don’t do it Doctor! Too late; a resulting toothache will land us smack into the middle of The Gunfighters.

Sorry, Gary. I’ll send this out as usual, awaiting that echo of a reply, but all the while I’m dreading what I know is to come.