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Post by Cyggy on Nov 29, 2022 8:04:09 GMT
The optimistic part of me can't help wondering if an episode of this has been found - as one of the " Two Missing Hartnells On a Collector's Shelf" and will be revealed to us during the 60th Anniversary - while serving as a sort of cross promotion with the supposed return of the Toymaker in the 60th special(s). Wishful thinking - and would love to be proved right, but most likely too good to be true?
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Post by rapscallion on Nov 29, 2022 11:45:36 GMT
The optimistic part of me can't help wondering if an episode of this has been found - as one of the " Two Missing Hartnells On a Collector's Shelf" and will be revealed to us during the 60th Anniversary - while serving as a sort of cross promotion with the supposed return of the Toymaker in the 60th special(s). Wishful thinking - and would love to be proved right, but most likely too good to be true? I feel like I'm one of the few that likes The Celestial Toymaker, but purely because I think there's something genuinely unnerving about the story. It's bizarre that in the 80s The Celestial Toymaker was held up as a classic, in much the same way as The Time Monster, and yet opinion on both has completely flipped in more recent years. Missing episodes-wise, at this point I'd be genuinely excited about any return. And weren't we keeping our fingers crossed a few years ago that one of the only reasons Paul Vanezis may have mentioned that collector was if he was on the cusp of securing a deal on it.
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Post by GC on Jan 11, 2023 14:45:44 GMT
This is terrific stuff. Done by a 17 year old apparently. Puts some of the recent official animations to shame I think... Doctor Who | The Celestial Toymakers First Appearance{Spoiler}{Spoiler} Doctor Who | The Doctor Confronts the Toymaker{Spoiler}
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Post by Cyggy on Mar 18, 2023 11:59:25 GMT
From a 2021 rewatch of the Missing Episodes only.... Episode 1: "The Celestial Toyroom"(Using Loose Cannon Recon on Dailymotion)Rarely has a story fallen so far in fan favour than The Celestial Toymaker. From being hailed as one of the all time classics by Jeremy Bentham in Doctor Who: A Celebration, to being lambasted by the Tardis Eruditorum side of fandom, which went so far as to suggest that it (and The Ark) should be struck from the Doctor Who canon. Now it's time to actually watch the thing and make our own minds up. It seems to get a lot of stick for nothing much happening in the four episodes and the story taking a long time to show not much happening. Let's see.... Picking up from where that Ark cliffhanger left off and an invisible Doctor. This is the story that Peter Cushing remembered above all when asked what Doctor Who he had seen in preparation for the role in the movie versions. InterviewI can see how this story would have captured the childish imagination at the time, bringing a sinister element to doll's houses and clowns. Nice robot, in it's own daft way. Gough makes a charmingly sinister villain. Calling Dodo "my dear" etc. n I wonder how they achieved the "hundreds of them" shot re: the TARDIS. Six minutes in and Hartnell's vanished again. The production team was planning, of course, to replace him by the end of this story. Seems a daft way to go about it though. I wonder if the story is true that Hartnell would have been truly gone but an error led to him renewing his contract? A Toymaker fluff: "Ad you.... as you have seen". It wasn't just Bill then. Again, mention is made of the Doctor "dabbling around the universe in your researches", as opposed to the person righting wrongs and interfering, I wonder what Bill thought of this story? The obstacle course of Steven and Dodo is the meat and two veg of this episode. I suppose if one enjoys the likes of "The Adventure Game" and "The Crystal Maze" then it seems unfair to knock this tale for doing much of the same, albeit acted. Judging by the first episode, it's not the pile of rubbish that the Sandifer's have made out. Nor is it the towering classic that the Benthams made it out to be. It just seems a standard Doctor Who tale revolving on this occasion around parlour games with sinister outcomes. I don't see any reason for hating it (yet).
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Post by Cyggy on Mar 18, 2023 12:05:40 GMT
Episode 2: "The Hall of Dolls"(Using Loose Cannon Recon on Dailymotion)On to the next 'round' of Dodo and Steven's game and a nice new set for us to spend some considerable time in no doubt. Hartnell's voice taken away from him now. The production team really were trying to push him out, weren't they! :death: This recreation is so well done that it almost feels, to me, like we've got the episode back. Well done, Loose Cannon. There's a tragic undercurrent to the tale with the cards being former victims of the Toymaker. Suddenly, like Rose in that Anne Droid malarkey, the game has higher stakes with each poor trapped victim needing desperately to win. But it's not really put over that well or addressed though? Dodo/Jackie Lane putting over "freezing" acting, aided by Purves' reaction. No time or money back in that day and certainly no special effects in the scene, but they went at it with conviction, bless 'em. This episode breezed along, albeit with that 'N' word bump along the way. If this ever turned up it's very much a filler episode, although I guess it's been an accusation levelled at this story that it's nothing but filler and one long round of simplistic games with very little real drama or substance. I think fans (like Jeremy Bentham) fell in love with this story as a fantastic concept, with a god-like being subjecting our heroes to terrifying life or death games, but watching the reality is very much stage play at the village hall time. Can't say I hate it, but it's just what it is. A bunch of well-trained theatre actors playing party games in a very theatrical way. Am expecting episode 3 to be a retread of this one, just a different game. Not sure what else to say about it at this stage.
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Post by Cyggy on Mar 18, 2023 12:07:52 GMT
Episode 3: "The Dancing Floor"
(Using Loose Cannon Recon on Dailymotion)
As we continue through this, I am not sure if I remember what I used to think of it - as there only ever seemed to be a few photos from it and there was no novelisation around until very late in the day.
I can't say that I ranked it higher than any other Classic tale - as every tale I hadn't seen was considered a classic by me as a kid - and I have never seen it as a load of utter tripe, which seems to be the party line now.
I used to enjoy "The Adventure Game" when it was on the telly, with familiar faces having to solve a few puzzles; forerunner of "The Crystal Maze", so why shouldn't I like this?
Looking at it now it seems a serviceable adventure set in the confines - and budget - of a cramped TV studio of the day. It has good actors in it, playing it with conviction.
I think the word "okay" springs to mind. It's okay. It caught Alan Moore's imagination as the only story he remembered - and Peter Cushing watched it too, which must give it a bit of kudos.
To actively hate it and want it struck from the canon seems a rather extreme reaction to what is, after all, just a bit of telly from the day.
In a way I think it was wrong of the Jeremy Bentham's to put it on so high a pedestal - and equally wrong of the Sandifers to scream from a soapbox about it. Both put too much weight onto this (sadly literally) disposable telly of the 1960's and both reactions are, I think, two sides of the same problem?
But onto episode 3 itself.... More of the same. Repeat and rinse. Different room, same dilemma. Just going through the motions.
Mrs. Wiggs and Sgt. Rugg are having a fine old time throwing sitcom dialogue at one another, etc. I reckon Peggy Mount could have played Mrs Wiggs quite easily too as the actress is reminding me of her.
Must admit, it is one of those rare occasions where I am just waiting for the episode to play out. Perhaps almost longing for the ending. With the interplay between Wiggs and Rugg, this is practically a pantomime episode,
I actually thought they were going to be stuck in that kitchen throughout the entire duration of the episode, but relief arrives at about the `12 minute mark when Dodo finds the key. Nice scene where the Toymaker threatens whatever poor souls are trapped as Wiggs and Rugg and he says he will break them into pieces if they fail him again. It's a pity that this horrible aspect of the Toymaker's world is not more thoroughly addressed - that these are all too human souls as desperate to escape - and presumably a couple as loyal to one another as Dodo and Steven are.
So 10 minutes left of the episode and I know that episode 4 starts with a different room. Not sure what they can accomplish in that short time.
So Steven is compelled to dance. I am not sure if this would be one of Peter Purves' favourite episodes - if his embarrassment at being forced to sing in "The Gunfighters" is anything to go by - an experience that he admitted coloured his feelings about that Western story for many years.
Blimey! Some Doctor/Toymaker interaction thrown in suddenly. Oh, take that back, they didn't even get Hartnell to pre-record any dialogue for this scene.
So the dance-floor bit is over. That was short and sweet.
Wiggs and Rugg shrinking down in their failure. I wonder if the Toymaker will deliver on his threat and destroy them while in their doll form?
No, he doesn't seem to have. Just chucked them back in the toybox. Maybe his bark is worse than his bite.7
And so we come to the Billy Bunter Cyril part of the story that we know so well thanks to the recovery of "The Final Test".
That was pretty much a filler episode. No Hartnell in it, even though the Doctor was in it. I wonder how they would possibly have explained a completely different actor taking over the role of the Doctor - as was the original plan. Am glad they dropped the idea.
So yes. It was okay. Just okay, imo. Not the triumph Bentham made it out to be - or the appalling blot on humanity that Sandifer made it out to be.
Episode 4, the last episode is probably the best. But as I can't pick that one, will go for episode 1, setting the whole thing up. 2 and 3 are just what they are - plod, plod, plod. But I would still be pleased to see any episode of this tale back.
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Post by Black Orchid on Apr 19, 2023 13:20:04 GMT
designed by Christopher Loftus
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Post by Black Orchid on Apr 24, 2023 15:11:24 GMT
"The final appearance of (half of) the original fault locator set and those huge ‘light boxes’ which usually sat either side of it." Clayton Hickman twitter
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Post by GC on Sept 28, 2023 4:52:20 GMT
I've only ever seen the existing episode (The Final Test) once on that Hartnell Years video. I wasn't too struck on it. The Billy Bunter type really irritated me and I found the episode a bit boring to be honest. It put me off so badly I've not had the inclination to bother with it since lol.
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Post by GC on Sept 28, 2023 4:59:15 GMT
The Doctor Who Youtube channel put this out yesterday I guess to tie-in with the new upcoming stuff...
The Doctor Defeats the Toymaker | The Celestial Toymaker | Doctor Who
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Post by Future-Diver on Sept 28, 2023 6:51:46 GMT
I've only ever seen the existing episode ( The Final Test) once on that Hartnell Years video. I wasn't too struck on it. The Billy Bunter type really irritated me and I found the episode a bit boring to be honest. It put me off so badly I've not had the inclination to bother with it since lol. I know what you mean. I've endured watched all four episodes of the Loose Cannon Recon of 'The Celestial Toymaker' just once, but really didn't like it much. I think this kind of playful fantasy stuff would have been more suited one of the weirder episodes of 'The Avengers'. I do own a nice Toymaker figurine, though:
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Post by GC on Sept 28, 2023 14:04:31 GMT
"I love humans. Always seeing patterns in things that aren't there."
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Post by trebor19602001 on Sept 28, 2023 15:42:39 GMT
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Post by trebor19602001 on Sept 28, 2023 17:03:24 GMT
A further check shows that the BBFC entry for the TV series version of Dad's Army has vanished too. www.bbfc.co.uk/search?q=dad%27s%20army. Maybe the entry has been revised and might give too much away?
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Post by rapscallion on Sept 28, 2023 17:39:48 GMT
"I love humans. Always seeing patterns in things that aren't there." Seeing wheels on the underside of the TARDIS makes me grit my teeth in annoyance.
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