Synopsis:
On leaving the Ark, Steven and Dodo have changed their outfits and returned to the TARDIS console room where they are shocked to see the Doctor's body fade away. He is still present however - just rendered invisible - and announces that this is some form of attack...
This alarms him greatly as whoever is behind this must be extremely powerful to have infiltrated the ship.
The TARDIS has materialised in the middle of a large, white octagonal space.
Nearby is an office which is a mix of modern and antique, dominated by an ornate desk and a huge Victorian dollhouse.
A man dressed in the manner of a Chinese Mandarin is here. He selects a pair of toy clowns from the dollhouse, telling them that they will be ideal for a game with the new arrivals.
The Doctor has been made visible again, and dismisses the idea that this is something to do with the Refusians. Steven spots a screen on which he sees images of himself on the planet Kemble, and then in medieval Paris. Dodo cannot see anything.
The Doctor warns them to ignore what they see, as he has realised that they are now in the domain of the Celestial Toymaker - a being of awesome potential for evil. He manipulates people and makes them his playthings.
Dodo now sees herself on the screen - images of her as a girl on the day of her mother's funeral. They next see the TARDIS, but there are hundreds of them on a conveyer belt.
The Toymaker appears briefly - the Mandarin figure - then vanishes again, taking the Doctor with him.
Two clowns then enter the room - Joey and Clara. They are the dolls from the dollhouse, life-size and brought to life. Only Clara speaks, Joey communicating with horn-like blasts.
The Toymaker announces that Steven and Dodo must compete with the clowns in a game of Blind Man's Buff, the prize being the return of the TARDIS. The Doctor is going to play a game of his own, and they must win before he does.
In the office, the Doctor is shown the complex Trilogic Game which comprises a triangular board with counters of graduated sizes at each corner - marked A, B and C. The Doctor deduces that he must move all the counters from position A to position C, one at a time and without placing a larger disc on a smaller one. The Toymaker explains that he must complete the task in 1023 moves.
It is clear that the Doctor has encountered this being before. He knows that all those who lose his twisted games are rendered his playthings for all time.
Steven and Dodo must traverse an obstacle course without touching the floor. They will play as a team, with one blindfolded to make the actual journey, whilst their partner guides them verbally from a glass booth.
They are unaware that Joey's blindfold is actually see-though.
The Doctor is able to communicate with his companions to warn them of their fate should they fail to win their game. Irritated, the Toymaker renders him invisible once more.
The two clowns cheat their way to victory, but Steven discovers the truth of Joey's blindfold. He insists they play again, but this time with a real blindfold. The clowns lose and collapse, and then the TARDIS suddenly reappears.
It proves to be a copy, however, containing only a door leading to a long corridor. They find a piece of paper on which is written a rhyme:
"Four legs, no feet, of arms no lack;
It carries no burden on its back;
Six deadly sisters, seven for choice;
Call the servants without voice."
As they set off down the corridor, Dodo glances back and sees that Joey and Clara have been reduced to lifeless toys once more...
Next episode: The Hall of Dolls
Written by: Brian Hayles
Recorded: Friday 18th March, 1966 - Riverside Studio 1
First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 2nd April 1966
Ratings: 8 million / AI 48
Designer: John Wood
Director: Bill Sellars
Guest cast: Michael Gough (Toymaker), Campbell Singer (Joey), Carmen Silvera (Clara)
Critique:
Brian Hayles enjoyed a successful career, much of it writing for episodic television series or one-off plays. One particular programme he had sought to break into was Doctor Who, and he had submitted numerous ideas since 1965. These included a story about a living planet, a tale of shadow people, and a historical about the Nazis.
A set of episodes with a surreal edge was eventually successfully commissioned - but the story was going to be put through so many rewrites and restructuring thanks, in part, to production personnel changes, that there was very little of Hayles' original work left to make it to the screen.
Hayles had worked with John Wiles previously, and the two got on well.
He came up with a figure called the Toymaker, for a story that would have an element of psychological horror to it. Producer and Story Editor were both keen to work on a story that hadn't been commissioned by their predecessors, and one that took them into the realm of fantasy for a change.
It was Donald Tosh who decided that the character should be "Celestial" and possibly another member of the Doctor's own race like the Monk.
At an early stage, the story was being referred to as "The Trilogic Game" - indicating that this aspect of the story was there from the very beginning, tying in with the Toymaker figure.
Another element of the story was the inclusion of a pair of characters named George and Margaret. They derived from a play by Gerald Savory. Like Samuel Beckett's Godot, they are someone who is expected to arrive throughout the course of a play, only to never appear (the play ends just as we hear they have finally arrived).
Savory was by this time the Head of Drama (Serials) at the BBC - making him Wiles' boss. He was happy to have the characters included, and the production advanced to the stage that the pair were even cast - with Campbell Singer playing George and Carmen Silvera Margaret.
Tosh and Wiles between them carried out a number of significant rewrites to Hayles' scripts.
However, the pair then resigned in quick succession, to be replaced by Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis.
This would be Lloyd's first credited production, whilst Davis had shadowed Tosh since The Massacre, and taken over from him for its final episode and the subsequent The Ark.
Lloyd's background had been in outside broadcast, producing big sporting events such as Wimbledon and the University Boat Race, as well as regional quiz shows and important one-off events such as the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill. He had little experience of drama, and admitted that he had no interest in science fiction. It was always his intention to remain in this new post for a year only.
Davis was happy to work on a script from Hayles as the two knew each other well from the Midlands-based football soap United!. Hayles had devised this series, and Davis had been its script editor until his move to London.
Hayles' idea for George and Margaret had been that they would initially appear to be a pleasant couple, only to become more menacing as the story progressed.
After initially giving the Doctor Who team permission to use his characters, Savory had second thoughts and withdrew his consent, very much at the last minute.
This coincided with Lloyd rejecting Hayles' scripts in their current form, having his own ideas about where he wanted to take the series.
Davis had to conduct extensive rewrites to remove George and Margaret, replacing them with another male / female pairing due to the casting that had already taken place. He also had to ensure that only John Wood's sets were used, as they had already been designed. Davis wrote an episode per day at his home in Cookham.
The idea of the Toymaker suggested to Davis games as well as dolls of different types - and so clowns Joey and Clara ended up replacing Savory's characters for its opening instalment.
Having different games in different episodes allowed for the same two actors to portray different Toyroom characters.
As it happened, Savory was moved from his post to take over the Plays section midway through broadcast of this story, replaced at Serials by Shaun Sutton.
As The Ark had been an expensive production, The Celestial Toymaker was intended to be a cheap story to balance the budgets. It was to have a limited number of sets, and a small cast.
Whilst Bill Sellars had cast Singer and Silvera, Michael Gough was cast as the Toymaker by the producer. Lloyd wished to see the very best British actors in his series, inspired in his casting ideas by a number of his favourite TV dramas.
Filming began at Ealing on Monday 2nd March, when Singer and Silvera recorded the sequence wherein the toy clowns grow into their life-size counterparts. Singer was made up as a sad-faced Pierrot, whilst Silvera was a happy-faced Harlequin.
The next day saw model shots being filmed of the many TARDISes on the conveyor belt, as well as the automatic disc moves on the Trilogic Game board. The invisible Doctor's disembodied hands were actually those of Albert Ward, dressed in black and acting against a black background.
Jacki Lane also filmed her scene for the "Memory Window" screen, taking time out of rehearsals on The Ark.
This would be edited into the finished episode during studio recording, as were a pair of scenes from The Daleks' Master Plan (The Destruction of Time) and The Massacre (The Sea Beggar) - selected to represent Steven's recent past.
The Celestial Toyroom set was erected at Ealing, dominated by the massive Victorian dolls house - based on Queen Mary's at Windsor, designed by Sir Edward Lutyens.
Michael Gough donned his mandarin costume for the first time. It had previously been worn by Mark Eden in the closing episode of Marco Polo. That story also provided photographic blow-ups of the TARDIS, which were used in this story.
Another significant feature of the set was the Toymaker's desk - made to look like it was a life-size 1950's tin-plate toy. It sparked as it moved across the floor.
One of Lloyd's first decisions on taking over from Wiles was to change the companions. He did not rate Peter Purves highly as an actor, and considered his character dull and limited. Lane was too obviously a lot older than the teenage character she was supposed to be portraying. Both would be removed from the series as soon as possible, to be replaced by trendier, contemporary characters. Purves was issued with only a twelve week new contract, whilst Lane would stay only a little longer, to overlap with the introduction of their replacements.
Gough would take note of how difficult William Hartnell could be in rehearsals, and would later warn his then wife Anneke Wills of what to expect, when she was soon-after cast as new companion Polly.
Only a small version of the TARDIS console room was used in the opening re-enactment of the previous week's cliff-hanger, making use of photographic blow-ups for the walls. Lane liked her outfit as she had bought it herself in Knightsbridge, but Purves disliked his pullover - now regarded as iconic for the character - because horizontal stripes made you look fatter. The stripey jumper has been seen gracing the TARDIS wardrobe several times since.
Both companions would cite this story as one of their favourites due to their characters being given so much more to do.
The octagonal Toyroom set had two pale walls upon which other images could be inlaid, to turn them into the "Memory Windows". The other walls featured arches, covered with a metallic blue material.
The set had a pattern of lines painted on the floor, radiating out from the centre, where the TARDIS prop was positioned.
The third set was the Toymaker's office - a smaller version of the Ealing set-up.
Two life-size tin-plate robots decorated the sets, one with a TV monitor in its chest on which output from other cameras could be shown - such as game tallies. These robots were based on a toy owned by John Wood's son.
Singer and Silvera appeared only as Joey and Clara in this episode, donning their costumes from Ealing. Joey communicated with horn-like sounds, activated when he pressed one of the buttons on his outfit.
The obstacle course comprised four different elements including stepping stones, a rope suspended over a number of pinnacles, a plank stretched between two ladders, and finally a large flexible tube to be crawled through. The floor was marked with arrows indicating the direction players should move, like a gameboard.
The lighting on this part of the Toyroom set was slowly taken down as the game progressed, to make events look more ominous.
The reversion of Joey and Clara to lifeless dolls was done off camera. Singer and Silvera were seen to collapse, but the action then cut to Purves and Lane finding the clue. The guest actors left the set, and the toy dolls placed where they had last been seen when the camera cut back.
The clue was shown on screen just before the closing credits, superimposed over an image of the Trilogic Game.
For such a complex episode, only three recording breaks were required.
After recording had finished, Hartnell then embarked on a two week holiday - little realising that this had come very close to being his final day in the role of the Doctor, as we'll see next week...
- The ratings have continued to grow steadily back, though the appreciation figure falls to below the 50 mark. It will remain low for the entire serial.
- Competition in the ITV regions included Lost in Space and Thunderbirds.
- From this episode onwards, the series returns to its later time-slot of 5:50pm.
- Carmen Silvera will return to the series to play Ruth in Invasion of the Dinosaurs, but she is best known for her portrayal of Rene's wife Edith in WWII comedy 'Allo 'Allo - a spoof of French Resistance drama Secret Army.
- This story is blessed with a significantly larger number of photographs than most other stories of the time - both colour and monochrome. This is because three of the four episodes had Radio Times and BBC photographers present for their camera rehearsals.
- The Trilogic Game was a pre-existing puzzle called the "Towers of Hanoi" - also known as the "Problem of the Benares Temple" or "Lucas' Tower". The French mathematician Edouard Lucas had devised it in 1883. He created the myth that it had ancient oriental origins. This legend changed over time. Priests in a temple (or monks in a monastery) moved a number of discs which would take 585 billion years to complete. The minimal number of moves required to complete the puzzle is 2 to the power "n" minus 1, where "n" is the number of discs.
- Blind Man's Buff is believed to be over 2000 years old, with its origins in ancient Greece.
- Radio Times published its usual piece to accompany the new story. Whilst Michael Gough got a nice portrait photograph, the accompanying text elected to concentrate on the Trilogic Game, including a diagram to help fans who might want to try it at home.
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