One of the most surreal stories of the First Doctor's Era, I love this story and though three of it's episodes are missing, I think the last episode as the only surviving one is the right one to be able to watch, as it is the best out of the four.

Michael Gough is absolutely brilliant as the Toymaker and it's an absolute shame he never got to revive the role in the aborted Season 23 in 1986(though he still made a good villain as Hedin in Arc Of Infinity).

The only thing to mar the story for me is the absence of Hartnell as The Doctor for 2 episodes. I think having to pit his wits against the Toymaker for all four episodes would have racked up the tension somewhat, based on the confrontations in the first and last episodes.

Dodo and Steven both have good roles in this, more so as they have to carry the action in The Doctor's absence. I also love all the false TARDIS stuff and the resolution to the story was a good one, with The Doctor using his wits to the fullest to defeat the Toymaker.

On the face of it, the story's design's and characters are a bit silly and childish but it is neatly counterpointed by the sinister Toymaker himself. I love the idea that even the benign looking things can kill and for me that is the appeal of the story.

I quite agree with all this. Dodo has come into her own by this story and the only thing that mars it is her awful costume, which yet somehow seems at home in the midst of the bizarre doll's-house setting.

Always interesting is the fact that the original plan was to replace Hartnell during this story by bringing back the Doctor with a different face and voice, but the Powers That Were changed their minds and thus we have the concept of regeneration.

Spoiler for anyone who hasn't seen The Mind Robber:

Terrible story, one of the worst of the Hartnell era.

4 episodes of dull games with Hartnell mising half the time and Purves with nothing interesting to do. Can't think of anything positive to say about this one.

Marmite.

I'm glad that didn't happen as I prefer the way Hartnell left as it was. It really wouldn't have been much of a send off for Hartnell to disappear than never be seen again. At least the regeneration idea was a much better one(though obviously wasn't called that at the time).


Everyone to their own but as you didn't like the story with Hartnell in two episodes of it, I guess you wouldn't have liked it much better if he had been in the two missing ones as well!

I found the soundtrack CD to be terribly boring and repetitive.

It was always said to be "one of the most thrilling, exciting, exotic DW stories of all time", and even the slightly crap novelisation didn't dispel that. Since it's become available on CD, it has certainly polarised opinions.

Like several other stories of this era, you really have to look at the time they were made and the expectations of the audience at the time. No doubt it would have thrilled those viewers watching back then but for us viewers used to later era's and even the New series, I can understand why it would come across as dull. I certainly try to take this attitude towards The Web Planet but it doesn't make watching it any easier so I well understand why people don't like it!

If this story had been made during a later era I'm sure some of the games and effects would have been much better. I think there's a story featuring The Toymaker just crying out to be made in the New Series. I often think what up-to-date special effects and CGI could do with a story featuring him. The good thing, he's still out there and The Doctor did suggest at the end of this story that there would be other battles in other times.

Ah yes the days when Toymaker was one of the lost masterpieces of Who. Thankfully we can make up our on mind these days.

Fair point though the audience reaction report for this story is quite damming, suggesting that no one really enjoyed it at the time!

That's as maybe but it wasn't the lowest placed Hartnell Story. It received over 8m viewers, in comparison to the lowest placed story, The Smugglers with 4m. I also think the following story to this fared far worse and had the lowest audience appreciation of any Hartnell Story, so it wasn't quite the worst received story out there!

Interesting stuff here!


Even with CGI, this story would just have been capture/escape, capture/escape stuff. Steven and Dodo given sideshows to keep them occupied while the Doctor and the Toymaker get the chance to be enigmatic at each other. There's just not very much to it. Things might be different if we were able to see more than a quarter of it, but it's a very thin styory.

Stories that are perceived to fail, such as Web Planet, have so much going for them that they cannot deliver. Celestial Toymaker is almost mundane. Killer hopscotch is as exciting as it gets. Maybe the dolls and the playing card people might appear tragic and damned, but I doubt it. They certainly didn't on the CD.

The joy of the missing stories being released on CD is that they can be reappraised in the cold light of day, instead of relying on the childhood memories of Elder Statesmen. Evil of the Daleks bored the arse off me. The Smugglers blew my socks off. These are not opinions that are frequently expressed!

Quoting viewing figures is no guarantee of anything (as we know from the C21st show).

I agree about this and it's also true for later era's of Classic Who as well. There is a difference between viewing figures and appreciation figures. I think someone said a few weeks ago that viewing figures stayed steady when Colin Baker took over but the audience appreciation figures dropped radically. I only quoted the above figures to prove there is a difference between the two regarding this story as well.

I personally prefer this story to both The Web Planet and The Massacre but that's just my preference towards sci-fi rather than historical stories in the latter's case. For me there was more intrigue and tension in the last episode of The Celestrial Toymaker than six whole episodes of The Web Planet. That's just my view, though.

That's the great thing about doing these threads; it's really good someone like yourself comes on and give opposite views not only to my own but also those you state that are not 'frequently expressed.'

I remember seeing this as a 5 year old.....were there lots of white poilice boxes involved?
On reflection - as a 51 year old, the only remaining last episode that I have seen:-
Dodo seems quite full of herself, Steven is doing his macho bit, and Cyril is doing a good impression of Chris Biggins!
The Toymaker makes a good impression of a nasty villain.....pity he didn't return!
Can't really comment, as I never saw it properly....but I would estimate it at as a 6/10

When I first began my big Doctor Who watching project this was one of the ones i was most looking forward to. I love big, cosmic themes and enemies, surrealism and imagination. So I was expecting this be a belter. Sadly... it wasn't.

I can't fathom writing the Doctor out of this of all stories. I understand Hartnell took his holiday, but for goodness sake, have that coincide with a more action-oriented story. When we should be getting the Toymaker pit his wits with the Doctor we get him pitting his wits with Steven and Dodo instead! Unbelievable. And what boring games they are too. This was an episode where they could really go wild and have anything... and they decide to have the characters play Snakes & Ladders against Billy Bunter... gah. Such unrealized potential. I guess that the Troughton story, The Mind Robber, is what this one could have been.

This story is a good example of the worst offence a Doctor Who story can commit... not using it's title character! The ONLY reason Doctor Who is exceptional is the character of the Doctor. Without him, it's usually bog-standard science fantasy.

Err? ... Blink!

Cheers, daveac

Have just listened to this story and got to agree it is incredibly dull.Really disappointed as it doesn't have four episodes worth of story. Maybe 2

Although Michael Gough does have a sinister voice and presence his malevolent character is passive and the
games just don't come to life with audio. Even watching the last episode doesn't do anything to me to make me like the story that much.

I do respect the other later Doctor Who stories Brian Hayles
wrote but honestly feel this belongs in colour in the surreal universe of the Avengers. It has that kind of feel that black and white doesn't do it justice. I'm sorry to be negative about a story but as someone said marmite

Watched the reccon earlier this year. The first 3 episodes drag but thankfully the existing episode 4 is really good. Billy was obviously on holiday for most of the story but peter purves and jackie lane carry the story brilliantly. You could easily have released this with a brief resume and episode 4 and not miss anything.

Except that in Blink, while the Doctor is off-stage most of the time, his presence is still keenly felt because he's manipulating events via the DVDs. Accepted though that the story is really about Sally Sparrow and the tragic consequences of the Angels feeding.

I remember the (trilogic?) board game was printed in the radio times ........

If you enjoyed this, its worth listening to The Nightmare Fair which essentially uses the discarded script from the lost 1985/86 story in which the 6th Doctor and Peri take on The Toymaker in (I think) Brighton.

When the trilogic game was printed in Radio Times, i also remember a RT letter a few weeks later : ''dr who a genius ? I completed the game in 10 minutes .......''

Indeed . I can assure you it was pretty terrifying when it first aired. Audiences have just become used to different sfx since.

Part of me thinks this might be quite sinister if we could SEE it, and there could be tragedy and desperation etched on the faces of Carmen Silvera and Campbell Singer. Unlikely though, given the soundtrack CD is so deadly dreary dull, and the novelisation suggests they're moving from one standalone event to another standalone event.