From The Celestial Toymaker to The Giggle, the Toymaker has had an interesting journey through Doctor Who history. Let's explore it!
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00:00You know the Celestial Toymaker, right? That incredibly important villain in Doctor Who's
00:04history, and yeah, alright, listen, I'm not going to blame you if you don't, but funny enough,
00:08they are an incredibly important villain in Doctor Who's history, and they are returning
00:14in the form of Neil Patrick Harris. But what are they? Who are they? Let's take a dive.
00:18I'm Sean Feregg for WhoCulture, and here are 10 things you didn't know about the Toymaker.
00:24Number 10. He almost came back multiple times. The first attempt to bring back the Toymaker
00:28was in a story outline pitched by his creator, writer Brian Hales. In 1975,
00:33Hales pitched a story called The Eyes of Nemesis for Tom Baker's fourth Doctor. Weirdly,
00:37the Toymaker was revealed late in the story outline, only pitting him against the Doctor
00:41in the final episode. This idea was rejected. A decade later, the 1980s showrunner John Nathan
00:46Turner planned to bring Michael Goff back as the Toymaker for season 23. A script was written by
00:51former producer Graham Williams, which would have pitted the sixth Doctor and Perry against the
00:55Toymaker in an arcade in Blackpool. Doctor Who's 18-month hiatus killed this plan, however,
01:00with Jonathan Nathan Turner deciding to completely redraft his plans for season 23. This story was
01:06later novelised as The Nightmare Fair before being adapted as a big Finnish audio adventure in 2009.
01:11Years later, Nathan Turner suggested bringing back the Toymaker in a straight-to-home movie
01:16for the video market. He even considered using the villain in what would eventually become
01:201993's EastEnders crossover Dimensions in Time. Toymaker might have dodged a bullet on that one,
01:26he has a sister. Brian Hales later wrote The Queen of Time, an unmade second Doctor serial
01:31that would have introduced the Toymaker's half-sister, Hecuba, the so-called Queen of Time,
01:35who had mastery over time in the same way the Toymaker has mastery over reality. She used those
01:40gifts to pluck unwitting people from across time and space as dinner guests and potential players
01:45of her temporal games. In Hales' story outline, Jamie and Zoe are forced to play various games,
01:50including times and clocks, much like Steven and Dodo in The Celestial Toymaker. Meanwhile,
01:55rather than the Toymaker wanting to keep the Doctor as a worthy opponent, Hecuba wants him
02:00as her husband. It's hilarious to imagine Patrick Troughton's second Doctor being lusted after by
02:04the Queen of Time herself, although, arguably, as the eleventh Doctor and River Song, Matt Smith
02:09and Alex Kingston provide a pretty good estimation of what that would look like. Hales' outline was
02:13rejected, presumably due to the similarities with The Celestial Toymaker. The writer would have
02:18much greater success in the Troughton era when he created the Ice Warriors.
02:22Number 8, he was married to Doctor Who's Polly. The first Toymaker was played by Michael Goff,
02:27best known as Alfred Pennyworth in the 90s Batman movies, and of course the 89 movie.
02:32He was Batman's loyal butler opposite Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney. Not a
02:36bad resume, eh? Even back in 1966, Goff was a well-known actor of film and television who would
02:42have been a big draw for viewers. Of course, he also returned to Doctor Who in 1983 in the far
02:48less memorable role of Time Lord Heddon in Ark of Infinity. But The Celestial Toymaker and Ark
02:53of Infinity aren't the only connections between Goff and the Whoniverse. Between 1962 and 1979,
02:58he was married to Annika Wills, who joined the show as companion Polly Wright a few months after
03:03The Celestial Toymaker aired. The couple met on the set of the film Candidate for Murder and remained
03:08together for 17 years. Goff adopted Wills' daughter, who coincidentally was also named Polly.
03:12Polly believed that Goff was her biological father until her tragic death in 1982.
03:18He was intended to be a Time Lord
03:21In the age of 15 Doctors and the Timeless Child, it's worth remembering that in 1966,
03:26very little was known about the Doctor's backstory. Viewers had met the meddling
03:30monk in the 1965 serial, the Time Meddler, but the names Gallifrey and Time Lord were still alien.
03:35To that end, script editor Donald Tosh had intended to make the Toymaker another member
03:40of the Doctor's race. The Doctor knows the Toymaker by name and reputation in the serial,
03:44warning Dodo and Steven about the villain's predilection for turning people into playthings.
03:48The Doctor's knowledge of the Toymaker could be because that's the sort of thing an intergalactic
03:52traveller would know, or it could be that he knows about him because they were at the Time
03:57Lord Academy together. The Toymaker was never confirmed to be one of the Doctor's own people
04:01in the serial, but the intention was certainly there. Perhaps Russell T. Davis could make good
04:06on this promise in The Giggle.
04:07Number 6. The Trilogic Game Cursed Peter Purves
04:10The Celestial Toymaker was one of Peter Purves' last serials as companion Steven Taylor. After
04:16it finished filming, the actor came into the possession of the Trilogic Game prop,
04:20the challenge set by the Toymaker to test the first Doctor, who played a key role in the serial.
04:24With Hartnell invisible for most of the story, it was down to Purves to lead it. This was good
04:28news for the actor, as he felt that Steven had often been sidelined during his time on Doctor
04:33Who, but unfortunately for Purves, he was further sidelined when he left the show a few serials
04:38later. He didn't work for a year and a half after his last day on Doctor Who, and he came to blame
04:42the Toymaker's cursed game for his bad luck. A day after disposing of the Trilogic prop, Purves was
04:47offered a job on Z-Cars, and then the presenter role on Blue Peter. While it's surely a cosmic
04:52coincidence, this sudden change of fate was enough to convince Purves that the Trilogic Game was
04:57cursed. The Celestial Toymaker was the seventh serial in William Hartnell's final Doctor Who
05:07season. By this time, Hartnell's relationship with the new production team was strained,
05:11and his own health was failing. Producer John Wiles and script editor Donald Tosh considered
05:15replacing him with another actor. In the original plan, the Toymaker would have changed the Doctor's
05:20appearance, facilitating the casting of a new lead. Something similar was done to cover Frasier
05:25Hines' absence in The Mind Robber, with the second Doctor choosing the wrong facial features when
05:29reconstructing a cardboard Jamie. Fifty-seven years later, and the Toymaker may well be responsible
05:35for the thirteenth Doctor's change of appearance. Did this trickster give the Doctor their old
05:39face back? Will the fourteenth Doctor's regeneration be triggered by the machinations of
05:43the Toymaker? With a being of such cosmic power and a showrunner like Russell T. Davis, anything
05:47is possible. Despite what the dialects in colour may suggest, it's actually
05:551966's The Celestial Toymaker that's the first Doctor Who serial to feature flashback sequences.
06:00In the serial's first episode, the Toymaker uses a memory window to try and dominate the minds of
06:05the Doctor's companions, Steven and Dodo. This reveals some of Dodo's slight backstory. The
06:09script reveals that her mother died when she was still in school, as she sees a sad schoolgirl in
06:14the Toymaker's memory window, forcing the Doctor to drag her vision away. The memory window also
06:19displays footage from the Daleks' master plan and the Massacre, as Steven sees himself on both
06:24the jungle planet Kemble and in sixteenth-century Paris. This was the first time that Doctor Who
06:29deployed footage from earlier adventures, the irony being that all the stories in question no
06:33longer fully exist in the BBC archives, if only someone had an elderly Doctor Who fan and a memory
06:39window hooked up to a VCR. After the 1996 TV movie failed to lead to a series, Paul McGann's
06:49Eighth Doctor set a course for the multimedia landscape of the late 1990s. As well as a series
06:54of BBC books and eventual big Finnish audio dramas, there was also a mini Doctor Who comic
06:59strip in the Radio Times. However, for a generation of 90s Doctor Who fans, the Eighth Doctor's
07:04adventures began in the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip. The first story, Endgame, featured the
07:09Eighth Doctor facing off against the Toymaker in another series of games and challenges.
07:13Written by Alan Barnes and full of so much memorable imagery, it's an epic start to the
07:18Eighth Doctor's comic book adventures. It also features a terrifying Marionette Doctor that
07:22does battle with McGann in the story's climax. With Doctor Who Weekly's The Starbeast being
07:27adapted for the first 60th anniversary special, it'll be interesting to see if RTD adapts elements
07:32of this classic comic strip for the giggle. Marionettes and puppetry was hinted at in the
07:37trailer after all. Of all the strange, strange creatures in the first era of Doctor Who,
07:45only the Daleks and the Cybermen have come back in the modern era. This means that the Toymaker
07:50is in very good company, and could even take his place among those top-tier baddies as a recurring
07:55villain in the new era. It's interesting to ponder why so many first Doctor Who villains haven't come
08:00back, especially as RTD's first Doctor Who era brought back the Bloody Macra. The Sensorites
08:05and the Dravens have been name-checked since 2005, but they've never actually appeared on screen.
08:10One possible reason is that a lot of Hartnell villains were historical characters due to the
08:13show's early commitment to educating as well as entertaining. Another possibility is that Davis
08:18and his successors, who are now also his predecessors, timey-wimey, felt that monsters
08:22like the Zarbi, the Monoids, or the Vord wouldn't work in modern Doctor Who. Cowards.
08:271. He's not actually called the Celestial Toymaker?
08:30Inevitably, there will be comments that Neil Patrick Harris' character has been
08:35renamed due to Celestial being a racist term for a person of Chinese descent. This isn't the case,
08:41as the character has always been referred to as just the Toymaker. The Celestial Toymaker is the
08:47overall name of the 1966 serial, not the actual character. While the Doctor does say the Celestial
08:53Toymaker, the actual script reveals that it's with a small c. This means that the Doctor is
08:58referring to the Toymaker's origins in the stars rather than his actual title. Dodo then asks who
09:04is the Celestial Toymaker, but she's clearly made the same misunderstanding that many others have
09:09since 1966. Script editor Donald Tosh always referred to the character as the Toymaker,
09:14omitting the c-word entirely. Gone, too, are the oriental-style robes that have added to the
09:19Celestial Toymaker's uncomfortable reputation. In bringing the character back in 2023,
09:25Davis will move the Toymaker on from his problematic legacy and give us a memorable
09:29villain that lives up to the character's modern-day potential.
09:33That is it for our list. Thank you so much for watching along. You are awesome, you are
09:37wonderful. Remember you can follow us over on Twitter at WhoCulture, same on Instagram,
09:41same on TikTok. I am seanferric, you can follow me at seanferric on the various socials. Thank you
09:46so much to the wonderful Mark Donaldson for writing the article this video is based on,
09:50and thank you so much to James for editing it to make it look pretty. I hope you're enjoying
09:54the specials, I know I am. Keep things wibbly wobbly. Thanks very much.