I remember watching this when it was first broadcast. As a 9 year old I liked it and didn't notice any of the current concerns. The toy stuff is why it is stuck in my memory. This is one story I'd like ti see remade and/or expanded upon.
The same for me, David, it was my 10 birthday in the middle of this story's broadcasts, we were certainly in the programmes initial main target age group. I loved the surreal aspect of it, in the same way I loved the original 'The Prisoner' series, Jonathan Miller's 1966 version of 'Alice in Wonderland' and some of the more out there episodes of The Avengers, like 'The house that Jack built'. I realise though through my nostalgic memory of most of those 1st and 2nd Doctor stories they felt much better than what had actually appeared on my TV, now I can watch so many of them on BBC I-Player without the naivety of that period they were pretty hammy and camp. I appreciate the ambition and commitment though, but they hadn't the budget and, ironically, neither the time or space, to realise the writers ideas with any real justice. The thing I noticed most was how, with the smaller TV screen ratio, how difficult and critical it was that all the actors hit their marks. Scenes with 3 or 4 characters with dialogue all invading each others personal space vying for position to maintain keeping their faces in shot. Once you notice it it does become almost comical.
I understand why people feel they need to make such a fuss over any racism/sexism/anything morally bad in media, but it's wild that people feel they need to underline it so heavily just to avoid people screaming at them. We should be able to talk about decades old media without brining this stuff up at "every available opportunity". Again I understand why everyone has this attitude, but frankly it's not a good thing to create such a scared environment just because an actor and writer used a racist trope in the 60s, none of us did it. That's no criticism of the video, I'm criticising the rather false attitude and atmosphere that has been created around these topics at large over recent years.
Elizabeth Sandifer is a figure in fandom who has been gleefully trying to browbeat everyone into taking her POV on how to deal with problematic Doctor Who, which often amounts to shaming it without mercy. One of her evicerations of The Celestial Toymaker starts with her acknowledging she has not watched anything to do with it in many years, but she's proud of helping to take it down. There's no nuance to this kind of criticism, and it doesn't improve our society or perceptions if we can't acknowledge why something is problematic but also note that it can be entertaining and contextualized as well. Life's more complicated than some culture warriors want to admit.
Read a few of Sandifer's books, found it dismally subjective and so ludicrously pretentious as to be briefly convinced it was a deliberate parody of overblown fan review books before eventually realising that it was in fact written to be taken seriously. Really, I can't say they add anything to the fan community other than in pure comedy value. @@meiray
Never knew "Celestial" had any negative meaning to it. Only have known it as pertaining to outer-space cosmic stuff. Only have ever heard "...Tiger by the toe". Gough was not made up to look Chinese. I figured TTM just chose to wear that outfit that day, since it's not the sort of thing you'd think an actual Toymaker would wear. Great video!
An unusually surreal story for the time mostly written as a filler to cover Hartnell's absence. I think it's one of those stories where being lost or incomplete has created a misty eyed reputation. The concept of an extremely powerful being in his own realm was strong, but the implementation was sub kids' show games and the ultimate solution came from - the Doctor suddenly being an excellent vocal mimic? Who has done surreal much better and I've never understood the love for it.
I read the Target novelisation of this when I was a child around the time it came out in 1986. I was hooked and obsessed, helped by the book having a beautiful cover. As a novel it was exciting and I felt the danger to Steven and Dodo in the games they played, and the verbal battles between the Doctor and the Toymaker formed some of my earliest views of Hartnell. At this point I don't think I had ever seen anything other than what was being broadcast at the time, which will have been Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. It felt special.
Great stuff, although as someone born almost exactly when Celestial Toymaker aired, I can attest to the fact that the "N" word was still in use in the "Eeny, meeny" nursery rhyme for most of my youth, and wasn't widely thought controversial at the time. Indeed, as my mother informs me, one could still buy "N-brown" coloured fabric, wool and stockings at the time, and Monty Python had no issue with having a character named "Mrs N-baiter" appear in a sketch on national TV.
moreover, the original title of Agatha Christies "And Then There Were None" was "10 Little N-Words", and apparently it was still printed in the UK with that title up to 1985 (according to Wikipedia)
I always thought that the other toys were actual people The Toymaker had lured to his realm, lost his games and as punishment were turned into his playthings forever.... Looking forward to the DVD
I have to admit when I first saw it; (and the last time I saw it); back in the 60s I was a little freaked out. Fun scary freaked out, but that was most doctor who back then. I was just a kid. You have to look at the story like that. As a child I didn't notice any of the current day "issues" about the show. And that's something not to forget, the show was made in the 1960s. It was a different country. As for the Chinese clothes, maybe thats all the budget ran to, borrowing something from a previous serial. Everything I read about the "invisible doctor" in the story was that Hartnell that was on 2 weeks holidays; a common practice; the regulars often "disappeared" for 2 episodes; or 2 weeks rehearsal and filming; in the early days. I never heard anything about writing Hartnell out of the show at that point.
He was on holiday, but it's also true that there were discussions about replacing him at the time. Eventually they found a different way, but the idea of replacing him with a different actor when he became visible again is well known.
Really enjoyed watching that final episode which is on my Lost in Time collection - viewed with a friend of mine who literally hadn't seen it since it was 1st transmitted & he was delighted
As far as unmentioned facts go I'm surprised you didn't mention that they got into hot water over that Billy Bunter ripoff, to such an extent they had to preface the last episode with a disclaimer that this was NOT Billy Bunter. For all its flaws I do quite like The Celestial Toymaker; I feel that with the shift to colour Doctor Who also shifted to being a Show With Lore, that the black-and-white era's just putting out episodes week after week with no expectation that they even could be revisited to compare the evolving narrative lent itself to more outlandish experiments like this and The Mind Robber that later Who could never really do without trying to give a *little* stabilising context to why everything's suddenly so weird. It's why I like the black and white era so much and why I'm always fascinated/hopeful about possible recoveries, because we're looking at an endless tangle of threads of the show Doctor Who *could* have been as it evolved
The use of the N-word was not strictly confined to Dr Who episode of 1960s. I clearly remember hearing the One Older residents in Fawlty Towers sitcom use the word. It was later dubbed to (Black) Many British tv shows used racial and sexual stereotypes are regular part of dialogue in 1970s.
In Fawlty Towers though it was a deliberate joke to make fun of older racist people. There is another use of this rhyme in an episode of Dad's Army that shockingly I've never heard anyone complain about.
I listened to this he soundtrack cd years ago and thought it was rubbish, but you’ve inspired me to give it another go. I thought it was banal and boring, and all the games taking far too long and being far too obvious. Off to get the cd out now!
I think whether or not the use of the n-word is justifiable or not depends entirely on the context it was used in. Back then, people were far more lax when it came to the use of slurs. If the n-word in the nursery rhyme was part of the original lyrics of the song, then they may have felt that removing it would detract from its genuineness. Either way, they should have known better and if it was required for the song to work, they should have found another song to use. However, that is only assuming the nursery rhyme in the story was not quintessential to the plot. So, as I said, the context is important
@@voiceinyourhead8284 - Absolute nonsense. Since 1543, since the day of Nicolaus Copernicus, the word "Celestial" has refered to an object or system in outer space. So what if once upon a time, a few people referred to someone or something with a common word ? Did you know theres a candy bar called a Milky Way, which is made of chocolate, which is sometimes used to describe black people, which makes it racist, which means we must outlaw candy bars !! Your ideas are insane. Learn to speak English.
@@voiceinyourhead8284 - You know, if YOU do your research, you'll find that "Celestial" was used in reference to Chinese immigrants because Chinese people refered to themsevles as CELESTIALS. It's sort of like calling Italians "Italian" or German people Germans. Fool. they called China , "The Celestial (Heavenly) Empire"
I agree with you. Celestial means heavenly, like the angels etc. If the Chinese wanted to be called that, well fine. But thus word is not owned by anyone...its free to use in this instance, for a classic Dr Who 60s episode.
@@TheChosenChimpOh I did! I’ve always enjoyed this story despite it’s many flaws, with many I do agree with, so it’s really nice to see a more positive review of it with a perfect sum up which is exactly how I feel about it 😊
