Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: bbc, doctor who, michael gough, neil patrick harris, russell t davies, william hartnell

Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Perfect Moment for The Toymaker's Return

The last scene from the semi-lost Doctor Who story "The Celestial Toymaker" might explain why The Toymaker returns for the 60th Anniversary.

The BBC has released a clip from the classic Doctor Who episode "The Celestial Toymaker" that might reveal why The Toymaker is after The Doctor in this year's 60th Anniversary Special. That short clip features how The First Doctor defeated the Toymaker (then played by Michael Gough). The Doctor mentions that the Toymaker is immortal, near-omnipotent, and a sore loser. That scene alone might explain why he's so pissed off as to come after The Doctor again after more than fifty years. Who wants a spiteful immortal being who can create and destroy entire new realities to come after them?

It's interesting that the character will just be called "The Toymaker," now played by Neil Patrick Harris in the Special. Ever since the 19th Century, "Celestial" was still a racial slur against Chinese people in America. Hopefully, the word was probably used by the producers and writers of Doctor Who in good faith for its literal meaning that the Toymaker was a cosmic creator of toys. It's odd, though, that the original Celestial Toymaker was dressed in the costume of a court official from Imperial China, which has become a clichéd visual trope for sinister Yellow Peril villains in Western pulp fiction ever since the introduction of "Fu Manchu." We don't know if Michael Gough was dressed in a leftover costume from the episode "Marco Polo" because they needed to save money in the budget or if that was part of the West's occasional fetish for Orientalism as "The Other" at the time. It's telling that in the publicity materials for the 60th Anniversary special, he's now just called "The Toymaker."

Doctor Who: The Oddest, Worst Episodes

It might be a good thing that three-quarters of "The Celestial Toymaker" is missing because when you read the novelization or a synopsis of the story, a lot of it is absolutely terrible. One of the worst Doctor Who stories of all time. Much of the writing was lazy and haphazard, like they made things up as they went along. The direction was so stiff it was practically nonexistent. The way The Doctor defeats the Toymaker at the end just came out of nowhere. The Doctor spent most of the early part of the story invisible and silent because William Hartnell's health was declining, so the producers let him take time off and toyed with the idea of bringing in a new actor to play The Doctor from that point on.

The Toymaker only appeared in that one Doctor Who story, yet the character has taken on mythical status in the minds of hardcore fans, including many who weren't even born when the story was televised. The character was one of the first all-powerful, immortal cosmic beings to be depicted in Film or Television, the same year similar archetypes were introduced on Star Trek, and might have been an inspiration for Q on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Fans will get their wish now with a rebooted Toymaker with all the Orientalism removed.

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