Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: Batman, bbc, blu-ray, doctor who, Jackie Lane, michael gough, peter purves, The Celestial Toymaker, tim burton, william hartnell

Doctor Who: "The Celestial Toymaker" Cursed by Creepy CGI Animation

The BBC is releasing the mostly lost Doctor Who serial "The Celestial Toymaker" on Blu-Ray & DVD. But based on how it looks, should they?

The BBC announced it will be releasing a Blu-Ray and DVD of the original Doctor Who serial "The Celestial Toymaker" as a horrific-looking CGI animation. This seems to be an attempt to cash in on the Toymaker being the final Big Bad against David Tennant's Fourteenth Doctor in the final 60th Anniversary Special "The Giggle." Most of the original live-action recordings of the serial had been lost when the BBC brilliantly erased a huge swath of their tapes to recycle them, including over 100 episodes of Doctor Who. The audio track for the serial remains intact and will be used for the animated release.

Look at that image! It's horrible! That's nightmare fuel! It's like mutated Thunderbirds puppets reprogrammed to murder us all! Who on Earth thought this was a good look?! What were they thinking?! Having your fingers move some 5-inch action figures of the characters on a tiny cardboard set would look better than this!!

"The Celestial Toymaker sees the Doctor and companions separated when they come up against the Toymaker. While the Doctor plays the Trilogic Game, Steven and Dodo are forced to play seemingly childish but ultimately dangerous games with the aim of being reunited and getting back to the TARDIS."

The two-disc set contains the third season story as well as special features. This classic series stars the First Doctor, William Hartnell, and companions Peter Purves as Steven Taylor and Jackie Lane as Dodo Chaplet, with the late Michael Gough (now best known as Alfred in the Tim Burton Batman movies) as the Toymaker.

Here's a clip from the surviving live-action episode. It's the end of that story where The Doctor defeats the Toymaker, which directly leads to the plot of the final 60th Anniversary Special "The Giggle," only this time the Toymaker is played by Neil Patrick Harris.

Here's a clip from the new CGI animation. It's possibly the ugliest thing we have ever seen come out of the BBC for anything to do with Doctor Who.

Look, we know that Doctor Who physical media sells quite well for the BBC. Hardcore fans who love the classic series will buy up all media for it, but why does the BBC always choose terrible animators to work on lost episodes of Doctor Who? Especially when you have better efforts from other people like this:

And this is just an audition reel from a far more talented animator!

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