The Celestial Toymaker 🧩 Discussion & Review Podcast | Doctor Who: Hartnell Era

Maker of Toys. Recasting actors. Character crossovers. Chaotic rewrites. Scuppered returns. Script archaeology. Fandom reassessments. The 1966 Toymaker serial is a bizarre window into a very strange and liminal period of Doctor Who, and a very strange and scattered set of production circumstances. (00:00:00) Introduction & first reactions (00:03:42) Why has it persisted? (00:06:38) What the Toymaker actually does (00:08:29) Watching characters do puzzles (00:10:42) Internal logic (00:12:57) Darkness of the story & humanity of the toys (00:16:43) Wasting time & trap of meaninglessness (00:21:34) Steven & Dodo's roles (00:25:24) Thoughts on the 'visuals' (00:28:06) Toymaker compared to the Doctor (00:30:01) 'Cheat' resolution of the story (00:33:47) Pathos of the toy characters (00:37:53) Toymaker as a villain & a performance (00:41:46) Music & things we wish we could see (00:44:45) Absence of Hartnell & his qualities (00:46:22) History of the serial: script editors (00:48:56) Genesis of the script, George & Margaret (00:54:37) Rewrites addressing tonal issues (00:56:31) Early regeneration of Hartnell? (00:58:51) Transition of the production teams (01:01:54) Replacing George and Margaret & impact of the rewrites (01:06:53) Contemporary & fan responses to the story (01:11:03) Racist elements & interpretations over time (01:14:32) The 'occidental Mandarin' & British juxtapositions (01:19:15) Toymaker as an appropriator & depicting Orientalism (01:27:50) Public schoolboys & Empire psychology (01:31:44) Lost potential for meaning (01:34:10) Absence leaving room to project & reimagine (01:38:10) Position in the show's progression/regression + outro…

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