"I gambled with God and made him a Jack-in-the-box..."
Yes, I know: I, of all peopole, am a day l with his ate for Doctor Who. But, much as my Who fix is an imperative, a necessity, a matter of life and death... yeah, my child comes first. Anyway, this is going to be a long one. But let's just start by saying that it's a tour de force of writing, characterisation, direction and production, like both of its predecessors this 60th. We even get Mel, getting to be a genius working for UNIT, Bonnie Langford being brilliant, and even a potted history of life from Sabalom Glitz onwards... and is it hinted that they were an actual couple? Bizarrely, though it shouldn't, I think that sort of works. Anyway...
Love the pre-titles with the Toymaker in 1925 with his creepy shop, the John Logie Baird stuff, and the captivatingly evil charisma from Neil Patrick Harris as the Toymaker. I like the way the Toymaker is called out for a casually racist comment that exactly echoes one made to Waris Hussein in An Adventure in Time and Space, surely a deliberate nod. It's also perhaps a nod to the hints of archaic racist tropes that hover around the character; if you're not sure what I mean, Google the words "Celestial" and "Chinese". I'll wait. Incidentally, I love the brief colourised clips of William Hartnell and Michael Gough.
Of course, The Celestial Toymaker is, I have to say, total pants, just game after game with no real sense of drama or purpose. The games here are so much different, and creepy. That poor man made into a marionnette (not saved, I note, from this existential body horror), and Donna's being attacked by the family of ventriloquist dummies. Brr. The Toymaker may not have been a great villain in 1966 (he really wasn't!), but he is now. The concept was always potentially great. Now, at last, it's been done properly. And I love how RTD refuses to do anything so mundane as explain what the Toymaker is. The whole point is that he's beyond all logic and explanation, and therefore terrifying.
Even better, this episode is about something. People acting so belligerently in 2023 is simply the Toymaker having people behave in real life as they behave online, a nice touch. And the anti-Zeedex conspiracy theories, with the obvious subtext... yeah, chef's kiss. The Toymaker even declares during the climax how he loves the capacity of humanity to lose themselves in their gaming headphones (not much of a gamer myself in that sense. Pokemon Go, on the other hand...), plus "the mind games- the dating, the ghosting". This is the perfect way of using fantasy to get away with social commentary. Oh RTD, how we've missed you.
Anyway, we get UNIT again. Still led by Kate. Shirley is still there. Are we, perhaps, looking at a recurring UNIT gang, 70s style? Potentially including Donna (I love how she casually gets the job!) and even Mel? It's an exciting prospect, one of many arising from this episode.
The conclusion, with the bi-regeneration and two Doctors, really shouldn't work. Describe it out of context and it's terrible. Except, with RTD writing... it isn't. It's brilliant. Ncuti Gatwa is superb, of course, but more on him at Christmas. The Fourteenth Doctor is tired, full of the weight of history, and facing burnout. The Toymaker's puppet show illustrates it nicely... the guilt of Amy and Rory, of Clara, of Bill, of the Flux, of that thing last episode with the salt. As Donna hasn't stopped telling him, from the very start, he needs to stop. And now he has a family, on Earth, which is lovely, much as he keeps taking people on naughty little TARDIS trips. It's a nice touch that Mel, being an orphan, gets included too. And, being that this is a second Earth exile of sorts, it's a nice little Easter egg that the Doctor tells a little anecdote about the planet Delphon, where they communicate with their eyebrows. That joke is fifty-four years old next month...!
Much as I'd say the chance of the Fourteenth Doctor and the Nobles (sadly Wilf had just a cameo, understandably...) reappearing in some way is pretty much 100%. Good. Because the characterisation has been exquisite, not least with the Doctor accepting his regeneration without self-indulgence this time.
This is pretty much perfection. The bar has been set high... but I've every confidence that Ncuti Gatwa's debut is totally going to smash it.
I have mixed feelings on the Bi generation concept. On one hand, having Tennant still be around in some form kinda diminshes his "I don't want to go" impact, as well as leaves an odd impression that other Doctors prior are still out there in some way. On the other hand, it was so well acted that it kinda made me think of the "James Bond codename theory" with 14 passing the touch to 15. Of course, this is in itself disminished as Gatwa's tenure was too brief.
ReplyDeletePerhaps we should have seen this coming given we had the Meta Crisis Doctor, but it is strange that Gatwa was techinally "A" Doctor instead of "THE" Doctor. Bi-generation was an oddity, for better or for worse. Though the timeless child recton did make us question everything we thought we knew about regeneration (even implying the Doctor is immortal and can always regenerate forever (going against the idea that regeneration can fail with the Doctor dying in Turn left)
ReplyDeleteI don't think the Doctor is any more immortal than they ever were. They could still be killed before regeneration starts or in a way that precludes regeneration (vapourised, for instance). And it's not like the show will ever actually kill off the Doctor, so it's academic anyway.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there's always been one Doctor at a time (aside from a couple of very short-term duplications), although, due to the nature of time travel, they can bump into each other. Meta-crisis Doctor seemed separate enough, a copy of the Doctor rather than the actual Doctor, but having 14 and 15 essentially co-exist is strange.
Strange- and over-complicated for a series where the whole point is its very simple format: a madman with a box!
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