The Celestial Toymaker’s Debut Story Is The Next 'Doctor Who' Reconstruction
With Neil Patrick Harris reviving the character in Saturday’s final 60th anniversary special, obvious fast track is obvious.
It hasn’t even been a month since the last classic Doctor Who serial reconstructed with animation, the Second Doctor story The Underwater Menace was released to home media. Still, the franchise is ready to announce the next story to get the treatment, and the fifteenth overall, and it’s one garnering a lot of attention thanks to the 60th-anniversary specials.
The next serial to get the treatment is The Celestial Toymaker, the four-episode seventh serial of the show’s third season, aired from April 2-23, 1966. William Hartnell is still the show’s lead as the First Doctor (his exit is partway through the fourth), and his companions are Steven Taylor, played by Peter Purves, and Dodo Chaplet, played by Jackie Lane. They face off against the titular Celestial Toymaker, played by Michael Gough in the character’s only onscreen appearance until Saturday’s final 60th anniversary special “The Giggle”, with Neil Patrick Harris taking the role. With renewed interest in the character from cast, crew, and viewers alike, getting the serial of his only other (and 75% missing) appearance squared away became a clear top priority.
To make the recreation, BBC Studios used original off-air audio recordings of the missing three episodes. This brings the total amount of animated episodes to an even 60 and completes about 15 serials containing about 80 episodes in total. In the serial, the Doctor and his companions are separated upon encountering the Toymaker. While the Doctor contends with the Toymaker’s Trilogic Game, Steven and Dodo must put up with truly dangerous games that look childish to the naked eye. Only upon completion or escape can they reunite and get on their way.
Notably, this reconstruction uses an animation style vastly different from any previous serial. Instead of something like below, it’s 3D, with the human characters looking like wooden figurines in a playset much bigger than them. Classic robot included.
The contents of the release have also been detailed. As they don’t stick surviving episodes onto the reconstructions (as in not being thrown from an animated to a live-action episode in the same serial or vice-versa), all episodes have been animated, and are available in both color and black and white. They include original film elements which have been fully restored. The versions are separated, black and white on disc one and color on disc two. Disc one contains the reconstruction of the first three episodes and the original fourth episode “The Final Test” newly restored. And there are new audio commentary tracks. Disc two puts a making of the animation with the color version, while also containing “Doctor Who Escape Room – Team First Doctor”, as well as a photo gallery, PDF material such as camera scripts, and Seventh Doctor Sylvester McCoy’s introduction from the VHS release of the surviving fourth part. It was a 1991 release after all, he was the incumbent Doctor at the time, two years into the hiatus.
The serial will be released on DVD and Blu-ray and is already available for pre-order. How internationally the pre-orders extend is unclear. A release date has not been confirmed, with even the Rarewaves page just listing it as “coming soon”. Clicking Amazon prompts an ask to switch countries (to the UK of course) and that was just not worth getting into.
Sources: Doctor Who (Rarewaves listing), TARDIS, RadioTimes