There's a point about half-way through The Giggle that the episode runs out of steam. The Doctor tracks the villanous Toymaker back to 1925 and challenges him to a game. Up until this point, the episode is thoroughly engaging. It's set up some creepy elements - the malign Toymaker who dances like Fred Astaire through the chaos of London or pretends to be an unsettling German shop-keeper, the weird ventriloquist's dummy head on Logie Baird's first tv signal, the personality-altering giggle, the labyrinth of corridors behind the Toymaker's shop and the various puppets that the Doctor and Donna encounter. The first half of the episode reintroduces UNIT, Kate Stewart, scientific advisor Shirley Anne Bingham and former companion, Mel. The pace is frenetic, perfectly captured by the shots of chinook helicopters transporting the Doctor, Donna and the TARDIS hurriedly to the Avengers-like UNIT HQ in London.
Then, with the stakes set high, we return to 2023 where the Toymaker makes a stunning entrance to the tune of Spice Up Your Life in which he reveals the extent of both his platfulness but also his powers. And, for some reason, the episode seems to then grind to a narrative halt. The Toymaker shoots the Doctor with UNIT's galvanic beam forcing him to biregenerate. The resulting Doctors play a game of catch, beating the Toymaker and banishing him out of existence (well, in a box that the Toymaker has thoughtfully provided).The fourteenth Doctor settles down with Donna's family and the Fifteenth flies away in his TARDIS.
It's frustrating as Neil Patrick Harris plays his role as the scenery-chewing Toymaster perfectly. I'm at a loss why the 2023 special wasn't a three-parter with the Toymaster as foe. (We're led to believe that there's an even bigger foe to be revealed in time - perhaps the "boss" that the Meep mentions in The Star Beast.) Let's hope we don't have to wait another 57 years to see him again.
There are so many details that enhance the episode that it's such a shame RTD couldn't plot something better. The weird puppet show featuring the deaths of former companions (though oddly not featuring the one companion who did die, Adric), the gruesome doll family of Stooky Bill, the Master trapped inside the Toymaker's gold tooth (and the Flash Gordon hand picking up the tooth from the floor).
Two things stand out. The first is that RTD emphasises that the Doctor is worn out and tired. The implication is that Fourteen looks like Ten as a warning. Since his first incrnation, the Doctor has simply kept on without pause, leaving companions behind with barely an afterthought, and pushing himself ever onward, afraid what would happen if he stopped. Maybe this is RTD signalling that, going forward, the new series will rely little on continuity and start fresh. (I understand that on Disney+ the show will be renumbered which gives the impression that it's a clean reboot. Doctor Who: TNG, perhaps?)
The second is the idea of biregeneration: having Fifteen splitting from Fourteen so that both can co-exist. By this point in the show's history, anything can happen - and we also know that the Doctor is more than just an ordinary time lord. It doesn't actually matter either as this is a show about time travel and there are at least fifteen other versions of the Doctor running about space and time. Big Finish have alread established that time lords can suffer abnormal regenerations - so it makes sense that this can happen to the Doctor.
I'm not sure that the use of a magic hammer to create a second TARDIS - like something out of a Tex Avery animation - does anything to allay my dislike of the cartoonishness of current Doctor Who. Plus the Power Rangers-style Vilinx at the heart of UNIT HQ. Who thought that was a good idea?
The final scenes of the episode are undoubtedly crowd-pleasers. Fans of Ten (and the 2005-2023 show, really) will enjoy seeing the Doctor idyllically happy with the Noble family. Fans will also enjoy the freshness of sheer joy and energy of Fifteen on his first journey in the TARDIS. We see enough of Fifteen to get the impression that this Doctor is going to have a sense of authority, purpose and control that more recent incarnations lacked. There is a palpable sense of renewal and revivification at the end.
Next episode (on Christmas Day 2023): The Church on Ruby Road.
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