I’m late to the party here, I know. I was at work last night so I recorded the episode (I could’ve used IPlayer but I decided to record it) and as such I’ve only just seen it. Anyway the below are my thoughts on the episode.
Pros:
You can tell how the Toymaker is up to something, nothing is ever as cheap as 6 pence. Then again its probably just simply a case that things were cheaper in 1925 though.
It actually works better that the cold open was how last weeks cliffhanger was set up in my personal opinion as that way it helps the rest of the episodes structure to make a semblance of sense.
I won’t lie I kind of like the Vlinx and hope that we get to see them again in the future. Due to their invention of the Zeedex I really hope to see them again in the future as some form of UNIT inventors.
The talk show host “conspiracists” bit actually worked in a topical kind of way. Even without The Giggle that would’ve been the case, so that has to be here in the pros rather than the cons.
Once again the bit was Stooky Bill hiding in screens works as clearly The Toymaker had planned this in the cold open and it’s repercussions for the future.
It’s ironic how before the episode aired there was an ad of ‘Constant TV viewing isn’t all bad’, yet the episode shows how the human over-reliance on technology caused the issues within itself.
Whilst I haven’t seen any Classic Who, it was rather nice how the episode showed 14 remembering 1’s first encounter with old version. I say version as I hasten to say incarnation as 14 stated that The Toymaker would throw away the idea of a Tardis.
Whilst the Sonic wasn’t overused last week, I’m glad that 14 addressed its past overuse in the episode before that by describing his gadgets as “toys” and stating how he began to feel like he was becoming over reliant on them. In fact I don’t even think he used any “toys” at all this episode as last week he did briefly attempt to use the Sonic.
Initially I thought that The Toymaker was stealing The Master’s big musical moment but in all honesty the bit with “Spice Up Your Life” was hilarious and the fact that UNIT didn’t understand his rules just made it even better! In addition to that, the scenes made even better with the fact that the Toymaker is quite clearly lip syncing the song throughout.
I appreciate the “We can be Celestial” bit as it’s a nod to the characters initial name. Additionally had the Toymaker not been defeated, I would have really liked some kind of DW media released called “The Timelord & The Toymaker: Infinite Games”.
“Your fight is with me!”
Was the hand taking the tooth a hint to the fact that the Toymaker could return or was that someone else taking it?
I won’t lie, I do rather like the interior to 15’s Tardis and how they retained the wheelchair accessibility. I hope we see more of Shirley Anne Bingham due to that and the farewell between the two doctors was rather nice in my eyes too. The music they gave him at the end was rather nice too.
I appreciate how 14 is using the Tardis in order to take Rose, Mel and others to other locations off camera. The force field for the moles bit was rather funny too.
Cons:
I get that the Chinese Toymaker was seen as racist, but couldn’t the new German version also be considered to be racist. In fact NPH isn’t even German, he’s American so couldn’t that make it even more racist? I do appreciate how he’s faking the accent though as it continually slips but even then it still gives off a negative “Germans are evil stereotype”.
The politics bit felt too topical, what with the COVID-19 inquiry and how I think Boris was impacted by The Giggle and believed he was correct (I couldn’t help but make a topical joke there sorry).
The Korea satellite bit felt forced, why not just have 14 & Donna in space for 2 days last week and have this caused by Beep The Meep.
Stooky Bill’s laugh on loop is annoying and got on my nerves rather easily.
So with Mel working in UNIT now does that mean future episodes could also see past companions become UNIT members and why didn’t Ace do the exact same thing after The Power of the Doctor?
Were Stooky Bill and all of the puppets in the shop game losers, like Charles Bannerjee & Stooky Sue, both of whom we saw later on? I’m rather confused about that.
Whilst I appreciate the semblance of continuity that The Toymaker made with telling Donna about past companions, I don’t understand how he knows this. I’m also annoyed that he skipped over the “Happy endings” for Graham & Ryan and directly skipped forwards onto the Flux.
So does the Master being the Toymaker’s “Gold Tooth” bit mean that we won’t see the Master again for a while as that happened rather than a regeneration after Power of the Doctor?
Someone made a post that contained the exact transcript from the bi-regeneration scene on this wiki a few days ago, I know I saw it and so did @FH2104 as they commented on that post and that leak was in the “Spoilers!” category. I recognised it exactly from that when I saw that scene from “I challenge you to a game. There’s two of you! I’m the doctor and I’m the doctor and according to rules you can’t say no. That’s cheating! How it’s your game, you doubled us. I accept your challenge”. I’ve just double checked the “Spoilers!” Discussion category and that post leaked a part of the episodes transcript has since been deleted.
I get that The Toymaker was defeated, but does that automatically nullify the game losers from earlier who became puppets and return them to human form, as we know that it destroyed Stooky Bill & removed his influence.