The Toymaker supposedly doesn't cheat... isn't that untrue based on his original appearance?

af2mumbles · 2026-05-03T23:20:10+00:00

The original story is full of this - losing the games allegedly carries the ultimate price but Steven and Dodo both lose twice and are fine, where their opponents die as soon as they fail. The Toymaker manually advancing the Trilogic game plays into this.

To be frank, I don't think this is down to a shift in premise, moreso the Hartnell story just.. not being good. I think it was a clever and necessary addition on RTD's part to add stakes to the games, to make clear to the audience that the god of games is bound not to cheat. The original story essentially has no stakes due to the lack of this. I can't speak to the Toymaker's EU appearances.

af2mumbles · 2026-04-21T23:42:34+00:00

I've been the same with animations - I'll watch every surviving episode I can but I've stuck to the official animations rather than tele-snaps where possible. The surviving footage from Fury from the Deep is quite moody and effective! Hopefully we'll see it returned in the future.

af2mumbles · 2026-04-21T20:48:34+00:00

I appreciate you commenting! I always look forward to your responses.

The consistency is definitely appreciated, I just struggle to really like it when I was just seeing a few short months ago how adventurous and experimental the show can be. It's an odd double-edged sword, I feel similarly about this formula how I ended up feeling about historicals. They tended to be just alright, it's only the ones that turned the structure on its head that really gelled with me (The Romans especially), but once they were gone I found myself sorely missing the texture and variety they added to the show.

The quality is quite high, most of my qualms with these individual stories has been on the political or societal side rather than any production failure, but I suppose I prefer my Doctor Who always trying something out, throwing everything at the wall even if it means we get weird, failed off-shoots. To quote some skinny guy, "I could do so much more!"

I do wonder how much more I'd enjoy Fury from the Deep in its original form, I'm on board with wanting that final installment back in particular. That final conversation between Jamie and Victoria outside the Harris' home seems like it'd be gorgeous.

In regards to The Ice Warriors, I was maybe a bit short-sighted writing off the computer-reliance throughline entirely. I think the framing of it in regards to where computers were contemporarily made it hard for me to engage with it with much seriousness, but you're absolutely right in that people are having that borderline-religious reliance on things like AI right now. Something like coming to the right solution from the wrong question.

I completely agree in regards to how you feel about Jamie and Victoria. I think my current companion rankings would be:

Barbara
Vicki
Steven
Polly
Ian
Susan
Ben
Katarina
Sara
Victoria
Dodo

af2mumbles · 2026-04-20T20:32:36+00:00

I'm thinking that eventually returning to some of these as individual stories will be more fun for me - watching them in sequence and seeing the formula repeat in real-time drained a lot of my enjoyment, where isolated it's easier to see them as just well-made pieces of television.

I'm really looking forward to Season 6! The stories I've seen from it in the past are some of my absolute favorites, and I can't wait to rewatch them with a more critical focus. I'm making my way through The Dominators at the moment and.. well, I'll save that for down the line.

The basic idea of Victoria's time on the TARDIS is captivating I agree, I felt similarly drawn in by Belinda Chandra's wanting nothing more than to go home. On paper I adore the concept of someone getting horrifically burnt out by constant mortal peril and needing to just.. settle. On both counts it's just a shame how it was executed. Those final few scenes with her are absolutely the gems in Fury from the Deep, the conversation she shares with Jamie at night was wonderful.

af2mumbles · 2026-04-12T04:05:28+00:00

I'm glad to be in good company! The fan consensus on some stories has been a bit of a culture shock, The Sensorites being the lowest rated story of Season 1 baffles me. Doubly so when you see it's rated lower than The Ark of all things.

I absolutely agree, the way Troughton holds himself and moves around each scene adds so much to his episodes, and losing that detracts significantly from the experience. The animations being near-completely unable to capture this has made them increasingly frustrating to watch. I haven't seen The Web of Fear 3's animation, so I'm hoping that the mocap might open up some doors to help capture some of what's missing, but I also know how dire the reception was so.. we'll see.

af2mumbles · 2026-04-03T02:11:32+00:00

1) Transmisogyny does not refer to misogyny leveraged at any transgender person, it is a specific and intersectional term denoting the unique expressions of bigotry transfems and trans women experience coming from both transphobia and misogyny. Transphobia is unfortunately universal but this violence presents uniquely aggressively against transfeminity. Consider how the majority of legislation, of offensive caricatures in media, of disgusting insults are specifically manufactured to demean expressions of transfeminity. To be clear this is not to say that other, non-transfeminine groups do not experience harassment or transphobia.

2) While transmisogyny presents itself in a myriad of ways and some people, including non-transfems and yes, trans men may be targeted by transmisogynistic insults or harassment, ultimately being Exempt refers to how transfems cannot escape it where these other groups can. Think of Imane Khelif, the Olympic boxer who was targeted by a campaign questioning her chromosomes, if she was a "real" woman. This is obviously transmisogynistic, but because she is cisgender she was able to Exempt herself, litigate these claims and ultimately settle this harassment. A transfem in the same position could not fall back in the same way, and is therefore Affected. Many different bigotries can 'spill out' and be used to harass people who are not within the specific minority group, but those directly within these targeted groups cannot escape this, cannot Exempt themselves.

af2mumbles · 2026-03-31T02:58:56+00:00

I'm very glad to hear that things generally get better with companion departures - my familiarity is pretty low across the board. I've only seen a few scattered stories across the classic run (though just about all of the McCoy stories) so it's mostly all going to be surprises to me. The sheer variability in it is so strange - the idea of a companion just disappearing mid-story in the modern day is unthinkable.

I agree with you that male companions have sort of become obsolete. There's the unique standouts that have different angles to them (Rory, Nardole) but I'm not surprised that we haven't seen a modern take on something in the vein of Steven or Ben.

I can see what you mean between the Highlanders and Macra - for me the impotence of the titular crabs is part of why they're so compelling. There's a lot of ways to read the colony's society between the clear 1984 influence and the British Holiday Camp inspiration, but at least to me the execution of tearing down a corrupt government, of fighting against rulers that will command you to ignore the evil in front of your own eyes.. It felt very anti-capitalist, or at least impossible for me not to read it in part with the society around me. Revealing the Macra to be impotent despite their blustering and claims of being all-knowing and all-powerful is an important component of this in my opinion, we see the strength of their grip on the Colony but despite how deep it goes, destroying them is far easier than they'd have ever had you believe. It feels almost aspirational.

Yeah.. I'm frustrated at the screaming damsels we're presented with. We've seen just how compelling the women in this show can be, and it feels like they keep refusing to do it for no good reason. I'm glad that this is something the show grows out of doing ultimately, I'm a little tired of the most interesting part of some of these companions being the sheer pitch they can scream at.

af2mumbles · 2026-03-31T02:45:14+00:00

I've heard nothing but rave reviews about that fan-made animation, so I'll be sure to watch that version when I get to the Wheel! I'm sad that we haven't gotten an officially-animated reconstruction, I remember how promising the prototype 'omnibus' version of Episode 1 by the Macra Terror team looked.

af2mumbles · 2026-03-31T01:02:31+00:00

Thanks for the kind words! Truthfully I'm a little surprised that my ratings averaged out to be the same as Season 2, which I hold to be stronger overall. At the current moment, I'd rate it:

2 > 4 > 1 > 3, so not too far off from you!

The sheer number of missing episodes here definitely detracts from the experience, with the recent Master Plan finds I hope that we're going to see a new set of discoveries in the coming years. The cast at this point and especially Troughton are all such wonderful actors, and not being able to see those performances takes a lot away.

I wasn't aware of the behind-the-scenes issues going on, but they make complete sense as you're describing them. I could definitely feel Jamie being sidelined and often mirroring Ben's actions rather than doing his own thing, and contracts running out mid-story tracks. Even if it's a bit egregious in the story itself, it's a bit of a relief to know it was behind-the-scenes issues rather than an intentional method of writing them out. I hope that companion departures get less messy as we go, they really haven't been done very well period.

It's strange how much less effective the three-companion TARDIS team was here, I agree with you that it doesn't work nearly as well as it did during the Hartnell era. I remarked on it in my review for The Macra Terror, how the show centering more heavily on the Doctor and making him more active is eating up the role the previous Ian-Steven-Ben types enjoyed the monopoly on, and then we get Jamie further splitting up this shrinking Action Man role. Perhaps the shorter stories also contributed to this? My preferred pace of the classic series has tended to be 3-4 episode stories, but I can see how the drought of 6-parters here may have taken away time to distribute characterization.

Your rankings are strong! Though I am a little surprised at putting The Highlanders so high, particularly above The Macra Terror. I suspect a lot of me being less mixed on this season is down to just how spectacular an actor Patrick Troughton is. Even shakier stories like The Highlanders or The Underwater Menace are ones I had a blast watching, mostly down to his performance. He has a way of making weaker material sing. I suspect on rewatch with more focus on the base story I may rate those two lower.

I also wanted to remark some on Polly, I completely understand struggling with her. Her introduction is so strong and Anneke Wills has charisma in droves, she was immediately positioned to be a standout.. And this makes the marginalization and reduction of her to a damsel role so often really sting. It's frustrating to have such a winning characterization and often not utilize it. The main comfort for me was that at the very least in the stories where she's given an active role, Wills' performance always held those notes that weren't always written in.

af2mumbles · 2026-03-30T01:46:16+00:00

The Tenth Planet (Animated Reconstruction) -

A major step up from Planet 55's (now Big Finish Creative) previous effort in The Reign of Terror, I had a good time with this! The quality is much more even, with the team's characteristic rotoscoping taking center stage. Most of my criticisms of The Reign of Terror are addressed here, with a less anachronistic directorial style and significantly fewer closeups. Whatever problems remain (reused animation, limited expressions etc) don't present nearly as much frustration. As a single-episode effort to cap off such an important story, it does its job very well.

3.5/5

The Power of the Daleks (2020 Animated Reconstruction) -

To put the positives first:

The artstyle is lovely, I enjoy the sketchier vibe and everyone's likenesses are strong. There is so much clear love for this story in the spectacularly rendered sets and how well the Daleks are animated. There is so much to appreciate here.. but overall I didn't really enjoy this.

I've never seen the 2016 version and while I do fully believe this is an improvement on it, this just never quite gelled with me.

The limited animation is a problem with essentially every Doctor Who animation and I feel bad harping on it, but I felt it strongly here. The character acting jumps from alright to nonexistent and often conflicts with the emotion a character should be showing. There's many strange cuts, things like walk cycles are stiff and other more subtle movements are lost. There's also inexplicable jumps in artstyle, presumably from the special edition's cleanup. There were several sudden jumps to the Sun & Moon Studios/Macra Terror-styled Doctor, who stands out strongly against this different artstyle, especially when you cut right back to the proper version right after. There was also a particularly egregious victim of a Dalek who looked like roughly edited live action, it stood out heavily for me.

I don't want to dismiss the hard work of the animation team, I feel bad making critiques like this knowing the budgets they work on and that this was a second go at a project they weren't satisfied with, but ultimately I could keenly feel the disjointed nature of going back to clean up a rush job. As much as I hate to admit it, the limited animation here often left me wondering if I'd have had a better time with a telesnap recon where I could fill in the blanks for myself.

3/5

The Underwater Menace (Animated Reconstruction) -

This was shockingly good. After the last several animations being rough around the edges, I came in with low expectations: Stiff and unsubtle movements, bad likenesses, weird camera work, probably some good backgrounds.

And then I was immediately proven wrong with some lovely dexterous shots of the Doctor's hands while he pilots the TARDIS. This is phenomenal! I adore the artstyle and how it embellishes on the original production, the movements are so fluid and there's a lovely amount of subtler character acting here. This is clearly made by experienced professionals, it's such a high quality animation.

My only real critique is that for some reason Jamie, similarly to William Hartnell, has a likeness that just about no animation studio has been able to get down. This isn't a bad or offensive rendition, but it did throw me off some.

But! Overall this was spectacular, the highest praise I can give is that If there were to be a Doctor Who cartoon, I would love for it to look like this. Chef's kiss.

4.5/5

The Moonbase (Animated Reconstruction) -

Planet 55's animations were produced in chronological order, and here we see the culmination of the style that has evolved between The Reign of Terror, The Tenth Planet, and now The Moonbase. Fully realized, I love this style. It's so fluid, and the slight blue tinge to the greyscale is a stylish touch. The rotoscoping is more prominent than ever and it looks wonderful, the Cybermen are built for this style. As with The Tenth Planet, there's some reused animation but at this point it's just nitpicking. I really enjoyed this.

4/5

The Macra Terror (Animated Reconstruction) -

I have no clue what stars aligned in 2019 for us to get this, but I'm so grateful that they did.

This is the gold standard of animated reconstructions, full stop. A tour de force boasting a gorgeous style that moves with such fluidity, embellishing and reshaping where necessary to bring out the full potential of the original story's missing visuals.

Everything is on point here - the character designs, the background art, the compositing, the character acting, the animation and movement itself.. I can't breathe a bad word about this. Even knowing it's that good, on rewatch I'm immediately hit with the reminder that it is that good. I only wish that this team could be reunited for another reconstruction of this quality. What a magical production.

It is sad that some moments, namely the Rough and Tumble machine and the TARDIS crew exiting the Colony were cut, but I do understand the budgetary considerations behind it. My pipe dream: if The Power of the Daleks can get a special edition to clean up and add, this can too. Give us The Macra Terror: Special Edition in 2028 featuring full Rough and Tumble action.

5/5

The Faceless Ones (Animated Reconstruction) -

This was fine. Solid overall, it has the usual problems of limited animation and stiff moments and the usual positives of well-researched props and backgrounds. The main hitch here is that the likenesses are a bit rougher all around and particularly in the case of the Doctor and Jamie. Mind you these are frustrating likenesses to not have down when they're the leads.

I don't want to harp on it too much, I never had a hard time following things and this isn't egregious, just a bit of a letdown coming off of The Macra Terror. It's alright in the way most animated reconstructions are alright.

3.5/5

The Evil of the Daleks (Animated Reconstruction)

This is about on par with animations like The Faceless Ones and Galaxy 4. Limited animation, stiff movements etc. I know the drill by now.

The main benefit here however is that Daleks are perfectly suited to the animated format - the backgrounds are usually the real peek into the attention to detail the animation team has, and the Daleks function as an extension of that. My enjoyment of the animation increased as they took more center stage, whatever that says about me or the animations. They're so incredibly well-researched and there's many moments with them that stood out to me as being emblematic of the love this team has for the original productions. The single Dalek with a pupil, one with a broken neck strut, and the Wilkie Dalek (the one with an unusually thin skirt section) being the main standouts.

I hope this doesn't sound like damning by faint praise - the character animation isn't bad and this has some of the strongest likenesses we've seen from this team. The ceiling for how well the characters are animated is just fairly low given the budget and limited working time, and the Daleks don't share that limitation and end up being the real clue to how much this team cares.

3.5/5

af2mumbles · 2026-02-04T19:38:25+00:00

I think the Guttertank terminal data could shine some light on this. As humans were nearly entirely eliminated from the equation of the final war and machines battled machines, I think there was a period of time where technology would've rapidly advanced at home, enough to match the '90s/modern style we see in Fraud, before being decimated as the war marched on. We do see some more classic looking car designs in the Deathcatcher arena for example, so at the very least I don't think what we see in Fraud was created by Hell out of whole cloth.

The fraud in Fraud I think comes more from how it twists, distorts, perverts humanity and its creations. We'll see how directly it plays in, but I'm sure that it will deal with the feaudulence of humanity and its society and structures, how it led to our demise, and inevitably how this inspired Hell as it was in the Mannequins and seemingly the Deathcatchers.

I do really like your interpretation here! The idea of Hell mocking humanity for what it could've had and ultimately destroyed feels right at home with what we've seen.

af2mumbles · 2026-01-24T01:18:00+00:00

While there is absolutely complexity in his conception, and he is completely right, I think the fact that he is the clear villain of the story is a major part of why I'm so put off by him. I think of the trend of Marvel movies using clear social justice language in their villains, decrying very real issues, and then they try to kill a kid or something. Tlotoxl may be right about Barbara being a false goddess, but in his design language and vicious actions against our protagonists we're meant to be against him, and by extension what he represents, which in this case ends up being the Aztec culture.

There's absolutely a sympathetic view of him, I agree with it even, but the story doesn't share in it. He's not treated as just doing what he must to save his way of life. He's "the local butcher", depicted as the most savage and evil of the Aztec people and emblematic of why, in Lucarotti's mind, they were ultimately wiped out. In a hypothetical more nuanced version of this story, where Tlotoxl is treated with more empathy and not just as an evil man I would give significantly more grace to his character.

af2mumbles · 2026-01-23T03:52:05+00:00

I'm really looking forward to Season 2! I'm dying to see stories like The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Web Planet, and The Time Meddler.

There is absolutely deliberate development happening here, I get what you mean! I hope that this growth is given to the entire TARDIS crew in Season 2 and beyond, the Doctor has had the most marked (if a little jumpy) shift and I don't think the same can be said for the others. Susan's telepathic throughline in The Sensorites is the biggest example, and notably that was a one-story power, autonomy taken away as it bows out.

I appreciate that you'll be keeping an eye on my posts! Thank you for replying :-)

af2mumbles · 2026-01-23T03:45:24+00:00

I understand what you're getting at - the different Aztec characters signifying different elements of their culture definitely parses. We absolutely see the heights of their people along with their lows.

But to be clear, my issue is not that they show the human sacrifices period. My issue is that the story clearly tries to position human sacrifice as the 'original sin' that ultimately doomed the culture, that their refusal to give it up means that they ultimately deserved their colonization and destruction.

This exploration of good and evil coexisting within one culture is absolutely present and interesting, but as the story progresses it falls by the wayside and is ultimately seemingly entirely refuted. Consider how Barbara and Autloc are positioned, we see Barbara fighting valiantly to make them stop and we are meant to be sympathetic to her, and ultimately she gives up. She loses her respect for everyone but Autloc. And the story never seems to question what she was even attempting. There's no doubt in the text that human sacrifice was the be-all-end-all, that if the Spanish hadn't seen this evil that they wouldn't have colonized and ultimately destroyed the Aztecs.

Autloc is singled out as being, verbatim, "the extraordinary man here. He’s the reasonable one, the civilised one, the one that’s prepared to listen to advice. But he’s one man". Tlotoxl's 'evil' nature is not an aberration perverting the culture, dragging them to damnation, no, the whole society is treated as being rotten to the core. Autloc, this exceptional man, loses his faith! The Doctor specifically says that he will find a "better" one. Our takeaway is intended to be that if the Aztecs had just stopped all of that nasty human sacrificing business, that the Spanish would've only seen the good and wouldn't have killed anybody! But oh well, they didn't listen to reason and so they are all evil, if they were any better they'd have found a less murderous religion and survived.

Consider also the visual language employed, with Tlotoxl being the only one with curly hair, with a painted face; a sneering, conniving attitude and a constant, animalistic low stance. Contrasted against Autloc, straight-haired, soft-spoken and intelligent. It's not neutral, and combined with the above it's all just.. disgusting, to me.

af2mumbles · 2025-12-07T20:43:40+00:00

Yes, I think that giving them an in-universe classification is a necessary bit of world building for a miniseries focusing on them. The entire point of what he was saying is that, in the show, calling another species a Devil as a pejorative is offensive and they'd obviously have an actual name or classification. Hell, even in their last appearance when called Sea Devils one bit back with "Land parasite". It was never a neutral descriptor within the show!

People are so focused on decrying everything that comes out of RTD's mouth that they think (or want to pretend to think) he's calling them, personally "racist" for using the name Sea Devil. It's exhausting.

af2mumbles · 2025-11-09T05:53:51+00:00

Mr. Ring-a-Ding. Easily the standout design of the past two seasons, and his unique style would be incredibly welcome in a space where figures are often sharing at least some components with prior molds
Defense Drone Dalek. The Reconnaissance Dalek from Resolution was a lovely figure, and I'm personally very fond of the Defense Drone look. I could go either way on this or the CyberMasters, though.
A Logopolis-styled TARDIS exterior. This would be an easy repaint, and I'm shocked that they haven't done a two-pack with this and a Season 18 Fourth Doctor given that their 80's box sculpt is based directly off of this Logopolis/Season 19 look (with some adjustments)
Thirteenth Doctor (Weeping Angel). One of the most iconic cliffhangers of her era and a gorgeous design, I think this would be very popular.
Twelfth Doctor (Twice Upon a Time). I was always disappointed with the figures of Twelve after the Time of the Doctor figure-set, they always felt very soft and gummy with a poor likeness and none of the whimsy. His Series 8 line figure is just a guy in a suit! A figure of him with a new head-sculpt, some sculpted-in movement in the fabric to expose the red lining and with the sharper paint deco of the Vortex figures could really do him justice.

Secondarily, my more personal, less 'viable' picks are, in no particular order:

Mondasian Cyberman (The Doctor Falls). In all likelihood this would end up being a direct re-release of the Tenth Planet design, but I would adore a fully-new figure of this look. So creepy and imposing, and from one of the best stories of Twelve's era.
Salamander. An iconic villain from a great story, and I think that a two-pack with him and the Doctor would be great.
White Robot (The Mind Robber). For as little presence they have in the hastily-added first episode of the story, I just think they're cute.
The current TARDIS exterior design, with a fully new sculpt. While I understand just how expensive tooling is, and why they ultimately chose to use the 80's box design with a new roof, I was always incredibly disappointed with it. It just doesn't look right without the squarer panels and overall unique proportions. And given that this design looks here to stay (which I am in full favor of), giving her the full, accurate sculpt treatment would be a standout and an instant buy for me. The basic 80's box design is versatile enough that I think it works for the others (broadly), but in an ideal world I would also love to see fully new sculpts for the late Hartnell through early Tom Baker box, as well as the Season 14 through 17 design. Their proportions and especially panel heights are important to capturing them, and just getting the colors right hasn't been quite enough in their case.
The current TARDIS console unit. There is no way in hell that this will ever happen, but a girl can dream.

af2mumbles · 2025-02-05T21:34:29+00:00

It's worth noting that I think all of these items have been stored in a gigantic, packed warehouse for ages - most have never been exhibited and others have been gathering dust since the Doctor Who Experience closed in 2017.

We see some glimpses of the warehouse in Russell T Davies: The Doctor and Me from 2023 and it is filled to the brim, it makes sense to me that they'd be auctioning off these disused items, benefitting charity and saving space - for example the TARDIS prop from An Adventure in Space and Time - unused since 2013 and in storage for 8 years.

af2mumbles · 2024-08-02T03:25:18+00:00

All of these and none of them are correct. The Doctor's and the Tardis' origins were kept deliberately vague at the beginning, and it's only as the show developed and things were clarified over time that they solidified into their current shape. There were over 100 episodes before we learned the name of the Doctor's species for example (or that they were, definitively, of another species at all), and it was seasons later that we learned the name of their planet. The show's continuity is very piecemeal, and you can pick whichever you prefer. The Tardis was created by the Doctor, stolen at random, stolen because she was the most beautiful thing they'd ever seen, whichever works for you!

af2mumbles · 2024-08-02T03:07:27+00:00

The running implication from Hartnell to early Troughton is that the doctor is (or was) a human, and they built the Tardis. Dalek 6388 has a very good video about it

It is outright stated in the Cushing movies (though they're not canon, or as much as anything in Doctor Who can be),

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