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Post by nucleusofswarm on Jan 5, 2019 1:32:05 GMT
Two of 60s Who's most imaginative and surreal offerings, where childhood amusements and dreams take on a strange, often unsettling, dimension. But do you play trilogic games, or do you prefer the Land of Fiction?
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bobod
Chancellery Guard
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Post by bobod on Jan 5, 2019 1:51:59 GMT
Neither are favourites of mine. But, let's face it, it's The Mind Robber.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2019 1:55:31 GMT
The Mind Robber isn't racist so let's go with that
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Post by mrperson on Jan 5, 2019 4:49:00 GMT
Haven't seen the toymaker... I take it that's a reconstructed one? (That or when we went through all classic who, netflix didn't have it and I couldn't buy it).
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Post by constonks on Jan 5, 2019 5:21:40 GMT
I don't know who would pick The Celestial Toymaker, honestly. I know the Mind Robber's weirdness is not everyone's cup of tea (though it's definitely mine) but TCT is just meandering and pointless. The Toymaker himself has potential - and Big Finish have done good things with him (Solitaire especially!) - but the story itself is very weak.
(And yet weirdly TCT I've heard/seen twice and TMR once.)
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Post by Timelord007 on Jan 5, 2019 9:08:28 GMT
Mind Robber, a bizarre surreal adventure that delivers something completely different, Celestial Toymaker i have the soundtrack to which i found the overall story rather dull.
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Post by mark687 on Jan 5, 2019 11:00:52 GMT
The Mind Robber as it was the 1st Troughton story I saw
Regards
mark687
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2019 11:25:30 GMT
I like both. There's a nice neutral answer! I would say that The Celestial Toymaker is more ripe for further exploration (by Big Finish, let's face it). The Mind Robber pretty much tells its own story as a complete standalone, with some good ideas somewhat stretched. The Celestial Toymaker as a character I find a great deal more interesting than, say, the Monk. Also, BF struck gold with the casting of David Bailie, so it's a bit of a shame that he has only appeared in (I think) two stories.
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Post by number13 on Jan 5, 2019 12:23:15 GMT
Once Upon A Time in 1968, when television was all in black-and-white, there was a five-star masterpiece of early ‘Doctor Who’ entitled ‘The Mind Robber’, by Peter Ling and most fortunately we can still watch it (even though a video monster took big bites out of most of the Second Doctor’s other stories and ate some of them right up!)
Filled with brilliant writing, designs, visual and sound effects and under David Maloney’s excellent direction, it was sometimes creepy, sometimes exciting, sometimes funny, always surreal and a delight from the first page right through to the happy ending. The Second Doctor was the perfect Doctor for this strange story. He was splendidly playful, ingenious and suddenly intense and serious; Patrick Troughton took the words from the page and made this wonderful Doctor real.
Even the Doctor took a while to work out what was happening and who the characters were that he met on each new page. But once the Doctor understood, the Master and the ‘publisher’ that produced his works were soon written out of power, because in a battle of minds and imaginations nobody could out-think the Doctor – the author of the story chooses the winner – and that was never truer than here… I can’t say ‘they all lived happily ever after’, because they soon met some Cybermen in the sewers of London - but that’s another fabulous story…  |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2019 14:13:02 GMT
The Mind Robber for running its fingers across all the traditional boundaries of television and delivering a Lewis Carrollesque dive into the white void. It takes a lot of really interesting concepts and dabbles with them just on the right side of metafiction. The Doctor's confrontation with the Master Brain where they duel with a variety of literary classics is a particular highlight. David Mahony's directing acts a good, solid dimension to it as well, giving the fantasy a sense of substance. Ironically. The stopmotion for Medusa's unwinding bouffaunt of reptiles is very impressive. I'm a bit surprised no one's ever tried writing a Karkus comic strip yet. It'd look great in Doctor Who Magazine as one of their back-up stories.
The Celestial Toymaker... Mmn, I actually think Graham Williams nailed the character in The Nightmare Fair. That's more his debut story for me. I like how it took him out of the Toyroom and suggested that he'd been fiddling about as this Faustian trickster on Earth for quite some time before arriving in Blackpool. His particular garb chosen for the same reason that the Doctor drinks tea, a hobbyist's interest. He tried being a traditional god -- of both entropy and order -- and hated it, that's why he eventually turned to games. To stave away eternity. The original unfortunately doesn't really have anything like that. He's an opponent to be bested and that's more or less it, something hindered quite a bit by the Doctor being both disembodied and mute for large parts of the story.
The first has a great story told effectively, it's a good old fashioned classic. The second needed a bit more work. An interesting character that benefitted from finding his feet on other horizons.
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Jan 7, 2019 13:17:54 GMT
Having not seen or heard The Celestial Toymaker. I have to go with The Mind Robber as its so much fun and i like how they wrote Frazier Hines out for his holiday lol
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
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Post by lidar2 on Jan 7, 2019 13:21:39 GMT
The Mind Robber without a doubt.
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Post by number13 on Jan 7, 2019 23:23:23 GMT
Having not seen or heard The Celestial Toymaker. I have to go with The Mind Robber as its so much fun and i like how they wrote Frazier Hines out for his holiday lol That was the one when he wasn't well for a week and yes very well done isn't it, with almost no advance notice. At least it was a story where they could write a character out inventively!
What with that and the excellent first episode being created out of white nothing to fill a scheduling gap, ingenious work all round. They didn't have CGI or a budget to speak of but 'Doctor Who' always had brilliant writers and script editors.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2019 16:46:40 GMT
A very mismatched fight here - Mind Robber every time. Michael Gough is good as the Toymaker but so much of it is dull, plodding nonsense while The Mind Robber makes full use of it's premise.
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Post by doctorkernow on Jan 27, 2019 23:43:28 GMT
Hello again.
The Mind Robber, if only for the scene where the Doctor puts Jamie's face back together wrongly. This was of course because poor old Frazer Hines was poorly with chicken pox.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,813
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Post by lidar2 on Jan 28, 2019 11:58:21 GMT
I remember getting the celestial toymaker novelisation as a present at a Christmas party (my parents had bought it in advance) and I remember really enjoying it, one of the first Hartnells I read. So for that reason I don't have the same low opinion of it that some do but, going by the soundtrack, it ain't one of the best.
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bobod
Chancellery Guard
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Post by bobod on Jan 28, 2019 13:08:20 GMT
I remember getting the celestial toymaker novelisation as a present at a Christmas party (my parents had bought it in advance) and I remember really enjoying it, one of the first Hartnells I read. So for that reason I don't have the same low opinion of it that some do but, going by the soundtrack, it ain't one of the best. Have you read The Mind Robber? There's a HUGE jump in literary quality between the two books. |
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
Likes: 5,813
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Post by lidar2 on Jan 28, 2019 13:17:20 GMT
I remember getting the celestial toymaker novelisation as a present at a Christmas party (my parents had bought it in advance) and I remember really enjoying it, one of the first Hartnells I read. So for that reason I don't have the same low opinion of it that some do but, going by the soundtrack, it ain't one of the best. Have you read The Mind Robber? There's a HUGE jump in literary quality between the two books. Oh yes, I've read it. It is one of the best novels. I wasn't saying CT was the better of the 2, just that I have a soft spot for CT because of fond childhood memories of the novelisation. so I can't go along with some of the more negative comments about CT. I would have been 9 when I read it, I don't imagine I would derive the same pleasure from rereading it today whereas I think I would still enjoy reading MR today. |
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