Post by matthewsee on Dec 12, 2023 10:33:01 GMT -5
The Giggle:
Final 60th Anniversary Special.
This came on my birthday December 9 2023.
Written by showrunner Russell T. Davies.
Series directorial debut by Chayna Button.
The Giggle finally sees the return of The Celestial Toymaker this time played by Neil Patrick Harris.
Like Nathaniel Curtis who had played Isaac Newton in the previous episode Wild Blue Yonder, Harris had been in It's a Sin also written by Davies.
This starts in 1925 Soho in which the Toymaker who appropriately owns a toy store when he sold a doll to a man who works for the real-life John Logie Baird, the inventor of television.
Baird uses this doll as a test subject for television and this doll would develop a laughter the said giggle which would trigger the events of the present day.
Fast forward to the present day with the world in chaos caused by each person thinking they are right about something leading to a fight amongst them and the Doctor and Donna gets picked up by UNIT and Donna telling a UNIT soldier to get Wilf to safety and after the Doctor briefly meets the Toymaker but the former does not yet know the latter yet.
Having known coming into this that Bernard Cribbins as Wilf had filmed his only scene in these specials at the end of the previous episode Wild Blue Yonder prior to his death on July 27 2022.
In The Giggle, Wilf is seen in his wheelchair but not his face. Rather conspicuous knowing the circumstances of why this was done. One thing I did not notice until I looked it up later on is that Cribbins' voice was used here in this case from The Poison Sky.
By helicopter, the Doctor and Donna are taken to UNIT tower which rather looks like Avengers Tower.
At UNIT tower comes Shirley Anne Bingham and Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. However they are not the only familiar faces the Doctor meets here as he also meets former companion Mel.
Notwithstanding her cameo in The Power of the Doctor, this marks Bonnie Langford's full on-screen return as Mel.
It was quite a reunion between the Doctor and Mel and I went back a bit on this to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing with this.
Donna on meeting Mel noticed that she (Donna) isn't the first redhead to travel with the Doctor.
In fact Mel's full return was announced months before but it was in Ncuti Gatwa's first season, so Mel being in The Giggle is earlier than expected.
When Mel was last seen in classic Who in the Seventh Doctor story Dragonfire she had left the Doctor to travel with Sabalom Glitz with Mel's place with the Doctor taken by Ace.
In The Giggle, Mel explains to 14 that Glitz had died at the age of 101 and came back to Earth when she got a job with UNIT thanks to Kate.
This contradicts with Big Finish as it had Mel reuniting with 7 and Ace and had some adventures together.
Still on the subject of Big Finish this had Langford and Ruth Madeley (Shirley) together in TV Doctor Who as they had worked together on Big Finish as companions to the Sixth Doctor with Madeley playing Hebe Harrison.
Also making her return is Lachele Carl as Trinity Wells, this time having own show The Trinity Wells Show.
Truthfully I didn't recognise Trinity at first as she looked different the last time she appeared and I didn't notice the logo of her show on first viewing.
Funny on Donna getting a job at UNIT by the demand she made and accepted by Kate.
Soon the cause of the current trouble is discovered to be the said doll from 1925 and people are affected by the madness because it comes from the screen which everyone has due to it coming from the invention of television. The madness being from the giggle coming from the doll.
As part of solving the problem at hand was for UNIT to take out a South Korean satellite with its Galvanic Beam.
However destroying the South Korean satellite would have international consequences and needs permission from world leaders but they are affected by the giggle and hence not in the right frame of mind.
Therefore the Doctor gives his permission. It is not stated as such on-screen here and for Disney + viewers who are seeing Doctor Who for the first time, I presume the Doctor has resumed his position as President of Earth.
As established by Kate back in Death In Heaven, the Doctor immediately becomes the President of Earth in the event of a dire emergency engulfing Earth.
Having established this relates to the advent of television, the Doctor and Donna goes in the TARDIS to go to Soho 1925.
They soon reach the toy store and meet the Toymaker. It is here the Doctor realises who the Toymaker is and upon this realisation comes a clip of the First Doctor and original Toymaker Michael Gough in The Celestial Toymaker and a colourised clip as that story is in black and white.
The Doctor and Donna soon is brought into the Toymaker's realm and quite creepy the man from the shop earlier being the Toymaker's literal puppet and the dolls that were above Donna's head.
The Toymaker holds a puppet show for the Doctor and Donna and I was taken aback it starts with a puppet of Amy as the Toymaker reveals to Donna what happened to the Doctor since she last travelled with him,
Then comes a puppet of Clara and Bill and planets representing what became of them due to the Flux.
With Clara, the Toymaker said that she got killed by a bird. Coincidentally I rewatched much of Face the Rave several hours before I saw The Giggle.
Another coincidence is that Jenna shares the same birthday with Davies on April 27. Therefore I had wondered how he would have written for Clara and the puppet show kind of feel like it answered that question.
For me it was delight seeing the Amy and Clara puppets as well as the Rose mention later on and given this came on my birthday.it feels like kind of like a birthday gift to me as I love Billie, Karen and Jenna so much.
After the puppet show, the Toymaker plays a game with the Doctor due to this being the demand of the latter.
The Toymaker revealed that the Master (presumably the Dhawan one) had played a game with him and the Master lost.
As the price for his defeat the Master gets imprisoned in the Toymaker's golden tooth!
Ultimately the game between the Doctor and the Toymaker resulted in a tie with dire consequences in which the Doctor and Donna barely escaped with their lives intact and return to the present day to UNIT tower.
Soon the Toymaker turns up at UNIT tower and what an entrance he made with music from the Spice Girls and the climax of this has him at the Galvanic Beam.
It is with the Galvanic Beam that the Toymaker shoots the Fourteenth Doctor and comes the moment at least this viewer had thought of him regenerating into Fifteenth Doctor Ncuti Gatwa.
However it wasn't quite like that because Tennant doesn't turn into Gatwa. What happened instead is the Doctor gets split into two with Tennnant still around and Gatwa coming around this way.
Instead of a regeneration, 15 expalins that this was a bigeneration.
Frankly I am not sure I am sold on the idea of bigeneration not that I actually wanted 14 to be killed off especially since he just reunited with Mel.
Then comes a ballgame between the Doctors and the Toymaker with the Toymaker saying he accepts their challenge.
For Harris he was well known for saying challenge accepted when he played Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother.
The Toymaker loses the ballgame and from 14's demand for winning the game banished the Toymaker.
The Toymaker is banished but leaves behind the golden tooth where the Master is imprisoned which gets picked up by a mysterious hand,
This is undoubtedly a retread from Last of the Time Lords when a mysterious hand had picked up the ring which contaiin the Master's remains. On that occasion the hand belonged to Tracie Simpson who was then the production manager.
What are the chances the hand that picks up the golden tooth is again Simpson's?
14, 15 and Donna are then in the TARDIS in which a lot of past references are made including Mavic Chen from the 1965-66 story The Daleks Master Plan being mentioned to today's audiences and that Sarah Jane Smith is now gone in reflection of the sad fact that Lis Sladen has passed in 2011
Davies had written Farewell, Sarah Jane for Doctor Who Lockdown in 2020 about the funeral of Sarah Jane, the cause of her death however is unknown.
With two Doctors and one TARDIS comes the quesiton how to resolve this problem and that problem comes with the fact that the prize in the game against the Toymaker hasn't been claim.
15 therefore claims this prize that of a mallet and hits the TARDIS outside which produces a second TARDIS and hence one TARDIS for each Doctor.
15 is able to go off on his own in his own TARDIS but 14 decides to stay with Donna and her family for the time being.
14 staying with the Nobles marks another RTD retread this episode as it is no different to Rose spending her life with the Meta-Crisis Doctor in the parallel world in Journey's End.
The Giggle is overall an enjoyable way to end the 60th Anniversary Specials but as I said I am not sure about the bigeneration.
This makes me asked the question whether 14 can still regenerate and if the answer is yes then that is going to give me a fan headache.
Final 60th Anniversary Special.
This came on my birthday December 9 2023.
Written by showrunner Russell T. Davies.
Series directorial debut by Chayna Button.
The Giggle finally sees the return of The Celestial Toymaker this time played by Neil Patrick Harris.
Like Nathaniel Curtis who had played Isaac Newton in the previous episode Wild Blue Yonder, Harris had been in It's a Sin also written by Davies.
This starts in 1925 Soho in which the Toymaker who appropriately owns a toy store when he sold a doll to a man who works for the real-life John Logie Baird, the inventor of television.
Baird uses this doll as a test subject for television and this doll would develop a laughter the said giggle which would trigger the events of the present day.
Fast forward to the present day with the world in chaos caused by each person thinking they are right about something leading to a fight amongst them and the Doctor and Donna gets picked up by UNIT and Donna telling a UNIT soldier to get Wilf to safety and after the Doctor briefly meets the Toymaker but the former does not yet know the latter yet.
Having known coming into this that Bernard Cribbins as Wilf had filmed his only scene in these specials at the end of the previous episode Wild Blue Yonder prior to his death on July 27 2022.
In The Giggle, Wilf is seen in his wheelchair but not his face. Rather conspicuous knowing the circumstances of why this was done. One thing I did not notice until I looked it up later on is that Cribbins' voice was used here in this case from The Poison Sky.
By helicopter, the Doctor and Donna are taken to UNIT tower which rather looks like Avengers Tower.
At UNIT tower comes Shirley Anne Bingham and Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. However they are not the only familiar faces the Doctor meets here as he also meets former companion Mel.
Notwithstanding her cameo in The Power of the Doctor, this marks Bonnie Langford's full on-screen return as Mel.
It was quite a reunion between the Doctor and Mel and I went back a bit on this to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing with this.
Donna on meeting Mel noticed that she (Donna) isn't the first redhead to travel with the Doctor.
In fact Mel's full return was announced months before but it was in Ncuti Gatwa's first season, so Mel being in The Giggle is earlier than expected.
When Mel was last seen in classic Who in the Seventh Doctor story Dragonfire she had left the Doctor to travel with Sabalom Glitz with Mel's place with the Doctor taken by Ace.
In The Giggle, Mel explains to 14 that Glitz had died at the age of 101 and came back to Earth when she got a job with UNIT thanks to Kate.
This contradicts with Big Finish as it had Mel reuniting with 7 and Ace and had some adventures together.
Still on the subject of Big Finish this had Langford and Ruth Madeley (Shirley) together in TV Doctor Who as they had worked together on Big Finish as companions to the Sixth Doctor with Madeley playing Hebe Harrison.
Also making her return is Lachele Carl as Trinity Wells, this time having own show The Trinity Wells Show.
Truthfully I didn't recognise Trinity at first as she looked different the last time she appeared and I didn't notice the logo of her show on first viewing.
Funny on Donna getting a job at UNIT by the demand she made and accepted by Kate.
Soon the cause of the current trouble is discovered to be the said doll from 1925 and people are affected by the madness because it comes from the screen which everyone has due to it coming from the invention of television. The madness being from the giggle coming from the doll.
As part of solving the problem at hand was for UNIT to take out a South Korean satellite with its Galvanic Beam.
However destroying the South Korean satellite would have international consequences and needs permission from world leaders but they are affected by the giggle and hence not in the right frame of mind.
Therefore the Doctor gives his permission. It is not stated as such on-screen here and for Disney + viewers who are seeing Doctor Who for the first time, I presume the Doctor has resumed his position as President of Earth.
As established by Kate back in Death In Heaven, the Doctor immediately becomes the President of Earth in the event of a dire emergency engulfing Earth.
Having established this relates to the advent of television, the Doctor and Donna goes in the TARDIS to go to Soho 1925.
They soon reach the toy store and meet the Toymaker. It is here the Doctor realises who the Toymaker is and upon this realisation comes a clip of the First Doctor and original Toymaker Michael Gough in The Celestial Toymaker and a colourised clip as that story is in black and white.
The Doctor and Donna soon is brought into the Toymaker's realm and quite creepy the man from the shop earlier being the Toymaker's literal puppet and the dolls that were above Donna's head.
The Toymaker holds a puppet show for the Doctor and Donna and I was taken aback it starts with a puppet of Amy as the Toymaker reveals to Donna what happened to the Doctor since she last travelled with him,
Then comes a puppet of Clara and Bill and planets representing what became of them due to the Flux.
With Clara, the Toymaker said that she got killed by a bird. Coincidentally I rewatched much of Face the Rave several hours before I saw The Giggle.
Another coincidence is that Jenna shares the same birthday with Davies on April 27. Therefore I had wondered how he would have written for Clara and the puppet show kind of feel like it answered that question.
For me it was delight seeing the Amy and Clara puppets as well as the Rose mention later on and given this came on my birthday.it feels like kind of like a birthday gift to me as I love Billie, Karen and Jenna so much.
After the puppet show, the Toymaker plays a game with the Doctor due to this being the demand of the latter.
The Toymaker revealed that the Master (presumably the Dhawan one) had played a game with him and the Master lost.
As the price for his defeat the Master gets imprisoned in the Toymaker's golden tooth!
Ultimately the game between the Doctor and the Toymaker resulted in a tie with dire consequences in which the Doctor and Donna barely escaped with their lives intact and return to the present day to UNIT tower.
Soon the Toymaker turns up at UNIT tower and what an entrance he made with music from the Spice Girls and the climax of this has him at the Galvanic Beam.
It is with the Galvanic Beam that the Toymaker shoots the Fourteenth Doctor and comes the moment at least this viewer had thought of him regenerating into Fifteenth Doctor Ncuti Gatwa.
However it wasn't quite like that because Tennant doesn't turn into Gatwa. What happened instead is the Doctor gets split into two with Tennnant still around and Gatwa coming around this way.
Instead of a regeneration, 15 expalins that this was a bigeneration.
Frankly I am not sure I am sold on the idea of bigeneration not that I actually wanted 14 to be killed off especially since he just reunited with Mel.
Then comes a ballgame between the Doctors and the Toymaker with the Toymaker saying he accepts their challenge.
For Harris he was well known for saying challenge accepted when he played Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother.
The Toymaker loses the ballgame and from 14's demand for winning the game banished the Toymaker.
The Toymaker is banished but leaves behind the golden tooth where the Master is imprisoned which gets picked up by a mysterious hand,
This is undoubtedly a retread from Last of the Time Lords when a mysterious hand had picked up the ring which contaiin the Master's remains. On that occasion the hand belonged to Tracie Simpson who was then the production manager.
What are the chances the hand that picks up the golden tooth is again Simpson's?
14, 15 and Donna are then in the TARDIS in which a lot of past references are made including Mavic Chen from the 1965-66 story The Daleks Master Plan being mentioned to today's audiences and that Sarah Jane Smith is now gone in reflection of the sad fact that Lis Sladen has passed in 2011
Davies had written Farewell, Sarah Jane for Doctor Who Lockdown in 2020 about the funeral of Sarah Jane, the cause of her death however is unknown.
With two Doctors and one TARDIS comes the quesiton how to resolve this problem and that problem comes with the fact that the prize in the game against the Toymaker hasn't been claim.
15 therefore claims this prize that of a mallet and hits the TARDIS outside which produces a second TARDIS and hence one TARDIS for each Doctor.
15 is able to go off on his own in his own TARDIS but 14 decides to stay with Donna and her family for the time being.
14 staying with the Nobles marks another RTD retread this episode as it is no different to Rose spending her life with the Meta-Crisis Doctor in the parallel world in Journey's End.
The Giggle is overall an enjoyable way to end the 60th Anniversary Specials but as I said I am not sure about the bigeneration.
This makes me asked the question whether 14 can still regenerate and if the answer is yes then that is going to give me a fan headache.
