Dr. Who Reaction- The Giggle
Added 2025-06-07 14:00:06 +0000 UTC
Comments
I like your revision of the story Andrew it makes sense
Jenny Smyth
2025-06-09 12:19:52 +0000 UTC"That's who you are. Using your intelligence to be stupid. Poisoning the world. And hating each other? You've never needed any help with that.", The Doctor, "The Giggle" In some of your episode thoughts you mentioned "The Star Beast" where you probably meant "Wild Blue Yonder" - an easy mistake because "Wild Blue Yonder" is a very forgettable title - "Big Long Corridor" would have made the episode easier to remember. "Ah! Guten Tag, guten Tag! Kommen into the warm. It is ge-raining, is it not?", The Toymaker, "The Giggle" RTD's script is explicit that the Toymaker speaks "with an outrageously cod (i.e. mock or sham) German accent". In the earlier occurance of the Toymaker in Classic Who, he was an English speaker play-acting as a Chinese official - this time he is play-acting as a German shop-keeper. You haven't seen the earlier occurance of the Toymaker (you were probably thinking of "Spearhead from Space") - mostly because only one episode of the original four black-and-white episodes remains in the archive. However, recently they published a full release of the story with three animated episodes along with the surviving recording. "but ... Amy Pond was touched by der Weeping Angel, und she died!", The Toymaker, "The Giggle" I liked the Toymaker's review of the unpleasant departures of the various companions (and the Flux) with puppets. I like it when the series can help us recall the history of the show. Neil Patrick Harris was great as the new Toymaker - and he could do all the dancing and magic and puppetry. "But he'll cheat.", "No!", "Shame.", "That's the one thing he won't do.", Donna, the Toymaker and the Doctor, "The Giggle" The Toymaker is playing games but he has to obey any declared rules. "Where are my staff? The beam had a pilot, and the armourer and the ground staff. Where are they?", "I think they're still falling.", Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and the Toymaker, "The Giggle" But when there isn't a game going on he just gets rid of people in nasty ways. "And we've been infiltrated by an alien, by a man with two hearts, a man who changes his face and cannot be trusted. And you, and her, both with red hair. What is this? Some sort of conspiracy?", Kate Lethbridge-Stewart under the influence of the Giggle, "The Giggle" It's always nice to get to see Kate and UNIT again - ok, I know it hasn't been that long. "We've checked and double-checked. It's not like the old Archangel Network. There's nothing hiding in that signal.", Shirley Bingham, "The Giggle" And nice to get throw-away references to old Master stories. "I wasn't the first redhead?", "No, that was me.", Donna and Mel, "The Giggle" We also get (re)introduced to Melanie Bush - Mel. As others have mentioned, she was a Classic Who companion in the 1980s - we actually saw her in the companion support-group at the end of "The Power of the Doctor", but now she is working for UNIT. This reintroduction of Mel to the Doctor wasn't as emotional for Classic Who watchers as the Sarah-Jane reintroduction because Mel hadn't been in the show as long as Sarah-Jane. Actually, Mel isn't correct here - there was an earlier red-headed companion in Classic Who - but they never met Mel. BTW: the actor playing Mel has a dance and musical-theatre background which is probably why she is the one to sing the Giggle arpeggio. BTW2: I recall that in one Classic Who story the actor was asked to scream at a particular pitch so it would merge nicely into the Doctor Who theme for the cliffhander. "Bi-generation. I have bi-generated! There's no such thing.", The Doctor, "The Giggle" The first we have heard of it - but that's ok by me. Doctor Who is always presenting new things that become canonical lore - it's fine. However, I can't get past thinking about my idea for a rewrite of the scene: We see the Toymaker confront the UNIT soldiers on the helipad rather than having it offscreen. This time he pulls out a huge mallet and hits each soldier who get thrown hundreds of metres off the pad and fall to the ground. However, when he decides to force the Doctor to regenerate, he uses the mallet on the Doctor but this time the Ncuti-Doctor gets pushed out leaving the David-Doctor also present. And then the two Doctors carry on with the scene as scripted. So, later, when the Ncuti-Doctor uses the mallet on the TARDIS it just duplicates a TARDIS in the same way. Anyway, that was my rework of that scene. I didn't really care for the "pull each way" stuff and I didn't like the mallet just appearing like magic from inside the TARDIS - so I've solved my my two problems by merging them together. And I like the shot of a hand with red nails picking up the gold tooth (with the Master in it). I don't know what it means - but I like it even as just another reference to an earlier Master story. "The funny thing is, I fought all those battles for all those years, and now I know what for. This. I've never been so happy in my life.", The Doctor, "The Giggle"
Andrew Vignaux
2025-06-09 11:24:49 +0000 UTCSo as others have mentioned the Toymaker is from a first Doctor story back in 1965. unfortunately it is a missing story. It's recently be animated on DVD but I don't think it's available anywhere streaming wise, so probably the reason Andrew hasn't suggested watching it. As Mel is from classic Who traveling with two different Doctor's so she's aware of regeneration. I think this is my favourite out of the three specials. 5/5. Really spooky at the start, Neil Patrick Harris is great and I absolutely love the Spice Girls number. I wasn't sure about the bi regeneration but it does give a good end to the David Doctor.
Jade Ellis
2025-06-07 19:47:43 +0000 UTC
