The Celestial Toymaker - The Hall of Dolls

The second part of this story starts off with Dodo and Steven before quickly returning to the Doctor and the Toymaker and instantly the Toymaker becomes just as menacing as he was in the previous episode.  Its good that at least we can see that the Doctor can see how Dodo and Steven are getting on. Now the Doctor is mute as well as invisible and this immediately reduces William Hartnell's involvement in the episode. As Peter Purves is such a strong on screen presence it means that I don't mind as much, sadly Jackie Lane is becoming annoying in this story and whilst she's given more to do that in The Ark, the way that she acts is somewhat annoying.

The games that Dodo and Steven have to play would look great on TV but sadly on audio we are just left with just hearing this and it lacks an kind of fun for me. The costumes would also have been fun look at. Like the Toymaker, the supporting characters have the same level of creepiness and even though they don't get aggressive they work for the Toymaker so they can be just as dangerous. Theonly thing that I wish the would have changed and that is to involve the Toymaker more. Michael Gough gets two small scenes and he's great in both but his involvement in the story should have been greater.

As he is effectively the lead in this episode, Peter Purves gives a great performance and whilst Indont think he has the suave and sophistication that William Russell had as Ian, I think that Peter Purves has done well with the character and Steven is quite methodical and logical throughout the episode. The supporting characters are quite entertaining with Cyril being the highlight. The only time Dodo gets something good to do is when she sits on the wrong chair and starts to freeze and this would have looked good n TV but its a moment hat doesn't seem to last very long and it would have been a great cliffhanger. 

Like in the previous episode there is a moment where Dodo thinks that they have come across the TARDIS but it turns out to be the wrong one and we get another riddle from the Toymaker which leads them to the next game. This is then how the episode ends which I thought was a surprise. Not the way they chose to end it but just the fact that the whole episode had been moving along quite nicely it is making me re-evaluate the story. It's not a classic but it still a lot better than I remember.