One fat geek's SUCCESSFUL attempt to regenerate into a not-so-fat geek by watching the entirety of Doctor Who while walking on a treadmill

At Least They Got the Math Right

Apr 23 2017
At Least They Got the Math Right

Here is the nicest thing I can say about The Celestial Toymaker: In the Trilogic Game that the Doctor is compelled to play, the Toymaker asserts that the correct solution will take exactly 1,023 moves. Given that there are ten pieces in the stack, and the formula for calculating the number of moves is 2^n - 1, it will absolutely take precisely 1,023 moves to complete the puzzle with no errors. Bear in mind, though, that the moves are extremely mechanical and not in the least bit challenging. Playing methodically and moving one piece per second, it would take around seventeen minutes to complete. Of course, the Doctor was slow-rolling it despite the occasional nudges by the Toymaker. So the playing time lines up pretty well with the hour or so that Steven and Dodo spent playing the other games. So, yay for mathematical and temporal accuracy?

As for the rest, let's talk about that.

The Dancing Floor / The Final Test

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

There's really not a lot to say about story here. In The Dancing Floor the first half of the episode has Steven and Dodo searching for a key in a kitchen, while being actively distracted by the cook and a retired military Sergeant. They bicker and fight, and eventually ramp up to a full-fledged food fight in which the cook is throwing baked goods and the sergeant is throwing china. Eventually Dodo finds the key inside a pie that the cook was baking. Then they move on to the titular dancing floor, in which they are compelled to dance with ballerina dolls until they manage to break free. Seriously, a full twenty five minutes and that is literally all that happens.

In The Final Test they are forced to play a dice game with Cyril, whom the Toymaker describes as an "innocent, fat, jolly schoolboy." In reality, Cyril is a lying, cheating, conniving prankster. He is also ripped off completely from a popular (at the time) children's character named Billy Bunter. In fact, when Cyril first introduces himself he even says, "My friends call me Billy." The estate of Bunter's creator Charles Hamilton was not particularly amused, and threatened to sue the BBC. This led to the BBC having to add a special "continuity announcement" stating that the character of Cyril was not meant to actually be Billy Bunter, but merely a character like him.  It is the only time in Doctor Who history that this kind of statement has ever happened.

So yeah, Steven and Dodo play Billy Cyril, who cheats and connives and is eventually killed due to his own prank. With the game won and the TARDIS recovered, the Doctor realizes that in order for them to leave he must complete his game, but if he completes his game then the Toymaster will lose and his entire reality will be destroyed with the TARDIS and everyone else along with it. So, being the Doctor, he does a clever thing, and manages to complete the game whilst simultaneously dematerializing the TARDIS and escaping destruction. The Toymaker, being immortal, is not destroyed and he is set up to return as a recurring villain. This never happens, thank goodness. There was one script commissioned in 1986 that was never made, because the BBC unexpectedly postponed the series for 18 months. So, I guess, look for the Toymaker to return for the Thirteenth Doctor, maybe? Lord, I hope not.

I continue to be weary of this particular era of the show, and am looking forward to better times very soon with the arrival of the Cybermen and the regeneration into the Second Doctor. That's still a few days away, though. Tomorrow I have to slog through The Gunslingers, and I am not even remotely optimistic about it.

STATS:

Doctor(s): First
Companion(s): Steven Taylor, Dodo Chaplet
Episode(s): The Dancing Floor / The Final Test
Steps Walked: 6,730 today, 392,483 total
Distance Walked:  3.38 miles today, 182.32 miles total
Weight: 287.14 lbs (five day moving average), net change -20.16 lbs


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