DD2 - The Tenth Planet 2

The Cybermen are revealed in their full glory in this episode. They dazzle everyone with their ventriloquism techniques, wipe out a couple of guards with some of the largest and strangest weapons ever seen in Doctor Who, and then prove themselves to be quite the chatty Cathies by rattling off their entire culture's history and that of their home planet in three minutes flat. If only other Doctor Who monsters could be so accommodating.

There's something distinctly creepy about the Cybermen in their first appearance. I can't decide if it's their weird voices or blank faces that spook me more. The voices are certainly some of the more distinctive ones heard during the history of the series. It also helps, thought, that their debut sets a standard for Cybermen to be tall. It would have been much less imposing if they had been the same height as a Dalek. And the giant headlamps that add about 8 inches to their height doesn't hurt, either.

I was fascinated by a quick little scene that occurred early on in the episode, just before the Cybermen announce their presence in the Snowcap base. When they first enter the control room, they're covered up by the thick coats taken from the guards who tried to stop their ingress earlier. Only The Doctor catches a glimpse of the fact that they are not human. But instead of trying to raise the alarm to the whole room, he quietly and intensely tries to get the attention of, first, General Cutler, and then when Cutler brushes him off, Barclay. Why did he not simply shout out to the whole room to get back from the disguised Cybermen, thus forcing the giants out into the open sooner than they wanted to, perhaps giving the Earth soldiers a chance to strike first against them? It's almost as if The Doctor wanted to warn Cutler and Barclay so that they could react for themselves, as opposed to The Doctor taking the lead and having mankind follow him in one of their first meetings with an alien race. Is this a further instance of The Doctor manipulating events to not necessarily serve his own purposes, but to ensure that everything follows its proper course?

The Doctor knew that Mondas would return before it happened. Did he know how it would be dealt with, too? If so, what else about the future, including his own personal near future, can The Doctor predict?

DD1 - The Tenth Planet 1

Doctor Who's first attempt at depicting the near future is a fun and interesting romp that manifests itself as a bunch of multicultural stereotypes living and working in an underground military base in Antarctica. Into this, The Doctor, Ben, and Polly find themselves thrust in a type of story that would become much more common during the upcoming Patrick Troughton era - a small, isolated base under attack from an alien menace.

Fans of the programme have often stated that Troughton's Doctor was a much more scheming individual than any of his other incarnations; the seeds for that are planted here. Before Mondas, the eponymous tenth planet, makes its appearance, The Doctor correctly predicts its arrival to the staff of the Snowcap base in order to try and establish his credentials to them. The Doctor has not only foreseen the return, but he is aware of how Mondas began. It adds another level of mystery to The Doctor's character and his unseen travels before we met up with him in a junkyard in 1963. Was he there when Mondas moved out of its orbit? Did he even, perhaps, have a hand in it?

Such a great episode, this is, highlighted by one of the most memorable scenes in the show's history - the first appearance of the Cybermen. After a good few tries at duplicating the success of the Daleks, Doctor Who strikes gold (or should I say silver) again with the Cybermen. Of course, they look ridiculous by today's standards, and their subsequent updates would be more effective, I think, but it is the way that they are filmed that immediately rises them above the limitations of their costumes. The first time we see them are shadowy creatures coming from afar through the snow, almost blending into their surroundings. After they chop down a couple guards, we see a bit more - they look like robots, with bits of metal covering up various parts of their body, including something giant atop their heads. The first close up, though, is of a human hand, which then tilts up to that blank, soulless face. Another punch-the-air moment in the history of Doctor Who.

Unlike Daleks, who are often introduced in closeup, Cybermen have always looked best when slowly advancing from far away. This trick has been deployed more than a few times in the show's history (including in the most recent Cybermen episode The Next Doctor), but it has never been more effective than in the closing moments of The Tenth Planet, Episode One.

CC4 - The Smugglers 4

It's been fun tracking the moral standing of The First Doctor during his tenure in the programme, from being aloof and selfish in the early days, to where he is in The Smugglers. When given the chance to flee the scene in the earlier stories, he would have done so at a moment's notice. Now, when time travel newbies Ben and Polly see a way for them to get out of their scrape relatively unscathed, The Doctor stands firm. It was because of his dealings with Captain Pike that has put the village in danger, and so he is staying out of "moral obligation" to try and prevent the village from suffering any recrimination.

I like that this has been a very gradual change in The Doctor's character. One can't pinpoint a specific moment or a telling close-up camera shot that displays, in black and white (literally and figuratively), that The Doctor has changed his attitude to those around him and how his actions affect them. The fact that this change spans over three seasons worth of Doctor Who makes it seem that much more real. So often in shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation, for instance, characters would, during the course of a 43-minute episode, encounter a situation unfamiliar to them, deal with it, and then look longingly off into the distance, reflecting on the fact that they just learned something and probably gained 20 experience points along the way.

This is the most overt portrayal of The Doctor's philanthropic nature yet, though, in that he is willing to discover the lost treasure for Captain Pike, and hand the dastardly smuggler the entire prize in exchange for the safety of the entire village. In the end, of course, The Doctor never has to keep his promise, as several people, including Pike himself, die in sword fights, leaving things for the king's taxman, Blake, to clean up. Then and only then, when all the pieces of The Doctor's plan are about to fall into place, does he flee the situation, further enhancing his new fondness for leaving before any questions are asked.

Good little story, this, but do your best to try and track down a better quality copy of the Loose Cannon reconstruction than the one I stumbled upon!

CC3 - The Smugglers 3

It's taken a while, and it's taken a lot longer than I thought it would, but my viewing experience has finally been sullied by a poor quality reconstruction of a missing story. This isn't the fault of the good folks at Loose Cannon, but the copy I have of The Smugglers seems to be about an seventh or eighth generation copy of a poor quality VHS copy.

It's frustrating, naturally, because I can barely hear the audio during each episode, especially during the film location sequences (of which there are a few in the final two episodes). There seems to be a fair amount of backroom dealings going on, though; but, thus far, not as much swashbuckling as I'd like to see in a story set in 17th century Cornwall.

However, despite the audio-visual setback, I must press on. Just over nine months left to complete the whole run, and I'm only now just finishing up the Hartnell era...

CC2 - The Smugglers 2

Anneke Wills is, by all accounts, a charming and enthralling woman who has led a terribly unique and fascinating life. In the 1960's, she was just about as close to a blonde bombshell as Doctor Who ever had. Sexy, big beautiful eyes, long blonde hair and even longer legs, Anneke, as Polly, was a fox (and, thus, makes the non-existence of most of her episodes in the BBC Archives even more of a shame).

So how in the name of all that is mighty did anyone think they could pass her off as a boy in this story? Furthermore, what's the point of trying to pass her off as a boy? And what kind of boy looks like a blonde bombshell, anyway? Because of the fact that she was wearing pants? Is that it?

I couldn't get over this huge unlikelihood for the entirety of this episode. All I could think of was Driver Bob from Black Adder Goes Forth, and hoped that Corporal Blackadder would come in and end this madness, unmasking Polly so we could all get on with our lives. Sigh. Anyway, it looks like some pirates are doing deals with other pirates right now, and there's probably some smuggling going on, too.

CC1 - The Smugglers 1

Arr! It's about time that 17th century pirates made an appearance in Doctor Who. I could write an entire blog that could lament the missing episodes of the 60's, but it's a tragedy that The Smugglers doesn't exist today to see what would have been some wonderful location shooting in Cornwall, including some scenes on an old timey ship off the coast. It would just about be the furthest distance for a Doctor Who location shoot until Season 17's City of Death. Interesting that the more expensive stories in the 60's tended to occur towards the end of the production block (The Smugglers was the last story made for the third block in 1966), whereas in the 1970's and 80's, stock grey flats and casts of tens were the order of the day at season's end.

Ben and Polly accustom themselves to the wonders of the TARDIS with remarkable brevity in Episode One. Mind you, by this point in Season 3, there have been so many people making their way through the TARDIS that any extended reaction to its dimensional transcendentalism would be old hat for the viewer. Still, it seems that the lesser the reaction provoked in the companion, the lesser the companion becomes. Look at Dodo - she barely batted an eye at the thing, and we barely batted an eye when she left a few weeks later. I'm already feeling that way towards Ben and Polly.

And that's not to slag off the characters or the two actors who portray them. But you can tell immediately that they don't have the same chemistry with The Doctor (or, indeed, William Hartnell), and, in fact, there's hasn't been a strong TARDIS lineup since the Doctor/Vicki/Steven days. And that was only really good in The Time Meddler. I am eagerly awaiting the time when this game of companion musical chairs settles down for the first time in a long while.

BB4 - The War Machines 4

There's a charmingly amusing scene in this episode where The Doctor has to explain to a government minister why the War Machine that threatened to attack at the end of Episode Three came up lame at the start of Episode Four. The reason? The War Machine was a computer, and that computer hadn't been completely programmed yet. Whoa, whoa, whoa....what is this gibberish that you're talking about, Doctor?, the minister asks (paraphrased, naturally). Archive footage of what was then current technology being marveled at never ceases to amuse me, and that scene falls right into that category. With Doctor Who's first foray into the here and now (there and then), it means that it instantly becomes dated. It's mildly beneficial that the stories of the UNIT era was supposedly set a few years in the future, because then manned Mars missions and giant, army issued laser guns were so far fetched for the present day that the viewer could only surmise that the story they were watching was set in a weird and wonderful fantasy world of the unknown - the future.

Having said that, The War Machines bears so many hallmarks of what's to come that I'm willing to not only look over the dated aspects of the story, but be amused by them as an interesting snapshot of the world as it was in 1966. I also enjoyed The Doctor's role in capturing a War Machine, reprogramming it (there's that word again), and sending it to kill Krimpton. Oh, and WOTAN, too. In a further flash forward of what's to come, The Doctor vanishes shortly after the super computer is defeated, a la the Lone Ranger, just as The Second Doctor was wont to do in the stories to come.

At the end, of course, Dodo pretty much sends a text message that she is leaving in the worst companion departure scene ever. Let's hope Ben and Polly fare better.

BB3 - The War Machines 3

The last half of Episode Three is given over to a fairly laborious battle between a War Machine, some WOTAN-possessed workers, and some army soldiers. The whole thing cries out for the steady and dependable hands of HAVOC, but then, like that esteemed company of action, this type of army driven, action/adventure story is years away from becoming the norm.

The sheer novelty of the surroundings, especially when taken in context, is still the most exhilarating aspect of this story. For anyone who is familiar with the UNIT era of the 1970's, to see a bunch of hapless soldiers running around is nothing to bat an eye at. But to see William Hartnell's Doctor in the middle of it all just seems odd, in a way. At least this episode finally sees him leave Sir Charles's house and get back in the action after essentially taking the last episode off.

As for the War Machines themselves (even though only one machine was actually made for the production), well, they may have been scary for a few children back in the day, but it does seem like they are about the 17th attempt to try and strike the gold already mined by the Daleks. At least the War Machines signaled the last legless monster race the programme tried to create for some time, abandoning that monopoly to the pepper pots from Skaro.

BB2 - The War Machines 2

No companion has ever looked more out of place than Dodo in The War Machines. Clinging to the heels of hip and swinging Polly while being shown around the equally hip and swinging Inferno night club, Dodo, with her conservative dress and scaled back Cockney, is a snapshot of what the programme was like as recently as a few weeks before in the eyes of new producer Innes Lloyd. Whereas the BBC heads forbade Dodo's Cockney accent, soon-to-be-new companion Ben's Cockney stylings are full on from the start. And poor Dodo has no hope of taking the spotlight away from the dazzling Polly, either.

Dodo - the most aptly named companion in Doctor Who history. Created as another replacement for the granddaughter character left vacant by Susan and Vicki before her (indeed, The Doctor mentions how much Dodo looks like Susan upon their first meeting) by an outgoing producer, there was never much hope for Dodo. As such, the much mocked exit of the character (or lack of) is the best thing she could have hoped for. To have The Doctor and Dodo share a (supposedly) touching farewell scene would have felt empty and ludicrous. Dodo's gone - forget her like she should have been forgotten in the first place.

Ben and Polly are stepping into the roles of new companions rather nicely, though (as new companions often do in their debut stories). The Doctor places a remarkable amount of trust in Ben early on, going so far as to send him to the WOTAN warehouse to spy. The Doctor also sends Ben straight into danger, all the while hanging out in Sir Charles's house and answering obscene phone calls from supercomputers. Yeah, if I was Ben, I'd join up at the end of this adventure, too.

BB1 - The War Machines 1

The final story of Season 2, The Time Meddler, was a landmark story in that it was the birth of the "pseudo-historical", as well as suggesting that The Doctor and his TARDIS were no longer unique in the universe. The effects of the Season 3 finale, The War Machines, however, are much larger, and are still being felt today.

First off, we finally get a story entirely set in the present day (1966, at the time) for the first time in history (barring some short stopovers seen in previous stories). These types of stories were seen by new producer Innes Lloyd and script editor Gerry Davis as a means of replacing the traditional historical stories that were falling out of favour. However, The War Machines is more of a template for the 1970's Jon Pertwee era than anything.

Also, what may have, at the time, been seen as an increasingly dated looking programme, Doctor Who firmly enters the Swinging '60's in this episode, with its young and hip nightclubs, fashion, and diction ("I dig your fab gear!"). Not for quite a while did the series attempt to align itself with the present day as much as it does here. Other stories to come might have been set in the present day (even though the Pertwee/UNIT stories were supposedly set a few years later than the year in which they were broadcast), but The War Machines, with its sly references to Jimmy Saville, wants so desperately to be current in a way that wasn't really portrayed until the new series started up in 2005.

As for the story itself, it's written again by Ian Stuart Black (who took over at a late stage from BBC staff writer Pat Dunlop), who must have clearly had a fascination with the character of The Doctor. In the previous story, The Savages (also written by Black), the Elders have been following The Doctor's travels for years, and his fame precedes his arrival on the Elders' home planet. Similarly, The Doctor is granted immediate and unquestioned access to the new Post Office tower and the WOTAN headquarters. I'm sure there's some Season 6B nonsense that can explain all of this, but I'm in no mood to seek this information out.

And as for "Doctor Who is required. Bring him here.", well.....

AA4 - The Savages 4

I've spoken earlier about how underrated a companion Steven was, perhaps because of the tragic lack of existing episodes featuring Peter Purves. Thus, like Dodo, I'm a little bit sad to see him go at the end of the episode.

It's not like Steven, though, has displayed any great sense of leadership and diplomacy in the past, so the fact that both the Elders and the Savages immediately nominate him as leader of both their races is a bit surprising. Still, it gives the character of Steven a good exit, and a well written and acted farewell scene, as well. If only that trend carried over to the next story!

The story as a whole was good, if unremarkable, but Steven has a job ahead of him in uniting the two races, as most of the guards wanted no part in it. And they have the guns. Also, it's weird to see a Doctor Who story with lots of guns firing, but no one dies during the course of the story.

Actually, the thing I was most impressed by with this story isn't even about the original broadcast version. I liked the reconstruction job done by the mysterious Elephe, who used the audio from the CD release, with Peter Purves narrating, and some crystal clear copies of the John Cura telesnaps that exist for this episode.

AA3 - The Savages 3

William Hartnell has about the easiest non-holiday episode in Episode 3 - he's either playing a comatose Doctor while he has his brain drained of energy to serve Jano's desires, or a staggering, bewildered Doctor wandering about, oblivious to the peril that he and his companions are in towards the end of the episode.

For, you see, most of The Doctor's thoughts, emotions, quirks - pretty much the entire contents of his brain - are within the head of Jano after the transfer operation. Frederick Jaeger does a very interesting, even amusing, impersonation of William Hartnell for these scenes, especially when he adds in Hartnell's distinctive chuckles and "mm-hmm"s (for lack of a better term). The thing is, Jaeger doesn't overdo it. If you listen to Hartnell, he does utter those things a lot! Probably too much, really, but I'm not alone in finding that particular trait of Hartnell's a little distracting.

This has been an interesting story, actually, despite my lack of actually talking about it as a whole! I think I'm still in the afterglow of The Gunfighters...

AA2 - The Savages 2

Writer Ian Stuart Black was apparently one of Patrick McGoohan's cronies back in the day, and, seeing the general themes of his stories, it's easy to see why Black and the creator of The Prisoner got along. I'll cover Black's upcoming stories in greater deal when the time comes, but the similarity between all three of his stories is the presentation of a new and/or better society that is propped up by an alien menace or, in the case of The Savages, the exploitation of a(n apparent) lesser species.

And the society of the Elders is, indeed, impressive, seeing that they have been following the TARDIS's travels for a long time before The Doctor visits their planet. How they do this isn't necessarily clear - does The Doctor have a blog? Podcast? Vidcast? The Doctor appears to be sucked into the flattery directed his way by the Elders and their leader, Jano, but it's great to see that he knows fully well there is something else going on behind the curtain.

There's a scene where The Doctor is trying to care for an ill savage outside the city while a guard tries to take him into custody. It shows how far The Doctor has come in the three years that we have known him. In An Unearthly Child, he was ready and willing to kill Za in order to get Ian, Barbara, and Susan to come back with him to the TARDIS so they could flee their current situation. The exact opposite happens in Episode Two of The Savages. I have never seen Hartnell's Doctor so defiant in his stance in order to try and save the life of another being. It's a quite powerful little moment for Hartnell's Doctor, who I have always liked, but these little character moments are making me appreciate him much more as his eventual demise draws near.

AA1 - The Savages 1

With Innes Lloyd now fully in charge of Doctor Who, he began to imprint his new style of producing on the programme. The first thing you notice? Gone are the individual episode titles, now replaced by an "Episode One", etc., caption. If anything, the people who put together episode guides are now happy - there will be no The Edge of Destruction/Inside The Spaceship debates anymore!

The lack of individual episode titles also affects the end of episodes, as well. Instead of having to throw on a "Next Episode" caption, once the cliffhanger occurs, the credits can simply roll, without having to hold on a shot of The Doctor gurning in peril for several seconds while the caption is displayed. This makes the cliffhanger endings much more punchy and exciting.

Episode One of The Savages ends with Dodo screaming at the sight of a "savage", and the fact that the credits probably rolled immediately after the scream makes it all that more shocking and dramatic. Plus, the lack of individual episode titles prevents fans from having to memorize each title, but then, what Doctor Who fan out there would want to do that....?

Z4 - The OK Corral

What a shame this delightful story had to end, but, to be fair, it doesn't end that well. The final battle is weird in that it would appear that Virgil and Wyatt Earp are immune to bullets. First, they walk down the street slowly and calmly amidst a barrage of bullets coming from the guns of the Clantons. Were they even on the same street? Later, they manage to peg off each member of the Clanton gang quite easily, and its Dodo who inadvertently causes Johnny Ringo's demise.

Still, it was a delightful romp leading up to the final gunfight. William Hartnell was at his absolute best during the whole affair, and didn't appear at all to be the crotchety, bad tempered, absent-minded actor that legend portrays him to be, especially during the latter days of his reign as the traveling Time Lord. To all you fans of The Romans and the new series episode The Unicorn and the Wasp (yup, didn't think anyone would answer to that), this is how you make a whimsical story set in the past and not have the humour grafted on artificially.

The Gunfighters sings to you, literally, and it is one of the truly neglected gems in Doctor Who's crown.

Z3 - Johnny Ringo

I'm starting to get the exact same feeling while watching The Gunfighters as I do when I watch the 1979 Tom Baker story City of Death - that of utter content and delight. And what links the two stories? Both stories feature David Graham (who usually has his mouth attached to a ring modulator while voicing Daleks) in onscreen roles as lovable losers who get killed horribly and in cold blood.

It would have been neat in a Maxil-shooting-the-Fifth-Doctor kind of way if the original actor sought out for the role of Johnny Ringo, Patrick Troughton, got the role and appeared opposite his soon-to-be predecessor William Hartnell. Nevertheless, Laurence Payne does a superb job at portraying the ruthless gunslinger, and easily has the best American accent out of anyone in the production.

Favourite line of the episode - The Doctor's response as to whether Doc Holliday is a friend of his: "Of course he is. He gave me a gun, he extracted my tooth. What more do you want?"

Why has this taken so long to come out on DVD?

Z2 - Don't Shoot The Pianist

After seeing this episode, I'm fully convinced that if ever a live action version of The Simpsons was made, and if a practical means of reincarnation could be invented to resurrect dead actors, then William Hartnell should be the first choice to play Mr. Burns. I couldn't help but think that old Billy was channeling C. Montgomery some 40 years previously during the scene where The Doctor enters the saloon for the first time. His charmingly innocent line about enjoying a glass of milk as opposed to alcohol is total bliss.

Hartnell's Doctor looks so amusingly out of place in this episode. I love the way he plays with the gun that Steven has handed him in his jail cell, marveling at a simple trick he's just learned to do with it to Wyatt Earp. Or should that be "Mr. Wearp", as The Doctor calls him throughout the story. It's odd, actually, that Steven takes guns from the TARDIS that are in The Doctor's own collection - why does a man who abhors violence, and, as he states later in the episode, who never even uses guns, have a private collection of them? Are they guns that he has confiscated from people over the years, and he keeps them as badges of the pacifism he's created (as well as specimens of fine craftsmanship?)

Another cracking episode, this. Why did this story have to be only four episodes long?

Z1 - A Holiday For The Doctor

The reaction that The Gunfighters received when it originally aired in 1966 was that of disappointment, anger, and almost disgust. The main consensus amongst the viewers (and the makers of Doctor Who) is that a small budget British science fiction show should never have attempted to make an American western within the tiny confines of a BBC studio. In fact, the low ratings and record low audience appreciation figures led to the end of the historical stories, the very type of story that had once been a mainstay during the first three years of Doctor Who.

Fortunately, history has been kinder to The Gunfighters as the years of worn on. It possibly the (intentionally) funniest Doctor Who story ever made. Forget the lack of budget to portray Tombstone, Arizona, in a BBC studio. Forget the dodgy American accents. Forget the wild inaccuracies in regards to the actual established events. I have seldom had more fun watching a Doctor Who episode.

The opening episode contains some truly hilarious lines, a great little plot resolving around the mistaken identity of Doc Holliday, and some of the best performances out of the show's regulars ever seen. Peter Purves is an absolute delight as "Steven Regret", the singer of the fictitious musical troupe that the trio use as their cover whilst in Tombstone. His reaction to his being made to sing at gunpoint towards the end of the episode is priceless. Jackie Lane is actually quite good, too, if only overshadowed as she doesn't get any of the good lines.

But it is William Hartnell who excels the most in this episode. His unfamiliarity with the culture of the American West, his amusing reaction to Kate strapping a gunbelt on him, the fact that he is basically playing the blissfully unaware straight man to all the events that are going on around him - all these things show off Hartnell's adept skill at comedy. His initial scene in the dentist chair with Doc Holliday is a total hoot.

Sod the historians. This is such wonderful fun!

Y4 - The Final Test

The most interesting aspect of The Celestial Toymaker is actually mentioned early on in Episode One, and then never again. It's the fact that The Doctor mentions that he has met the Toymaker before, and is aware of the fantastical nature of the world that he has created.

It's been rare, even by this relatively late stage in the William Hartnell era, to hear The Doctor mention people, creatures, and events from his past that were never seen on screen. The Toymaker seems to exist outside of reality itself, though. So when and how did The Doctor meet him for the first time? And how did The Doctor manage to get out of the situation? The Toymaker's powers bear more than a slight resemblance to those of the Eternals in the Peter Davison story Enlightenment. Are they of the same species? Is the Toymaker, perhaps, akin to the computer in The Mind Robber? Does he have the powers, even, of the Black or White Guardian? It's a great shame that the intended 1985 sequel to this story, The Nightmare Fair, was never made as it may have provided some of the answers to these questions.

It's the unanswered questions and the desire to know the history of the Toymaker and his relationship with The Doctor that make this an interesting view, making up for the lack of scenes featuring The Doctor (and, indeed, the Toymaker) and for the fact that the games don't provide much a challenge for Steven and Dodo. Still, it's Doctor Who's first solid stab at surrealism, and it must be applauded, at least, for the effort.

Y3 - The Dancing Floor

As enjoyable as it is to watch Steven and Dodo play deadly children's games in their attempt make their way back to the real TARDIS and escape the realm of the Celestial Toymaker, never during the first three episodes do you get the sense that The Doctor's companions are ever in danger. Most of this is down to the fact that Steven and Dodo's competitors in the games are quite fallible, and it is only through their mistakes that Steven and Dodo are allowed to win the games and move on.

Perhaps the most inept of competition is found in The Dancing Floor, as both Sgt. Rugg and Mrs. Wiggs are both quite out of their element when playing the game with the dancing dolls, even more so than Steven and Dodo. As a result, Steven and Dodo already seem to have the upper hand before the game even starts, and it doesn't take long for Rugg and Wiggs to dispatch themselves and hand the victory to Steven and Dodo.

Despite the lack of drama, it still makes for a diverting watch (or, in this case, listen), but the Toymaker should know how to pick his soldiers better.