When the Toymaker cuts the strings of puppet Clara, one string remains uncut as she is still living her last second of life - literally hanging by a thread.
The Toymaker will never cheat, which is due to his being bound by the rules of the game if he wants to keep existing... or at least, that's how the Doctor explains it. Another possibility is that, considering just how much entertainment the Toymaker gets from his games and toying with people's lives, he'd regard cheating as utterly nonsensical — there's no fun to be had in a rigged game that you're guaranteed to win.
Though he reacts as if insulted at Donna's suggestion he would cheat, suggesting he's either bound or holds it as the closest thing to a point of honour he has.
Tellingly, when he enters the final game of catch against two Doctors, he tries to catch 14 off guard by lobbing the ball at him without warning. It's not explicitly against the rules to do so, but it is poor sportsmanship, showing how the Toymaker will follow the rules, but he doesn't have to abide by them if he so chooses.
The Doctor's resignation to the Toymaker's song-and-dance number inside UNIT HQ takes on additional context when you remember it's only been fifteen hours since "The Power of the Doctor" and the Master's rendition of Boney M.'s "Rasputin". So, this is now the second time this day the Doctor's been subjected to an old adversary indulging their inner dancer and love for theatricality. So, it's scant wonder Fourteen looks so done with it all.
Mel now has a job at UNIT. The last time we saw her was in "The Power of the Doctor" during the meeting of past companions that Graham sets up. There, Kate mentions the possibility of giving the others in the group work at UNIT. Mel must have taken up that offer.
The fact that there's a bi-generation rather than a regeneration means that this episode ends up a multi-Doctor adventure that both of them get to remember afterwards, since they're no longer in the same stream of causality as one another (at least that we know of, yet).
Since the game between the Doctor and the Toymaker is ongoing from when they switched to best of 3, while the Toymaker wants to get to play vs a third incarnation of the Doctor he can't remove the incarnation he started against from play and thus causes the bi-generation rather than a standard regeneration.
Furthermore, how many people are there in this game? Three. How many of them are the Doctor? Two. Best Two-out-of-Three indeed. The Toymaker was literally outnumbered against the Doctor.
The Toymaker mimicking various different accents may just be part of his Large Ham personality, but remember that in his last appearance, he was defeated by the Doctor being able to perfectly mimic his voice. He might just be adding an extra layer of protection this time.
The Toymaker's bigotry in spite of being a God in all but name makes perfect sense when you realise how he sees the world: to him, bigotry is merely another game that divides people into winners and losers.
The Toymaker mentions he made "a jigsaw out of [the Doctor's] history", which was stated by Word of God to explain the Doctor's (in)famously jumbled and contradictory past over the franchise's history. With that in mind, the Toymaker could be responsible for the other contradictory pasts of other characters, like Davros no longer being confined to a wheelchair when he created the Daleks in the Children in Need special, or the Revival-era Master being plagued by the Drumming in a plot by the Time Lords despite never mentioning it in the Classic era. Or this could be used to explain any historical inaccuracies throughout the show. Doubles as Fridge Horror, as it shows that the Toymaker's mastery over time surpasses even those whose entire shtick is fiddling with time.
After Fourteen says "I've never been so happy in all my life", it cuts to Fifteen in the TARDIS, grinning at the prospect of a new life of adventure. Both of them found their happiness, just at opposite endsof the spectrum.
The Toymaker's choice of the Spice Girls song, Spice Up Your Life, for his UNIT rampage has a hidden layer to it. As Russell T Davies revealed in Doctor Who: Unleashed, he purposely gave the new Toymaker a slight racist streak as a call-back to his original, problematic depiction back in 1966. One of the lyrics in "Spice Up Your Life", one that has garnered criticism in recent years, and that is conveniently drowned out by dialogue in the episode? "Yellow man in Timbuktu".
When Ten regenerated at the end of "The End of Time", his famous last words were, "I don't want to go". And now, if his final scene is the last time we ever see Fourteen, he'll never have to go again. He'll forevermore be part of Doctor Who off-screen and enjoying life and retirement.
Fourteen's (intended) last words before his regeneration, "Allons-y", carry a lot of meaning to contrast the send-off this face had: Ten was alone, reluctant and scared up until the end, which is reflected in his final words, but this time he was given a chance to regenerate surrounded by friends and accepts his fate with some fear, but also peace, and so he gives one last "Let's go". It can also tie into the theme of letting go first brought up in The Star Beast as the specials deal with the Doctor learning to let go so he can heal from his constant trauma and Chronic Hero Syndrome, which starts when he accepts the death of this particular new incarnation. And finally, he does let go in the end by voluntarily settling down to retire from adventuring so that he can heal and rest alongside his friends and family.
The Toymaker being defeated by a simple game of catch might seem somewhat anticlimactic, especially for a god-like entity, but it actually makes perfect sense. The Toymaker repeatedly mocks the Doctor for being "too clever," and this is exactly why he was able to beat the Master, the Guardians, and God, because they all tried to be too clever and outsmart the Toymaker in a complex game. But catch has no complex rules, no strategy plays, no mind games; you simply catch the ball, or you lose. The Doctor realised he had to play a game that his own cleverness couldn't trip him up on. It also shows that he took the lessons of the last episode to heart by not thinking.
Kate's ableist, xenophobic and anti-redhead rant might seem a little out of character, but her job is to be Properly Paranoid; alien infiltrators, spies and conspiracies happen all the time in the Whoniverse. She would have had to keep tabs on an alien entity like the Doctor and his associates, and colleagues like Shirley would have to be vetted for security clearance. She has to think this way about everyone as a necessary part of the process. Unfortunately, under the effects of the Giggle, it transforms from "I have to ask these questions about the people I work with," to "I'm right, these people are liars and they are dangerous and we cannot trust them at all."
The effects of the Giggle seen on screen are chaotic, but they aren't actually that violent - the Doylist reason is this is a family show and people killing each other in the streets would be too graphic. But the Watsonian explanation is that the Giggle doesn't make people more violent - it makes them believe they are right about everything all the time. Most people aren't convinced they have the right to murder and assault people, so they wouldn't do this even under the effects of the Giggle. Unfortunately, as the airplane pilot demonstrates, you don't have to want to kill people to end up doing that anyway due to your own sense of entitlement.
Though it may not be a full excuse for the fan-perceived poor writing on Chibnall's part, what Donna describes as Fourteen running on fumes does neatly explain why Thirteen's tenure had so many social and adventurous pitfalls. (One social pitfall being the Doctor reacting poorly to Graham's cancer diagnosis) The stress from War, Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve finally caught up with them, so despite the cheery attitude they tried to present, it was just a façade that had finally cracked, they were unable to continue being as properly gung-ho, jovial, and mannerly as they used to.
One wonders why the Doctor never decided to "take a break" with the Ponds, with River at the Singing Towers, or the multiple other times he was alone. But given how The World Is Always Doomed and the Doctor's Chronic Hero Syndrome, he never would have been able to just stand back and enjoy any time off. The bi-generation fixes that, allowing Fourteen to settle down with the Nobles and heal because he knows the universe still has Fifteen to protect it.
The Toymaker is shown to have crazy, reality-warping powers which he uses with reckless abandon, except when he is challenged to a real game, whereupon he becomes no different than his opponent in capability and has to play by the rules of that game. As anyone who has ever played with young children knows, if you allow them to set the rules of the game, then the game will make no sense and every "rule" will conveniently benefit the child so that they win ("everything-proof shield" is a classic example.) Until someone forces him to play a real game with defined rules, the Toymaker plays his own games with everyone else, where he can set the rules and change them on a whim like a child does.
Right before his banishment as Sealed Evil in a Can, the Toymaker shouts out that his "legions" will be coming. What would that make them, especially if he created them to begin with? Toy soldiers.
How did the Toymaker take out God? Until recently (kinda), superstition and myth were just that. Everything ran on science. So "God" wasn't the truly omnipotent and omniscient being the Abrahamic faiths preached about, but rather a powerful alien who probably inspired the "creator god in the sky" archetype like the Beast did for the Devil archetype. Since the Toymaker runs on something completely different, it's reasonable to assume he was able to outsmart God.
Given the recent reveal that the Doctor isn't the same species as the other Time Lords, isn't subjected to the same restrictions on his regenerations as the others (they were deliberately imposed by Rassilon), and only knows what Tecteun's experiments were able to reveal about their abilities, it's entirely possible that he was always capable of bi-generation — it's just that it only occurs under very specific circumstances, which never happened until now.
It's possible that the Doctor has bi-generated in their forgotten past, and that this was the origin of the myth of bi-generation in the first place.
The Doctor seemingly Took a Level in Jerkass this episode as he gets pretty strong on his tirade at UNIT and his more ruthless and cold personality resurfaces when interacting with Kate and even Donna while handling the Toymaker. From his perspective though, he's been not over a day into his regeneration and been thrust into a series of extremely traumatic adventures which have reopened a lot of old wounds, including reuniting with his best friend whom he'd reluctantly separated from and seemingly losing her to a Heroic Sacrifice, then almost losing said friend again in a very stressful encounter with eldritch entities who could use his own face, intelligence and memories against him. Now faced with the Toymaker's return potentially being his fault while said near-unstoppable entity gleefully whips up his various traumas both old and new, his lashing out is more an inevitable result of the sheer amount of stress he's going through as of late.
Fifteen openly admits he has no idea if the bi-generation will work when Fourteen asks. Setting aside that this scenario is completely new for audience and Doctors alike, it's actually explained by some of the oldest lore in the series; Only the most recent version of the Doctor remembers multi-Doctor events in detail (or at all). Fifteen wouldn't know if pushing against Fourteen would work to separate them because his very presence meant that Fourteen's memories were about to get wibbly.
Kate electing to showcase the effect of the Giggle herself can seem at little strange, seeing as she is the leader of UNIT and not short on volunteers. But, given how devastated she was by her actions under the Giggle, she probably didn't want to put someone through it and elected herself in a "can't ask them to do something I wouldn't" mindset - something that most real-life Western militaries run on, and very fitting for the Brigadier's daughter.
Based on the screaming face in the balloon, the UNIT soldiers turned into balloons are still alive and conscious. There's no indication that they're ever turned back, or even that there's anything capable of turning them back. Even the Doctor can only tearfully write them off as dead.
It's possible, like with the Stooky Bill puppet at the end of the episode after the Toymaker is defeated, that they just went back to their normal selves. Doesn't say in what condition, though...
Rose, Sylvia and Shaun are revealed by Wilf in the previous episode to be "bunkering down" during the worldwide madness, but it is never established whether they are still being affected by it themselves. As we saw when Kate was briefly affected by it, the madness can manifest in the form of bigotry, as she becomes distrustful of the Doctor because he's an alien and Donna and Mel because they're both ginger, and she subjects Shirley to ableist abuse; what if poor Rose is currently being subjected to transphobic abuse by her own father and grandmother?
Sylvia and Shaun aren't actually transphobic on a conscious level. Sylvia in particular is seen in the first special trying her best to understand Rose, and ignorance is different from malice. The Toymaker only made everyone assume they're right about everything all the time, so if anything Rose is just in even more danger from those bullies we saw in the first special.
The heroes address that many likely died during the Giggle-induced craze. However, they don't address the number of weapons of mass destruction humans have used. It's unlikely politicians somewhere, now fully convinced of their righteousness, didn't launch nukes.
It's possible they couldn't have. Kate, when talking about the need to use an advanced superweapon to shoot down the satellite, briefly mentions that all missiles are on lockdown, suggesting that UNIT has countermanded various world governments and forcibly prevented them from performing a nuclear strike.
Military forces would also have had to deal with the fact that all of their soldiers were unwilling to compromise on anything. Generals and launch officers could have disobeyed the orders for the pettiest of reasons, such as not liking the current administration's tax policies or wanting a five percent raise first. Even in a country like North Korea, the situation could have devolved into an argument over who gets the honour of pressing the big red button.
Kate's unhinged rant is a lot more alarming when you remember the Giggle doesn't make people do anything except believe that they're right. It's that what she really thinks deep down about her friends and colleagues?
Or perhaps in a slightly better light, are those just things she was instilled with earlier in life, but keeps away from her present actions for the sake of professionalism and keeping the Earth safe? One would hope not, given how badly that would reflect on the Brigadier.
Given how she also rants about evil redheads, it seems that it's more that the Giggle makes you act on every single stray thought, without the "No, that's stupid" reaction many would get before even being voiced.
Now that the Fourteen Doctor is living with the Nobles, taking the slow path, it is worth remembering that Wilf is still 94-years-old, and will likely pass from old age in less than a year. The Doctor has seemingly agreed to face that head on; in spite of, or perhaps because of how he feels about the man...
Considering that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors both have equal claim to be the Doctor, who does UNIT designate between the two of them for supreme power when the next worldwide crisis arrives? Do they go with the Fourteenth Doctor, who has conveniently settled down in the UK with a UNIT-affiliated family and is the earlier and possibly more experienced incarnation? Or with the Fifteenth Doctor (and his eventual successors), who is actually still adventuring as the Doctor? Or somehow a council of both plus any other incarnations who show up? Will there be friction between the Doctors whatever the arrangement?
As stated under Foregone Conclusion on the main page, its heavily implied that Fourteen will eventually, fully regenerate into Fifteen once he's taken The Slow Path. Therefore, the more Character Development Fourteen accrues, the more he'll develop the traits that minimize friction between the two. Of course, that leaves the inevitable day when Fifteen comes 'round and Fourteen has gone.
After her Zeedex bracelet is put back on, Kate is horrified by her actions, showing that people cured of the Giggle are fully aware of the actions they took under its influence. Now remember, after the Toymaker's defeat, that's everyone on earth, and a lot them are suddenly realising they did far worse things than a brief bigoted rant.
Also a form of Fridge Sadness, but assuming the specials' timelines follows the events we see on screen more or less in real time, Fourteen was born and almost died within little over a day of his regeneration. If not for the surprise bi-generation he could have been one of the shortest-lived incarnations ever.
It's integral to the Doctor's plan that the game of cards with the Toymaker was the second game played with him — leaving him with one victory in the initial serial, one loss here, and the right to a third game to determine best of three. However, while this is the second on screen game against the Toymaker, it's mentioned in both The Celestial Toymaker and this episode that there was a third, off-screen encounter between the two. Why does that one not break the tie?
The Toymaker states, in his titular episode that he'd "hoped [the Doctor] would stay for a game, but you had hardly time to turn around", indicating that while they met, they didn't play anything. Thus "The Celestial Toymaker" still serves as the first "official" game between himself and the Doctor.
This even avoids completely rejecting the Doctor's encounters with the Toymaker in other media; most of those other meetings involved the Doctor deliberately trying for a draw with the Toymaker rather than outright winning, so the Toymaker may basically declare these encounters 'invalid'.
UNIT acts as though shooting down KOSAT 5 is the only way to stop the Giggle, but they'd already discovered that KOSAT 5 specifically wasn't the issue - The trigger for the Hate Plague was the fact that the entire world had internet access for the first time. When South Korea denied them permission to shoot down the satellite, why couldn't they have just shot down a British satellite instead?
Clearly British political leadership was just as dysfunctional as any other and denied permission to shoot down anything.
KOSAT 5 seems to be an advanced satellite that enables more connectivity than ever before. Destroying it will do more damage to the "chain" (as in, reduce the amount of internet access by a greater amount) than a British satellite would.
The Toymaker was right to say that the Doctors were cheating. The previous two games were against one Doctor each. The Toymaker forced Fourteen's regeneration/bigeneration specifically to play against one different Doctor. He should've played catch only with Fifteen.
But they are both the same person, and challenged the Toymaker at the same time for the third game. In effect, the Toymaker had three games with the Doctor, but the Fourteenth Doctor only had two with the Toymaker, and the Fifteenth only had one.
What was the woman who picked up the gold tooth containing the Master standing on? The framing made it look like the tooth was on the edge of the platform.
Maybe it's another Reality Warper? RTD did say the Toymaker was "part of a Pantheon."
What will happen when the Fourteenth Doctor regenerates? Will there be another Fifteenth Doctor at the same time as the main one or will they be fused back together again?
More than likely, he'll go through with the whole 'explosion of light' during regeneration, but instead of it vanishing to reveal a new Doctor, he disappears entirely along with it, while back in time, the Fifteenth Doctor emerges from the bigeneration.
Alternatively, The Fourteenth Doctor might never regenerate, and will suffer the pains of being "immortal", as he slowly ages over thousands of years, seeing his friends pass away naturally while he ages slowly and slowly. This could eventually lead into Fourteenth Doctor taking on a new title of "curator" (much like The Curator shown in the 50th Anniversary Special). Additionally (and more darkly), this could also eventually result in Fourteenth (or even Curator) becoming The Valeyard from being so isolated and distraught from human society in addition to taking in the weight of all the sins caused in their life. That being said, Valeyard is also an incarnation taking place before The Doctor's penultimate incarnation, so if he ends up coming into being, he will inevitably cease to be. That won't stop The Valeyard from being a potential threat to all of time and space, however.
Or, not being able to regenerate, he will simply grow old peacefully and die (of course, it may take centuries).
