Recap / Doctor Who 60th AS "The Giggle"

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The Giggle

The Time Lord and the Toymaker play one last game... ^.Ha-haha-HA-haha-ha!

Written by Russell T Davies
Directed by Chanya Button
Air date: 9 December 2023

"I've fought them all. Robots and insects and yetis and clones, but what do we do this time, Doctor? How do we fight the human race?"

— Kate Stewart

The one where Russell T Davies and David Tennant take another crack at this whole "regeneration" thing, while also bringing back a very, very, very obscure villain from the old series.

This is the third and final episode of the 2023 Specials Trilogy created to celebrate the 60th Anniversary, and the third episode to be broadcast on the Disney+ streaming service. It also heralds the introduction of Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor, and the reintroduction of the Celestial Toymaker, a First Doctor villain last seen in his titular debut, portrayed here by Neil Patrick Harris.

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The giggle of a mysterious puppet is driving the human race insane. When the Doctor discovers the return of the terrifying Toymaker, he faces a fight he can never win...

Soho, 1925. A man named Charles Banerjee stops in to a small toy shop run by a man with the most over-the-top German accent you're ever likely to hear. The shop owner tries to sell Banerjee a teddy bear or a "hobbyhorsen", but Banerjee is only interested in one thing: a puppet known as Stooky Bill. In-between lamenting the separation of Stooky Bill from his family, making casually racist remarks toward Banerjee, and briefly forgetting his accent, the shop owner inquires what exactly the man wants with the puppet. Banerjee reveals that he works for local inventor John Logie Baird, and that Baird is working on something truly revolutionary: a new device called "television".

Jumping forward, we see that Baird and Banerjee are hard at work on said invention and are ready to perform the first real test. The puppet is going to be the televised subject, as the cameras produce too much heat to safely direct them at a human being. The device is activated, and, sure enough, grainy footage of Stooky Bill is broadcast to the other room, and Baird and Banerjee become the first ever television viewers (and the recipients of the first ever televised Jump Scare after Bill's mouth falls open). Baird proclaims that this invention is going to change the world forever, while the sound of a strange giggle echoes over the burning puppet...

---

Back in 2023, the Fourteenth Doctor and Donna Noble are still caught in the middle of a World Gone Mad. A passerby insists on trying to block a car on the road with his own body, on the grounds that his taxes helped fund the road, so it's his road and he can do with it whatever he likes with it. It seems that everyone in the world has become convinced that they're completely right about everything and are willing to fight to the death to prove it. The Doctor is briefly invited to dance with a strangely familiar man in a tuxedo, but he has no time for that with the ongoing crisis! He's got a planet to save! And fortunately, UNIT soldiers- seemingly unaffected by the madness- have arrived to shuffle Wilf (or rather, Wilf's stunt double with an obscured face, given that Bernard Cribbins had sadly passed away by this point) away to safety and escort the Doctor and Donna to UNIT HQ in what is most certainly not Stark Tower.^note Hey, this is what you get from letting Disney+ pitch in!

The Doctor and Donna are met at HQ by Kate Stewart, who gives the Doctor a hug and wearily asks him the question of the hour: how the hell are they supposed to save humanity from humanity? Stepping inside, the Doctor is confronted by a familiar face: Melanie Bush (last seen all the way back in the Seventh Doctor era), who's now working for UNIT! Unfortunately the catching up will have to wait, as Kate confirms the Doctor's worst fears: the problem is worldwide, and it's so effective at convincing humans that they're right about everything that they won't even stop for basic reason or self-preservation (as seen by the pilot who decided there was nothing at all wrong with landing smack dab in the middle of a city, resulting in the plane crash from last episode). No change for the wacky politicians though (especially the ones who lean too hard to the left or right). Regardless, the only reason why UNIT isn't affected by the phenomenon is all because of a handy piece of Applied Phlebotinum called "Zeedex" that was created by the Vlinx (a robot alien that works for UNIT, yes, they're a new character, nothing to worry about), which suppresses the effect; and even the best-hearted among them aren't immune to the Hate Plague, as Kate Stewart being briefly without it causes her to start hurling hateful accusations at some of her closest friends (by being xeno-racist, ableist and an anti-redhead fan in one fell swoop). And with humanity in this state, good luck trying to convince them to put these devices on their arms, as we see influencers like Trinity Wells (a former AMNN news reporter who has previously popped up in a lot of old Russell T. Davies era stories) convincing the people of the world to go anti-Zeedex (hmmm, does this remind anyone of something similar in real life?).

The Doctor gets UNIT scientific advisor Shirley to put up the wavelength on the monitor to analyze it. Upon inspection, the wavelength peaks seven times, with a steady hill pattern to boot. But Donna is able to figure out the pattern as Kate Stewart explains to the team that the plague begun two days prior, when the KOSAT 5 satellite from South Korea was activated...although the satellite WASN'T hiding the signal. Donna then shows the team her homework on the signal pattern, and ponders if the signal is a tune, judging from said pattern (she was able to figure it out from her tuning skills acquired for the sole purpose of teaching her daughter the recorder). Mel's singing skills come in handy here, as she performs an arpeggio scale...which matches the signal's pattern perfectly. A musical palindrome that affects human minds, and has affected them since... the invention of television itself.

Shirley brings up the footage of Stooky Bill, the most plausible fit for the arpeggio puzzle, as we hear him giggle in a similar, if not, exact fashion to the arpeggio. And the worst thing about it? For some reason, it's been burned into every screen ever since then. Only now has it unleashed it's true power upon the Earth thanks to KOSAT 5's broadcast of the video being weaponized by the giggling mastermind behind it all, causing an armageddon upon humanity. And it's all thanks to a simple, taunting giggle.

"Ha-haha-HA-haha-ha!"

With the puppet found, the Doctor has to hunt down the puppeteer. Before the Doctor departs to go back to 1925, he asks Kate to find a way to bring down the satellite. With missiles being a bad idea, the Galvanic Beam is the safest bet for this situation, as long as they get permission from the UN...which ain't possible. Thankfully, the Doctor's permission overrides it all. The Doctor checks up on Mel for a bit, and tells the Doctor about how this screamy redhead managed to get back from her misadventures with good ol' Sabalom Glitz (who died at the age of 101, by slipping on a whiskey bottle). How did she get back to Earth? By getting a lift off a zingo. Don't question it. Mel sadly has no family to stay home with, though, but is still grateful to be part of UNIT to this day (even getting accommodation for it). With the exact coordinates given to the Doctor (as well as Donna getting a £120,000/year job offer from UNIT), he and Donna depart for 1925 Soho.

As the Doctor and Donna walk, Donna notes that he doesn't tend to reminisce much about his past, nor his companions of old. Doctor makes up an excuse for the reason why, but Donna tells him that when she was the DoctorDonna for a bit, she saw a glimpse of the Doctor's gloomy headspace. She states that he's been staggering a lot. Perhaps the reason why Fourteenth has this old, familiar face is because of the fact that his own past is finally catching up to him? It would make sense given what happened recently with his "origins" as a Timeless Child, and— never mind, he's brushed her off again. Pooey.

The duo heads off to the "Mr. Emporium" shop, where Stooky Bill was sold. As the Doctor peers into the shop window, he notices the strange shopkeeper, who hides away from him. The partners in crime enter the shop, and the shopkeeper immediately starts spieling about the first game ever invented: the ball. With his rotten German accent, he totes about how the cavemen loved tossing rocks at each other's heads, and the "game of ball" lasted until the year 5,000,000,000. The ballsy Donna shushes him, and suddenly, the shopkeeper recognizes her perfectly. But how? As the Doctor panickily tells her to go back to the TARDIS, the shopkeeper is glad that the Doctor is finally realizing who he REALLY is.

As the Doctor's blurry vision of the past come into fold, he finally remembers the time he faced this particular man in a game when the Doctor was in his "first" incarnation. And that man is none other than...The Toymaker.

Before the Doctor can talk to him about anything, really, the Toymaker invites him and Donna to play the second game known to man: "hide-und-seek". The Toymaker giggles a la arpeggio-style and hides behind his domain of games, and the chase is on. With the duo trapped in the Toymaker's domain, the Doctor recaps to Donna about the last time he beat the Toymaker in a game (as the other games he played all ended pre-maturely or on a tie), i.e. the first game he played with said celestial immortal. The Doctor also panics about how he might have truly screwed up and put Donna's life in gravest danger (revealing that it was his salt trick with the Not-Things in the last episode that allowed The Toymaker into this universe), lamenting about after everything that's happened to restore her, he might not be able to save her life this time. This cues an existential crisis similar to Twelve's; that if you remove the "toys" i.e. the Sonic, the TARDIS, and the swagger, what's left?

Donna does her best to reassure his faith in winning regardless, and tells the Doctor that "the dice don't know what they did last time", something that her father said to her once. With his faith restored, he accidentally ditches Donna, thanks to the doors in the Toymaker's domain being a one-way ticket.

The Doctor finds himself in a room where Charles Banerjee is trapped after losing to a game with the Toymaker (which would easily explain why the Toymaker has invaded Earth in 2023). The Doctor frees Charles, but is shocked to find out that Charles is all strings and (almost) all wood. The Toymaker commands the puppet from above, and taunts the Doctor by clamoring about the Doctor's soon-to-be-inevitable loss against him, and even goes as far to make the puppet look like the Doctor! Frightened, the Doctor flees for dear life.

Meanwhile, Donna ends up in a dark, gloomy attic room, where a crying woman is hiding in the corner. This woman turns out to be poor wee Stooky Sue, who doesn't know what to do after the Toymaker threw her in the cubby upon losing her precious hubby, mourning every day thanks to Bill being took away. Because Stooky Bill was burned on TV, he can't see his poor wee missy. And now, her Stooky babbies weep and cannot sleep. They miss their papa, seeking him near and far, and with Donna in their sight...they greet her in the endless night. The Stooky babbies don't look so sweet, especially given they've come to eat. As the widow Sue has finished her cry, she declares that it's time for Donna to die. But, thanks to her rough, less-wooden personality, Donna is able to come out on top with a more clever follow-up rhyme: "Hello Stooky, my name's Donna! Now I think that you're a goner!" and proceeds to behead the wooden widow by slamming Stooky Sue against the wall. Donna scares off the stooky babbies back into their corner, and Donna escapes the room triumphantly, reuniting with the Doctor at last.

With the partners in crime back together again, they are greeted by the Toymaker, as he prepares a worldwide premiere puppet show, especially made for Donna. The Toymaker begins his tale of woe by starting at the point when Donna first left the Doctor, taking us for a trip down memory lane; or more specifically, the Steven Moffat and Chris Chibnall eras. The Toymaker introduces Donna to a plucky, redheaded Scottswoman called "Amy Pond", who despite her flirty behavior, was a favorite of the Doctor's (having traveled with his eleventh incarnation). Sadly, she eventually died to an out-of-nowhere Weeping Angel in the middle of a graveyard. The Doctor rebuffs this by stating that Amy was only sent back in time (with poor ol' Rory) and died from natural causes at a very old age. The Toymaker immediately spouts a sarcastic "WELL, THAT'S ALRIGHT THEN!" in a thick American accent.

Next, the Toymaker introduces Donna to a beautiful brunette lady called "Clara Oswald", who spans across time and space. She travelled with two incarnations of the Doctor, until one day, out of nowhere, a ''bird'' killed her. The Doctor rebuffs him by saying that Clara still "lives", albeit on her last second of life (effectively being immortal). Again, the Toymaker gives out the same response, and introduces Donna to "Bill". As in, lady Bill, not Stooky Bill, who went on adventures with the Doctor in his twelfth incarnation, until Bill was killed and turned into a Cyberman. Once more, the Doctor rebuffs and states that Bill's consciousness survived. The Toymaker gives the same response, louder this time.

The Toymaker skips over the companions of the Thirteenth Doctor in favor of a more disastrous outcome that happened during Thirteen's time: The Flux, an apocalyptical event that could have, and should have, been stopped before it happened, but was unleashed for a brief time anyway, destroying half of the entire universe because of it. With no actual rebuff that the Doctor can use to save himself from this past scenario, despite not actually being responsible, his Tranquil Fury rises to the top as he challenges the Toymaker to a game. Naturally, the Toymaker accepts.

Thanks to the Toymaker being free from his shackles from his last outing, he has been able to challenge games to just about anyone, he toyed with supernovas, turned galaxies into spinning tops, gambled with God himself and won, even going as far to mess with the Doctor's past by making it into a metaphorical jigsaw^note (which may or may not remove certain events from being canon as a result). And even the poor Master couldn't escape from his lure, as he tried to gain more life from the Toymaker, but lost and is now but a gold tooth hiding in the Toymaker's inhuman maw. The only being who the Toymaker dared not play with was a being known as the One Who Waits. The Doctor asks for more information... but the Toymaker refuses, and states "that's someone else's game".

As they begin their game of cards, the Doctor asks the Toymaker about the reason behind the human race being subjected to the Hate Plague, and there's a very easy reason why: so that they can win. The game of the 21st century itself is nothing more than a mere envious, cancel-culture ridden apocalypse that has no losers, but all winners. Such a game that will cause civilization to collapse. (Again, this might sound too real, don'tcha think?) Anywho, the rules of the Doctor's second game with the Toymaker are simple: "highest card wins". And don't worry, no cheating shall be involved! Not like the Toymaker likes to cheat to begin with, as he's already skilled enough. And sure enough, he wins with a king to Doctor's 8 of spades. But while the Doctor has lost this game... he binds the Toymaker into a failsafe rule. "One all." Now, it's not just a singular game, it's a best out of three, a rule that the Toymaker must follow. As the Doctor won his first game, this makes it so that he has one more game to win, one last chance to save the planet. With a best of three like that, the Toymaker considers to make that best of three into "2023", and leaves post-haste... not without attempting to kill the Doctor and Donna by activating a self-destruct sequence in his domain. Luckily, the duo escape back into the TARDIS, but not before the Doctor grabs a hold of the Toymaker's box, containing himself and his own dimension.

Back in the present, UNIT fire up the Galvanic Beam to blow up the KOSAT 5 satellite, and, with Donna's help, they get to work on stopping the Hate Plague within the subframe. As they prepare to finally put an end to the Toymaker's "giggle", the box containing him starts to take affect within the UNIT control room... as a Spice Girls song begins to play.

Uh-oh.

As the Toymaker warps, dances, and lip-syncs to "Spice Up Your Life," he ends up tossing Kate into the wall hard, and tosses Mel into the ground. Kate, showing off the genetics, immediately calls for Five Rounds Rapid, which is a stupid idea anyway, as the Toymaker's Reality Warper powers come into play, making the troops' guns shoot rose petals and turning said troops into mere toy balls that contain their screaming faces. After turning the control room into a colourful mess, he leaves through his own trapdoor out of mere existence, for now, but eventually, they start to hear the Galvanic Beam being used, and that can only mean one thing: the Toymaker has managed to grab a hold of a destructive weapon. Thus, they rush to face him.

Before the Doctor can usher the gang back into the building, the Toymaker holds them hostage with his brand new toy that he stole off UNIT. Kate questions the Toymaker about where the two UNIT staff members went when the Toymaker warped into the Galvanic Beam's site, to which he assures her that they're still falling (cue the thud). The Doctor then begs the Toymaker to stop this game for the sake of using his reality-bending powers for good. Obviously, this sort of diplomacy will never work on him, given the Toymaker's mindset on life runs on whoever wins and loses, and not running on the morals of good and evil. Besides, the Toymaker has taken a liking towards Earth. After all, humanity has birthed so many games, regardless if they take place indoors or outdoors, within computers, or even within minds. It's the ultimate playground for the Toymaker, and he can play in it for as long as possible. The Doctor, unfortunately, cannot play his last round with the Toymaker, for he has found new meaning in his life of games. With the Galvanic Beam in his hands, the Toymaker blasts the Doctor right in his chest, proclaiming that his third game will be with the next Doctor.

Despite only lasting a few hours (and having a shorter run than the last time he had this face), The Fourteenth Doctor has begun his regeneration. That being said, given how he's also similar to Tenth, he's able to relive Ten's regeneration— only with company this time around. Donna and Mel stand up for the Doctor, and they proceed to protect him from the Toymaker, who was planning to outright kill the Doctor permanently. With his Character Development firmly in play^note , as well as the fact that this is the third body of a regeneration cycle compared to the thirteenth, and with the Doctor's redheaded companions tugging on his arms, the Fourteenth Doctor finally make amends with Ten and says "Allons-y!", ready to accept his change into a new incarnation...

...but the Fourteenth Doctor does not regenerate.

In fact, the Doctor tells Donna and Mel to pull his arms away from him on each side, as he feels like something, no, someone is inside him. They do so, and... Fourteenth splits apart to reveal the next Doctor. Wait, what? "What?" "WHAT?!"

Yes, you heard it here, folks, for the very first time in the show's history, there are two incarnations of the Doctor living in the same universe, thus giving us both a regeneration and a Multi-Doctor story in the same episode! Honestly, this works out in everyone's favor (well, except the Toymaker). Say hello to the snazzy, jazzy and freshly bi-generated Fifteenth Doctor!^note For those wondering how bi-generation was even possible, it's not explained. That being said, one can assume the recent regeneration from Thirteenth to Fourteenth allowed for the latter to keep his incarnation and also allow his next incarnation to be born from all that recent post-regeneration energy. And besides, this isn't the first time that the rules of regeneration have been screwed with. The Toymaker decides to see if he can make more Doctors pop out with the use of the Galvanic Beam, but that ain't happening because with a new challenger comes a new game. The long-awaited third round can finally start, and the Toymaker has to accept, despite being the one who caused the bi-generation to happen. Whoopsy-daisy!

To make things fairer, they all agree to play the first game made by man: catch. If one drops the ball, they lose. Considering there are two Doctors playing against the Toymaker, the possibility of losing has doubled. Luckily, both Doctors share the same amazingly perfected motor skills in order to catch the Toymaker off-guard a little bit. The Toymaker does seem have the upper hand for a bit with his showboating however, even going as far to give Fifteen a sly grin at his face, gold tooth gleam and all. Fifteen scowls back at him. Fourteen almost drops the ball but is able to catch it, as he tosses it to Fifteen to deliver a perfect pitch towards the Toymaker, and with the Toymaker just barely missing, he has finally been defeated. While the Toymaker is known for destroying planets that hosted a game that he has lost himself, he is unable to do so here, as the Doctor chooses a particular prize of choice: banishing the Toymaker from existence forever. But despite his body flattening and folding up, the Toymaker decides to have one last laugh by telling the Doctor that his "legions are coming", and nothing more.

With the Toymaker finally contained in his toybox, Stooky Bill's giggle has been stopped, and thus, humanity is saved. This calls for a celebration, right? Well, no. While humanity as a whole was saved, the giggle-demic unfortunately led to a lot of people dying around the world, but with Fifteen around, Fourteen is able to rely on himself (literally) for support, as they embrace for a hug. Afterwards, the gang heads back inside the building, but they seem to be forgetting their bonus prize: a gold tooth.

Facepalm.

Unluckily, and yet to absolutely no one's surprise, a Femme Fataloned hand from absolutely nowhere is able to nab that prize away from them, as we hear an echoing quartet of Masters laughing evilly (ranging from the classic, political, female and most recent incarnations), a sign that Gallifrey's resident bad seed will rise again. Seems like the more things change, the more things stay the same...

Later on, Fourteen and Donna take Fifteen on a small tour through the new TARDIS just in case he has any opinions on it. Fifteen tells Fourteen that the latter needs a chair. As in, he needs to take a long rest from travelling to-and-fro, given how the Doctor(s) have been going on dangerous adventures non-stop, and were unable to take a break. After all, the Doctor as been through a ''lot'' of traumatic events, such as Six's trial, Two's exile (and actual execution), Four's whole mishap with the Key to Time and his failure of stopping Logopolis' destruction, Five witnessing Adric's death, the Doctor witnessing River Song's messy life from (almost) back to front, the recent (off-screen) passing of Sarah Jane, and Rose Tyler's emotional farewell from an alternate universe. Twice, if we may add.^note Not to mention Twelve going completely mental over Clara's death, to the point of almost wiping out reality itself to save her.

...but while the Doctor has been through a lot of trauma, they were able to succeed triumphantly in other events, such as saving Gallifrey during the end of The Last Great Time War, saving the ''universe'' by becoming one with The Pandorica, defeating the evil Mavic Chen, saving Earth from at least four separate Dalek invasions throughout the course of the series, defeating the almighty Gods of Ragnarok and their space circus... the list can go on, but at the end of the day, Fourteen is pretty much tip toeing on the razor's edge of a complete meltdown and a possible permanent death. Fifteen tells Fourteen to take a huge vacation, for now, because Fifteen assures him that eventually, he'll be ready to continue his love for journeys in Fifteen's own shoes; it seems Fifteen is not just born, instead the bi-generation pulled him from a point in the Doctor's personal timeline where he's healed from the trauma. Rehab out of order, as Fifteen puts it.

But there's just one last question that has yet to be answered: Why does Fourteen's face resemble Ten's? And Donna gives him a proper answer: because of the Doctor's own subconscious, he found Donna again, and Donna would understand him better if he had Ten's look. Therefore, that face was brought back for one thing: "to come home". He accepts it, but is saddened to see his TARDIS be given away to his next incarnation, as he feels like this kind of thing would break his hearts. That would be the case, if the Toymaker didn't give a small parting gift for the Doctor(s) to use for the occasion: a toy hammer to use in the last seconds of the Toymaker's domain magic before it truly goes away. Thus, Fifteen decides to do the seemingly impossible: make a second TARDIS pop out of the first! Fifteen's TARDIS, however, is very much similar to Fourteen's, at least. But it comes with a jukebox and a wheelchair ramp now, so that's pretty cool! But as Fourteen compares the two TARDISes, Fifteen attempts to ditch the group. Luckily, Fourteen caught on quick, and Fifteen gives. They both hug one last time, and Fifteen hugs Donna too. The new Doctor farewells them for real, and wishes them a good rest of their time on Earth.

Sometime later, in a sunny Spring afternoon, the Fourteenth Doctor has been accepted (adopted, even!) as part of the Noble family. Together with Donna, Rose, Shaun, Sylvia, Wilfred^note (who's busy off-screen shooting moles in holes, thankfully protected by the Doctor's sonic forcefields) and even Mel, the Doctor can finally be part of a family that he's always wanted. The reason he has fought all of those past battles and sins have lead to this moment, and he's going to live in this moment for as long as possible.

With the story of Fourteen drawing to an end, Fifteen's story has already begun. The Fifteenth Doctor goes off on a new adventure with his own TARDIS. His destination? Manchester, circa Christmas 2023.

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Tropes:

• Above Good and Evil: The Toymaker's response after the Doctor demands to know why he's so small and uses his powers and abilities on such a small, petty scale.
  The Toymaker: You know full well this is merely a face concealing a vastness that will never cease, because your good and your bad are nothing to me. All that exists is to win, or to lose.
• Accent Slip-Up:
  • When the Toymaker insults Banerjee with a racial remark, Banerjee fires back that the Toymaker's over the top German accent has disappeared.
  • Played for Laughs when the Toymaker spells out how some of the Doctor's companions met their demise, the Doctor argues back how they weren't really dead, to which the Toymaker slips out of his German accent to an American accent as he spits back, "Well, that's alright, then!"
• Actor Allusion: Yes, The Toymaker (played by Neil Patrick Harris) will accept the Doctors' challenges!. The Toymakers' dance number to "Spice up your life" is also an allusion to Harris' talents for musical theatre too.
• Adventurer Outfit: The Toymaker dons one when he takes over UNIT's Wave-Motion Gun.
• All Is Well That Ends Well: Subverted. After defeating the Toymaker, Donna and Fifteen celebrate— before Fourteen grimly wonders how many people died in the Toymaker's Hate Plague before they stopped it, taking the wind out of the celebrations somewhat. ^note This is likely influenced by the Toymaker's recounting of what happened to the Doctor's previous companions Amy, Clara, and Bill, deflating the Doctor rebutting with the bittersweetness of their fates using a sarcastic "Well, that's all right then!". Not to mention that the Toymaker then brings up the Flux that completely destroyed half the universe.
• And I Must Scream:
  • The fate of Charles Banerjee. After losing a game to the Toymaker, he's trapped in the Toymaker's realm and turned into a marionette, forced to dance whenever the Toymaker wishes him to. The Toymaker implies he'll do the same to the Doctor.
  • Possibly with the Master. While his essence was placed inside the Toymaker's gold tooth, it's left unrevealed if he's aware of the passage of time and events outside his prison or not.
  • Implied with the UNIT agents turned into balloons— when Shirley grabs one of them, it's got a screaming face in it.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: While under the Giggle's influence, Kate goes on a xenophobic rant to the Doctor, an ableist rant to Shirley, and a rant about how much she hates redheads to Mel and Donna. She immediately apologizes to them once she's freed of its influence.
• Artistic License – History: The real version of Stooky Bill didn't get so hot that it burst into flames. Its hair was singed and the paint on its face cracked by the intense heat of the lights that were used, but it otherwise remained intact, although Bill bursting into flames can be justified due to the Toymaker's Reality Warping powers causing it to do so. John Logie Baird also used a second puppet called James during his testing, which is Adapted Out here.
• Audible Gleam: The Toymaker's gold tooth containing the essence of the Master does this both with its initial reveal and just before it's picked up by an unknown woman in the falling action.
• Badass Boast: The Toymaker gives one when the Doctor challenges him to a game.
  "I came to this universe with such delight, and I played them all, Doctor. I toyed with supernovas, turned galaxies into spinning tops. I gambled with God and made him a jack in the box. I made a jigsaw out of your history - did you like it? The Master was dying and begged for his life with one final game. And when he lost, I sealed him for all eternity inside my gold tooth." (Grins, revealing too many teeth and a shiny gold tooth)
• Bait-and-Switch: As the oblivious Doctor monologues away, Kate storms up to him with a serious expression on her face— and then promptly hugs him, admitting she's completely out of her depth.
• Been There, Shaped History: The Stooky Bill puppet that was used to test television was provided by the Toymaker.
• Berserk Button: A symptom of the Hate Plague, even the most innocuous of questions, such as "feeling alright?" can set someone off on a volatile rant, as Kate helps demonstrate.
• Black Comedy Burst:
  • Donna's confrontation with Stooky Sue ends with Donna smashing the puppet against the wall until her head pops off in front of her babies, who quickly hide away in the corner.
    Donna: Anything to add? Babbies.
  • When the Toymaker turns two UNIT officers into rubber balls, Shirley reflexively catches one — and sees the face of one of the men screaming. She screams right back and chucks it away.
  • When Kate asks the Toymaker what happened to the crew that was manning UNIT's Galvanic Beam, he has this to say, completely uninterested:
    The Toymaker: I think they're still falling. (A faint thud, followed by a glass crash, is heard in the background.)
• Bloodless Carnage: The Doctor is shot straight through the chest by the Toymaker with UNIT's Galvanic Beam, but there's not a hint of blood on him. There's not even a chest cavity nor a tear on his suit.
• Book Ends: David Tennant's run as the Doctor ends similarly as his first full episode: proposing and winning a challenge against the villain, followed by a dinner with his companion's family.
• Brief Accent Imitation: The Toymaker mostly uses a German accent, but uses a French accent when he first meets the Doctor and an American accent when taunting him about the "deaths" of Amy, Clara, and Bill. It's indicated that his "real" accent is an RP British one, as he slips into it in the brief moments when he gets serious.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • In the longest gap between two appearances of a villain yet, the Toymaker returns to the TV side of the franchise after a fifty-seven year absence. It is also tied with Ian Chesterton's return in "The Power of the Doctor" for the longest time between two appearances of a character, though not played by the same actor this time.
  • News reporter Trinity Wells, a minor recurring character on Doctor Who, The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood in Davies' previous era, returns and is now hosting her own show where she rants about being against UNIT's Zeedex bands.
• Call-Back:
  • The TARDIS is once again airlifted by a UNIT helicopter.
  • Upon the Doctor recognizing his old enemy, we're treated to brief flashes of the Toymaker's original Michael Gough incarnation squaring off against the First Doctor, and the Toymaker constantly alludes to the Doctor's initial victory over him.
  • The Toymaker's song-and-dance routine inside UNIT HQ. This is now the second time in the last year that the Doctor's been subjected to this by one of his oldest adversaries, with the novelisation adding that it's only been half-a-day in-universe for him.
  • The Doctor desperately offers himself up to an enemy who's pointing a gun at him to take their attention off his companions. This time, said enemy actually shoots.
  • The Doctor's pleas with the Toymaker to take their game to the stars and play forever evoke his similar pleas to the Master during "The Sound of Drums".
  • The Doctor makes a specific mention of how regeneration is not like dying, exactly the opposite of what he told Wilfred, when his tenth incarnation's time was drawing to a close.
  • After his regeneration takes an odd turn, the Doctor says it "feels different this time," directly quoting some of the Fifth Doctor's last words before regenerating.
  • Once again, unbeknownst to the Doctor and his companions, a woman picks up an object imbued with the Master's essence while maniacal laughter plays in the background.
  • The Doctor refers to an alien species that communicates with their eyebrows, which the Third Doctor also did in his debut story.
  • Like in David Tennant's first outing as the Doctor, Fourteen states that he "[loves] the moles".
• Canon Marches On: The episode being treated as the Doctor’s third meeting with the Toymaker (after a Noodle Incident in the latter’s debut serial and said serial itself) contradicts the audios, comics and novels in which the character has appeared since then (including adaptations of the unproduced "The Nightmare Fair" script). Similarly, Mel's account of her life after the TARDIS is at odds with other expanded media stories, along with the "24 Carat" narrative trailer for the classic Season 24 Collection Blu-Ray.
• Cerebus Call-Back: The Doctor's tendency to give metaphors for sci-fi effects before saying that they don't actually explain it is done less jokingly here— the Doctor asks Shirley if she'd believe that the Toymaker "controls atoms with his mind", before snapping that that isn't what he does and humans have no way to understand him, let alone fight him.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Due to the Earth being in an absolute, unsolvable crisis, the Doctor once again is given command over the planet.
  • The Toymaker describes a Stone Age caveman who used a rock to commit the first murder; the First Doctor himself nearly did the same.
  • The Toymaker then makes reference to the year five billion, where the last human "kicks off the skull of his enemy und says, "that is the final ball of all"."
  • When discussing how the KOSAT-5 satellite is connected to the Hate Plague, Shirley states the satellite isn't hiding a signal like the Archangel Network was.
  • The Doctor briefly catches up with Mel, who tells him of her travels with Sabalom Glitz before she returned to Earth and was offered a job by Kate.
  • The Doctor says he is "a billion years old", seemingly acknowledging his hidden past as the Timeless Child, and possibly his time spent trapped in the Confession Dial.^note  Although it is in dispute how that time frame actually applies.
  • The Toymaker taunts the Doctor and Donna with the untimely fates of the three major companions who followed her — Amy Pond, Clara Oswald, and Bill Potts — and the destruction of half the universe due to the events of the Flux arc, which unlike the fates of the companions has no bittersweet ending.
  • The Toymaker has, in the interim between appearances, beaten the White and Black Guardians, as well as the Master— the latter is now trapped in the form of a gold tooth.
  • While holding Fourteen's hand shortly before the bi-generation, Mel calls all of his incarnations "fantastic". A brief snippet of background music from Nine's regeneration into Ten ("Hologram") plays as she says the word as well.
  • Fourteen and Fifteen's conversation in the falling action references many other previous stories (and losses), including the Key to Time arc, the Time War, "Logopolis", "Earthshock" and "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy".
  • Donna describes a normal life as the one adventure the Doctor couldn't have, referencing the Tenth Doctor saying the same thing in "Doomsday" and Joan Redfern using a similar description in "The Family of Blood".
• Cooldown Hug: After the Toymaker is defeated by the two Doctors and subsequently sealed away, Fourteen laments that so many innocent lives were lost before the villain could be stopped. Fifteen gives his fellow Doctor a much-needed hug before he can slip into a full-on Heroic BSoD.
• Copycat Mockery: At one point, the Toymaker torments the Doctor with a puppet modelled after the latter, repeating "I thought I was clever".
• Creepy Doll: Stooky Bill, of course, the catalyst of this whole debacle. Donna later encounters his family in the Toyroom, having been turned sentient by the Toymaker.
• Crossover: Of sorts, with RTD’s earlier show Nolly. John MacKay appears in both as John Logie Baird, and Davies sees both shows as being in a Shared Universe for it.
• The Dead Have Names: Invoked— as part of the clean-up, Kate asks for the names of all the agents killed by the Toymaker.
• Designated Girl Fight: Donna fights the puppet Stooky Sue at one point.
• Didn't See That Coming: Nobody — least of all Fourteen himself — saw the Doctor's bi-generation coming.
• Double Meaning: The Toymaker calling Donna and Mel handmaidens can be taken as either a derisive way of describing them as the Doctor's servants or the derogatory term used by trans-exclusionary radical feminists (or TERFs) for women who support transgender people.
• The Dreaded:
  • Despite having only clashed with the Toymaker twice years and years ago (once offscreen), the confrontations have clearly lingered with the Doctor in the interim since. The Doctor becomes visibly serious and terrified when he realizes who the mysterious man in the Toy Shop really is — and that he's now in a rematch with the being that he didn't so much beat as survive last time.
  • For his part, while the Toymaker has been happy to play with the Master, the Guardians of Time and Space, and apparently God, there's one thing — The One Who Waits — whom he refuses to challenge. He doesn't go into any detail about who or what this is, though, quickly changing the subject.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: And how. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors get to co-exist with a TARDIS each. The Toymaker is banished from existence, even with the threat that Vagueness Is Coming (not least because his gold tooth containing the Master's essence is left behind). Fourteen is living and having adventures of his own with the Noble family and Mel, while Fifteen gets to have a life of his own.
• The End... Or Is It?: As the Doctors and Donna go back inside UNIT, somebody takes the Toymaker's abandoned gold tooth containing the Master's essence offscreen — complete with the Tremas Master, the Saxon Master, Missy, and the Spy Master's Evil Laughter overlapping — in a Shout-Out to Flash Gordon's famous use of this trope (with the tooth in the place of Ming's ring), and a Call-Back to the similar moment at the end of "The Last of the Time Lords". The recipient of the gold tooth also picks it up from an angle off the side of the platform, placing them high above London in midair, hinting at a Reality Warper nature to whoever holds it now.
• Eviler than Thou: The Toymaker challenged the Master, presumably after "The Power of the Doctor", to a game for the latter's escape from death. The Master lost, and now he's trapped in the Toymaker's gold tooth. But that seems destined to change soon …
• Evil Is Hammy: The Toymaker spends the entire episode chewing the scenery, culminating in one scene where he performs a full Spice Girls dance routine with rose petals and a band leader costume for no clear reason whatsoever.
• Evil Is Petty: Fourteen combines this with Boring Insult, accusing the Toymaker of being "small".
• Face Death with Dignity: In contrast to Ten's death, Fourteen calmly accepts his regeneration. In his case, it helps that he's not regenerating alone this time (with Mel and Donna at his side).
• Fair-Play Villain: Despite all his cosmic powers, the Toymaker won't cheat at his games, which leads to his ultimate defeat when he's unable to catch a ball during a game of catch.
• Fake Nationality: In-Universe, the Toymaker adopts a variety of accents before the Doctor realises who he is, at which point he reverts to a standard RP accent.
• Fake Shemp: Due to Bernard Cribbins not being well enough to film more than the short scene at the end of "Wild Blue Yonder", Wilf only appears briefly in the first scene of the episode, but his face is either not shown on camera or clear enough to distinguish it, and his voice was archive footage taken from "The Poison Sky". When UNIT arrive to pick up the Doctor, Donna demands that they take her grandfather to safety first, quickly removing him from the episode. At the end of the episode when her family are hosting the Fourteenth Doctor, he's said to be off hunting and thus is not seen (though still alive).
• Famously Mundane, Fictionally Magical: Stooky Bill, the ventriloquist's dummy John Logie Baird used for his early television experiments, was provided by the Toymaker and left a "giggle" hidden in all TV broadcasts as part of a long term plan to unleash a Hate Plague.
• Five Rounds Rapid: The Trope Namers are at it again, with UNIT attempting to shoot the Toymaker with small arms fire... and then, when that doesn't work, continuing to ineffectually shoot at the Toymaker for the length of a Spice Girls song. Granted, given the Toymaker's near-omnipotence, it's unlikely even heavy weaponry would have done anything, but still, you'd think they'd at least stop wasting ammunition to no effect.
• Flashback: Colourised archival footage from "The Celestial Toymaker" is spliced into the revelation sequence of the Toymaker's identity and return.
• Foregone Conclusion: Heavily implied; Fifteen mentions that he and Fourteen are "doing rehab out of order", and that he's only fine because Fourteen "fixed [himself]" after all the trauma they went through. Given that the rules of bi-generation are left somewhat unclear, the implication is that Fifteen comes from a later point in the Doctor's personal timeline, corroborated by both Fourteen and Donna calling him the older Doctor, and that Fourteen will eventually regenerate into him and then appear from out of his younger self.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Upon close inspection of the Toymaker cutting the strings on Clara's puppet, one can notice that he left one strand uncut. It references Clara's suspended heartbeat after being yanked out of the moment before her death, which rendered her immortal.
• Friend to All Living Things: In the epilogue, it's revealed the Doctor has a soft spot for moles and set up a force field to protect the ones in Donna's garden from Wilfred.
• God Is Dead: Or at least, out of commission. The Toymaker claims he challenged God to a game, God lost, and is now stuck in a jack-in-the-box.
• Going Commando: Downplayed during the bi-generation, but since the clothes aren't duplicated and Fifteen ends up with the pants, that means Fourteen is technically doing this trope during the final confrontation and its aftermath.
• Gratuitous French: The Toymaker hits the Doctor with this on their first encounter, encouraging the Time Lord to dance with him before revealing his identity. The Doctor brushes him off, but looks back at him once it becomes apparent that he isn't an ordinary person.
  The Toymaker: Oh, excusez-moi, Monsieur! Je suis terrible.^Translationexcuse me, sir! I'm terrible. But perhaps you will dance avec moi?^Translationwith me? Ooh la la...
• Gratuitous German: The Toymaker loves using this, from his thick German accent to saying "das ist ein", "ein", "ja" and "und" in otherwise English sentences. He goes one step further by using German grammar haphazardly, such as the prefix "ge-" ("It is ge-raining, is it not? We have everything you can be ge-wanting!") and pluralisation ("hobbyhorsen" and "snaken und ladders").
• Greater-Scope Villain: The Toymaker retroactively ends up being one to the Doctor with the revelation that he's been messing with the Time Lords' history and made a jigsaw of the Doctor's past.
• Guns Are Worthless: The Toymaker makes every gun UNIT has fire off rose petals. Doesn't stop them trying to fire anyway, resulting in the room being covered in them (and him making a petal angel).
• Has a Type: The Toymaker pokes fun at the Doctor for having a thing for red headed companions when he recaps Amy Pond's story.
• Hate Plague: A unique one: the plague doesn't remove moral inhibitions, rather it convinces people that they're always right about everything and makes them completely unwilling to listen to reason or compromise on anything.
• Historical Domain Character: John Logie Baird, the Scottish inventor of the television, is crucial to the plot, even if the Doctor never directly crosses paths with him.
• Honorary Uncle: Fourteen calls Rose his niece, which she likes.
• Horrifying the Horror: The Toymaker claims to have fought the Master, the Black and White Guardians, and God himself, and beat them all. But he says there is something out there ("The one who waits") that even he wouldn't dare to face, and ran from instead.
• Humanoid Abomination: The Toymaker's nature as an alien force wearing a human disguise is played into far more here. According to the Doctor, he comes from a different universe working on a different set of laws, and his powers don't work by manipulating atoms, instead through something less comprehensible. When the Doctor calls him small in an appeal for a sensible use of his immeasurable power, the Toymaker literally bristles at the choice of words and his whole form is seen wavering slightly as in a heat shimmer. Not to mention the tiny extra teeth he seems to suddenly have whenever he's flashing his widest grin.
• Humanity Is Infectious: In a twisted, horrifying parallel to the Doctor, the Toymaker has become a fan of humanity since being let back into N-Space. He's absolutely fascinated and delighted by how humans have turned everything into a game, from sporting events to gambling and even Tetris. It's all so amusing to him and he has come to regard Earth as his ultimate playground. Of course, being a fan of humanity doesn't mean he isn't above driving the entire planetary population insane with his Hate Plague for shits and giggles (as, after all, there will be winners and losers from such a global brawl).
• Humans Are Bastards:
  • The main crux of the Toymaker's speech when he again encounters the Doctor and Donna:
    "Stone Age man. He picked up ein rock. He said "Oh! Das ist ein ball!" He throwed it, und he killed a man. He said "Oh, what fun!" And now, everybody loves the balls!"
  • The Doctor, of all people, goes on a tirade about this when he learns about the giggle, noting that it's not making anyone do anything that humans haven't already been doing for millennia.
• Hydra Problem: The Doctor bi-generates into two Doctors when The Toymaker kills him. The Toymaker suggests repeatedly killing them to make a whole field of Doctors to play with.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: The Fifteenth Doctor explains his and the Fourteenth Doctor's unique co-existence as "bi-generation" before immediately saying that bi-generation is only a myth, presenting himself as evidence otherwise.
• Improperly Paranoid: One of the effects of the Giggle. Under its influence, Kate accuses Shirley of faking her disability, gets suspicious of the Doctor just for being an alien, and insists that Donna and Mel must be part of a conspiracy because they're both redheads. This makes the crisis difficult to solve because the infected refuse the Zeedexes that can return them to sanity.
• In Love with Your Carnage: As much as the Toymaker likes the idea of playing an infinite number of games with the Doctor, he likes playing games with all of humanity even more, because of how destructive they can be. It's part of the reason why he created the Giggle in the first place and infected all of humanity with a Hate Plague that makes everyone believe they are in the right.
• Insane Troll Logic: A pedestrian infected by the Hate Plague argues that, since he paid his taxes, he owns the road he's currently standing in the middle of, meaning he can do with it what he likes. Even though he can't drive and is at risk of being run over.
• I Resemble That Remark!: The pedestrian in the road details how everyone's gone mad, thinking they're always right.
  Pedestrian: ...but not me. I've always been right!
• Killed Offscreen:
  • According to Mel, Sabalom Glitz lived to the ripe old age of 101, before he fell on a bottle on whiskey and was given a Viking's funeral.
  • Sarah Jane is finally confirmed to have passed away in the main continuity of the show, her death having previously been covered in an unofficial webisode that was seemingly contradicted by "The Power of the Doctor".
• Leitmotif: More returning tracks:
  • The Shepherd's Boy, as the Doctor rides the helicopter to UNIT Tower
  • UNIT Rocks, as the Doctor lands on the helipad, and when he talks to Mel about her return to Earth.
  • The Sun's Gone Wibbly, as the Doctor exposes Stooky Bill's subliminal presence in every screen on Earth.
  • Final Days as Shirley tells the Doctor and Donna when Stooky Bill's footage was recorded and when the two Doctors challenge the Toymaker to a third game.
  • Donna's Theme, after she beats Stooky Sue to a pulp.
  • For the Toymaker's puppet show, variations of "Amy's Theme", "Clara?" and "Bill's Theme" play as the Doctor is reminded of their fates, and the Flux motif is rolled out again as the Toymaker taunts the Doctor about its aftermath.
  • "Hologram", when the Doctor begins to regenerate.
  • "Every Christmas is Last Christmas" returns as the Doctor considers staying with the Nobles.
  • "The Doctor Forever", as the Doctor inspects Fifteen's TARDIS.
  • And finally, "Fifteen" is introduced as that incarnation takes off in the TARDIS for parts unknown.
• Loophole Abuse: On both the Doctor and the Toymaker's end:
  • The Doctor plays cut — "the simplest game of all" with the Toymaker — if he wins, he wins. If he loses, he invokes the Rule of Three, with the Toymaker having won one game and the Doctor having won the other, leaving the game to continue.
  • This is also the impetus for the Toymaker to kill Fourteen: Since he's played one game with the First Doctor and one with the current Doctor, it's only fair for him to play with the next one in Fifteen. Ironically, this might have violated the rules of the game since he's technically still playing against Fourteen, thus causing the bi-generation instead of a simple regeneration.
  • The Toymaker's rules normally account for his games being one on one. Since Fourteen and Fifteen are technically the same person, this allows them to gang up on him with a two on one challenge.
  • The Fifteenth Doctor duplicates the TARDIS by noticing a very tiny loophole in that they won the Toymaker's final game together, so clearly he must get a prize too.
• Loss of Inhibitions: According to the Toymaker, his Hate Plague works by making everyone think they're right all the time and just double down when disagreed with.
• Magi Babble: The closest we get to an explanation of the Toymaker's powers is that he "exists outside of the binary of order and chaos on the axis of play". To be fair, the Doctor's interrupted half-way through the explanation, but still.
• Meaningful Background Event: As the Doctor argues with the pedestrian unwilling to move out of the way of the car, the camera's focus suddenly shifts to the Toymaker dancing in the background and taking notice of the Doctor.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: In close-ups (particularly shown when displaying his gold tooth containing the Master's essence), the Toymaker has rows of small teeth, impossibly packed into his jaw.
• Multiple-Choice Past: The Toymaker states that he turned the Doctor's past into a jigsaw, thus explaining the varying amounts of contradictory backstories the Doctor has.
• Multiple Headcase: During the bi-generation, the Doctor briefly becomes one body with two heads; Fourteen's on the right and Fifteen's on the left.
• Mundane Made Awesome: How the Toymaker is finally defeated? A game of catch, with the future of the human race at stake.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Kate is (quite reasonably) horrified when she's cured of her Giggle-induced madness, spending the first few seconds frantically apologizing to her teammates before recovering herself.
• Mythology Gag:
  • "Celestial" was dropped from the Toymaker's name, but the Doctor suggests that the two of them could be "celestial" when trying to convince the villain to give up on his evil ways.
  • Yet again, a Doctor played by David Tennant creates a second Doctor and effectively retires with one of his most beloved companions after leaving himself a TARDIS. Except this time, it's the other Doctor who continues travelling with the TARDIS.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The shot of Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor asking "What the hell is going on here?" appeared in the trailer attached to the end of "The Power of the Doctor", but showed an abstract background similar to the Edge from that episode. When the scene happens in this episode, he's standing on the landing pad of the UNIT building with Kate and Shirley visible behind him.
• New Media Are Evil: Exaggerated to its logical conclusion; the Toymaker implanted his giggle into Stooky Bill to be put on the very first working television screen invented by John Logie Baird. It's propagated to every screen created since, playing on loop unbeknownst to everyone, subconsciously influencing humanity until reaching its zenith nearly a century later, when they established a complete global network, finally driving them over the edge into madness. The Toymaker also takes a moment to condemn video games in his rant about humanity's many games.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In the previous episode, the Doctor worried how invoking a superstition at the edge of the universe might have let something in. As he later realizes, it wasn't so much something as it was someone. The salt trick he used against the Not-Things ended up creating a doorway for the Toymaker to step through.
• Noodle Incident:
  • According to Donna, Rose came out as trans after Donna was teaching her to play the recorder and she ultimately decided "this is not who I am" six months into it.
  • Mel mentions that she got a "lift from a Zingo" back to Earth after Glitz's death and refuses to specify what that means. The Doctor and her make it private joke in the epilogue.
  • The Doctor once took Rose to Mars behind Donna's back.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Not only are there now two Doctors coexisting at the same time, Fourteen invoking a superstition at the edge of the universe means myths and fantasy are now becoming reality, with the Toymaker and the bi-generation just being two. Word of God has stated the show will be taking "a sly step towards fantasy", with the goblins Fifteen will face in the "Next Time" teaser being one such instance.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: A non-verbal one — when mentioning how Clara was killed by a bird, the Toymaker gives a mocking "sure, lets go with that" expression.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Prior to coming to Earth, the Toymaker encountered, challenged, and actually beat the Master. And claims the same with the Black and White Guardians, and God Himself.
• Oh, Crap!: The Doctor during the confrontation in the Toy Shop, as he gradually realizes who exactly they're dealing with here— and just how much trouble they're all in now.
• One-Steve Limit: The Toymaker makes sure to clarify that the Doctor's former companion was "not Stooky Bill, but Lady Bill."
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Upon meeting the Toymaker again, the Doctor near-immediately tells Donna to go back to the TARDIS, which Donna notes he never tells her to do.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Charles Banerjee, in response to the Toymaker's veiled assertion that he must be "used to sunnier climates", asserts that he was born in Cheltenham and notes that the Toymaker's German accent seems to have disappeared.
• Passing the Torch: For the first time in the show's history, we get to see the Doctor pass the adventuring reins to his newer incarnation face-to-face, instead of just revisiting inside the mind.
• Plot Armor: The Toymaker casually offs UNIT Red Shirts, but limits himself to creeping out Shirley with his antics and manhandling Kate and Mel.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: The Toymaker makes a casually racist comment to Charles Banerjee in his opening scene, as well as putting on over-the-top foreign accents while talking. He also refers to Donna and Mel as "handmaidens" while they go to comfort the Doctor during his regeneration. He even shoots a venomous glare towards the Fifteenth Doctor at the mere sight of him.
• Poorly Disguised Pilot: Downplayed with UNIT. With confirmation earlier in the year that a potential UNIT spinoff was in development, it's not hard to see the new Unit HQ and the current staff (Shirley, Mel, Ibrahim and the Vlinx) as being setup for a potential backdoor pilot.
• Puppet Permutation: When the Fourteenth Doctor finds Charles Banerjee trapped in the Toymaker's domain, he's been reduced to a human head on a puppet's body. He's then hoist aloft by strings as the ceiling vanishes and the Toymaker looms over them.
• Put on a Bus: Due to the bi-generation, the Fourteenth Doctor gets to live on Earth with the Nobles and could possibly appear again later.
• Reality Warper: The Toymaker's whole schtick.
  • In his shop, he's seen juggling three balls when the Doctor and Donna confront him. Throughout the conversation, he throws balls at them when the shot cuts away from him, but whenever the shot cuts back to him, he's still juggling three balls.
  • Shown even more blatantly during his attack on UNIT Headquarters, where he teleports around and turns people into balloons and bullets into rose petals before vanishing through a non-existent trapdoor.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The Doctor explains the Giggle transmission was only as effective due to certain human flaws, issuing a harsh judgement previously kept to himself:
  The Doctor: Don't go thinking you've got an excuse. The human race might be clever and bright and brilliant, it's also savage and venal and relentless. All that anger out there on the street, the lies, the righteousness— that's human, that's you! That's who you are. Using your intelligence to be stupid. Poisoning the world...
• Refreshingly Normal Life-Choice: In the end, Fourteen gives up his adventures to Fifteen, choosing instead to live a normal life as a member of Donna's family. When Donna asks if he regrets it, he gleefully tells her that he's never been happier in his life.
• Remember the New Guy?: UNIT has a being called the Vlinx working for them. It's never explained what the Vlinx is or where it came from.
• The Reveal:
  • The Toymaker has been messing with the Time Lords' history and made a jigsaw of the Doctor's past (thus providing an in-universe explanation for inconsistencies and contradictions across 60 years).
  • The mystery of why Fourteen regenerated into an older version of Ten during "The Power of the Doctor". Just as with Twelve and Caecilius, it's revealed (or at least Donna theorizes) it was the Doctor's subconscious trying to send himself a message: that in the wake of Thirteen's trauma (on top of the Time War and everything else the preceding Doctors had all been through) his Heroic Fatigue had finally hit critical mass. It was time to stop running from his past and finally come home (which is also why the TARDIS intentionally brought him back into Donna's life again).
• Rhymes on a Dime:
  • The Toymaker, taunting the Doctor before summoning a manifestation of the Time Lord as a puppet:
    ''Do you like my puppets, Doctor? Do you like my fun? All of them have played and lost, but here's my favorite one!"
  • All of Stooky Sue's lines when attacking Donna. Donna herself gets in on the fun before destroying her.
    "Hello Stooky, my name's Donna. Now I think you're a goner!”
• Rule of Three: The "What?!" reactions to the Doctor's bi-generation (first the Doctor himself, then Donna, and then finally even the Toymaker).
• Sarcasm Mode: The Toymaker puts on a puppet show to viciously mock the Doctor for Amy, Clara and Bill dying as their final reward for travelling with him. The Doctor responds each time with their actual, slightly-less-bitter fates; receiving there dismissive responses of "Well, that's alright then!" The Toymaker ends the charade by referencing the Flux and its casualty-count of half the universe. The Doctor has no retort for that one and challenges the Toymaker to a game.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Master's essence in the Toymaker's gold tooth. This also happens to the Toymaker once he's defeated and sent back to his own realm.
• Seen It All: Kate, as seen in the page quote.
• Sequel Episode: To "The Celestial Toymaker", picking up the Toymaker's storyline for the first time in 57 years (at least on the TV side of the franchise) and pitting him against the Doctor for their long-awaited rematch.
• Sequel Hook:
  • The Toymaker mentions the One Who Waits, someone even he would not challenge, as well as the Toymaker's own soldiers, still unseen.
  • The Toymaker reveals that the Master is trapped in his gold tooth, having lost a game for his life. At the end of the episode, the tooth in question is left behind after the Toymaker's defeat, and like Harold Saxon's ring in "Last of the Time Lords", a mysterious woman is shown covertly taking the tooth with the Masters' Evil Laughs overlapping.
  • The Doctor orders UNIT to destroy the South Korean satellite that was the apparent cause of the Hate Plague and is warned that doing so could cause an international incident, as well as breaking a global communications network.
• Serious Business: When Donna raises the concern that the Toymaker can simply cheat to win against the Doctor, the Toymaker takes visible offense. The Doctor then explains that he has to play fair, as he's utterly bound to abide by the rules of the game in order to keep existing.
• Shout-Out:
  • The new UNIT HQ seems to have been loosely inspired by Avengers Tower from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
  • Likewise, the Toymaker's dread of "the One Who Waits" echoes Loki's fear of "He Who Remains".
  • The Toymaker's German accented theatrical show-off is very reminiscent of Joel Grey's Emcee character from Cabaret. Doubles as Actor Allusion since Neil Patrick Harris played the Emcee on Broadway.
  • “Shirley, you cannot be serious!”
  • The planet puppets that The Toymaker cuts down re-enacting the Flux’s effects in his puppet show has a similar face to the moon in Georges Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon.
  • "Ooh, I am liking this! The gun mit the laser the bang und the boom!"
  • The Toymaker supposedly turning God into a Jack-in-the-Box may be a reference to the classic Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life".
  • The bi-generation visual is almost identical to a similar shot from "Conventions of Space and Time," itself filled with Doctor Who spoofs.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: When the Toymaker takes control of the Galvanic cannon, having tossed its attendants off the roof, the Doctor wonders why such a powerful being is so petty when he could do so much good. The Toymaker responds that it's merely the face of a ceaseless void that's Above Good and Evil and only recognizes winning or losing.
• Slapstick Knows no Gender: During the Toymaker's Spice Girls routine, he teleports himself into Kate's arms for a dance, before he slams her into a wall. He then does the same to Mel, spinning her so fast that she is sent across the room and falls to the ground. It's Played for Laughs, but it also contributes to show how bizarre and dangerous he is as an enemy.
• Soft Reboot: To the franchise as a whole. With the "bi-generation", either or both of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors can be considered fresh versions of the character (even beyond what is typical for new incarnations), with Fourteen being given a proper send-off while Fifteen exists in parallel, though the rules for the bi-generation are still vague and imply a Stable Time Loop (see below). This also explains Davies' pre-release comments about how the upcoming Series 14 was also considered to be "Series 1" or "Season 1" of a new production era.
• Spell My Name with a "The":
  • An audible variant: the person signalling the Doctor over UNIT's loudhailer calls him with "Attention, the Doctor!"
  • The robot working for UNIT is always referred to as "the Vlinx", never just "Vlinx".
• Spotting the Thread: Donna has a history of doing this, but this episode provides perhaps her defining example. Upon seeing the brainwave patterns of those affected by the hate plague, she immediately surmises that it's a piece of music, which turns out to be correct. This allows the Doctor and UNIT to uncover the Giggle, which proves to be the source of the problem. Notably, UNIT was unable to do this after two days of constant investigation, with those present including certified geniuses Mel, Shirley, and Kate. Kate is, in fact, so impressed that she immediately offers Donna a job that pays £60,000 a year, and happily accepts when Donna asks for £120,000 a year and five weeks holiday.
• Squashed Flat: Once the Toymaker is defeated, he is compressed to a 2D form and folded like origami to be banished inside of his toy box.
• Stable Time Loop: Implied by the Foregone Conclusion that Fifteen discusses before he leaves. By retiring and settling down with the Nobles, Fourteen will finally have the time and space to begin mentally and emotionally healing. Eventually, Fourteen will regenerate into the now-healed and reinvigorated Fifteen. Once that happens, Fifteen will then be pulled back in time by the bi-generation — thereby emerging into the climax of "The Giggle" and setting off the events of his preceding incarnation's rehabilitation.
  Fourteen: But you're fine.
  Fifteen: I'm fine because you fixed yourself.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Defied when Fifteen attempts this after duplicating the TARDIS. Moments after stepping into his own TARDIS, Fourteen realises what Fifteen is about to do and hurries to stop him so they can have a proper goodbye.
• Surprisingly Happy Ending: Most departure stories for either a Doctor or companion are distinctly bittersweet, but the Doctor's bi-generation means that, while Fifteen can continue his own adventures, Fourteen continues to exist as an independent entity with a TARDIS of his own. Rather than continue, he instead opts to retire to Earth, albeit with occasional trips in the TARDIS. On her part, Donna takes a high-paying job with UNIT, with her memories intact, and with her best friend at her side, finally fulfilling her wish to be with him forever. Their final scene together sees them happily having dinner with Donna's loving family and Mel, with every indication that the Doctor and Donna's strong friendship will last a lifetime. Notably, this makes Donna and Mel the very first companions to remain a constant presence in the Doctor's life after their adventures end.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Mel notes that, when she returned home after an unknown amount of time away, she had no life to return to, as enough decades had passed for her family to die off and her possessions to be repossessed.
• Take That!:
  • Kate notes that the Hate Plague is also affecting politicians and shows a clip of an MP saying he doesn't care about his constituents. Donna snarks that there's no change there.
  • Trinity Wells (the very American newscaster from Davies's first run) has her own Alex Jones-style show where she decries UNIT's mass distribution of Zeedex bands, stating that they are used to "control us and monitor us and microwave our brains" before proudly declaring herself "anti-Zeedex".
  • Kate accuses Shirley of faking her disability in her ableist, Giggle-induced tirade, pointing to her ability to briefly stand. This is a jab at real-life people who disbelieve disabilities for similar reasons.
  • The entire concept of a Hate Plague that causes everyone on the planet to always believe they're completely right at all times, effectively turning every issue into a zero-sum game, is a fairly big Take That! against the polarized cultural and political climate from the mid-2010s (or even before) through the present day of the 2020s.
  • The Toymaker is a Politically Incorrect Villain and at one point is shown making a venomous stare towards Fifteen, likely disapproving of the Doctor regenerating into a black man, a clear jab at the "anti-woke" culture that has been ever infuriated at the show’s general progressiveness and introduction of minority characters.
• Theme Music Power-Up: The first out-and-out statement of the Fifteenth Doctor's theme comes when the Fifteenth Doctor sets off for parts unknown in his TARDIS.
• This Is Gonna Suck: The Doctor's reaction when "Spice Up Your Life" starts playing and he realizes the Toymaker's breached UNIT HQ.
  The Doctor: Oh, I think he's here...
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: A surprisingly non-nonchalant aversion, given this series — while trapped in the Playroom, Donna calmly but quite seriously tells Stooky Sue that if she's some kind of trap then she'll kill her, a threat she ultimately follows through on. Granted, Stooky Sue is an animated doll, but still.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: In-universe, only two days have passed across "The Star Beast" and "The Wild Blue Yonder". Yet despite having been loose in our reality for mere days, the Toymaker's managed to somehow implement a century-spanning long game, challenge and best the various heavy hitters of the Whoniverse, take the time to play Yahtzee with the Doctor's personal history, and run a toy shop in the middle of Soho on the side for shits and giggles. This can be justified given his alien nature and, more importantly, Reality Warper abilities.
• Too Clever by Half: The Toymaker delights in mocking the Doctor for being this. Ironically, he ends up being this by finding a Loophole Abuse that justifies his killing of the Fourteenth Doctor to play against a new version... triggering the bi-generation, and ending up facing two Doctors instead of one.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Downplayed with the Vlinx. The Doctor takes note of them when he sees them, but the obviously-non-human Vlinx is simply treated as another UNIT employee with neither intrigue nor fanfare sent in their direction.
• Vagueness Is Coming: There is something, "The One That Waits", that scares even the Toymaker. We don't learn anything about what this is. There's also an unknown person trying to revive the Master. We don't learn anything about who they are either. The Toymaker also mentions that his "legions are coming". Guess how much we learn about what they are?
• Villainous Valor: The Toymaker reacts with near offence at the suggestion he'd cheat (although that's not due to moral objections, but being based on game it's against his very nature to do so, not to mention actually impossible for him).
  Donna: Won't he cheat?
  -The Doctor and Toymaker, in unison: No.
  Toymaker: Shame!
• Villains Out Shopping: After entering N-Space through the frayed edges of the universe, the Toymaker has spent his time battling gods, burning his will into all human media, and running a small toy stop in Soho.
• Wham Line: When the shop owner asks if the Doctor remembers him, the Doctor stares at him coldly and only say his name...
  The Doctor: The Toymaker.
  • After getting shot by The Toymaker, The Doctor begins to glow, leading the audience to believe that he's going to regenerate into the next Doctor... But then, the glow stops... Donna and Mel ask him what's going on:
  The Doctor: Could you... pull?
• Wham Shot: The Toymaker forces the Fourteenth Doctor to regenerate using UNIT's Galvanic Beam. Fourteen begins the regeneration process, with Mel and Donna at either side— and then the process abruptly stops. Fourteen asks his companions to pull, and soon enough, the Fourteenth literally splits into two, with him and the Fifteenth Doctor co-existing!
• Wicked Toymaker: While the Toymaker's been tweaked and updated for his 21st century return, this is still his core shtick.
• Wink "Ding!": A "ding" plays when the Toymaker winks at the Doctor and Donna... because of course it does.
• The Worf Effect: The Toymaker challenging and besting the Master and several other Doctor Who heavy hitters off-screen instantly establishes his Villain Cred for modern audiences not familiar with "The Celestial Toymaker", while also showing for old school fans that the being has remained a dangerous threat in the interim.
• You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good!: Invoked by the Doctor during the climax, who wonders why the Toymaker's so small and why he wastes his incredible abilities on such petty matters when he could instead accomplish real good with them.

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DESTINATION CHRISTMAS

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