Day 112: The Hall of Dolls

The annoying thing about this episode is that, for the interesting idea of having to play games for an omnipotent being in order to fight for your freedom, the programme fails to do anything unique with it over the course of the episodes, which is to say, it follows the same pattern as the last episode. Steven and Dodo play a game against the Toymaker's playthings. They win the game, but their TARDIS is in another castle, amd so they must continue onto the next game. Meanwhile, the Doctor annoys the Toymaker by continuing to solve the puzzle of the Trilogic game. Granted, there are some differences between this episode and the last, such as in the portrayal of the Toymaker's minions. In The Celestial Toyroom, they were evil little people who created mischief and cheated at every turn. This episode, the new minions are slightly nicer, although there is a strain of evil within them, as they try and get others to potentially commit suicide before them in order to further their goals. But the crux of the matter is that the same structure has been used for the past two episodes, and I can pretty much guarantee that it will be used for the next two as well. It's not looking good for this story so far...