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The Giggle Review (Spoilers) || Chatsu Shorts
163 Plays1 year ago
It's finally here! Join Satsunami as he shares his unscripted thoughts on the final anniversary special of Doctor Who's 60th celebrations! From Toy Maker to Time Lord, does this episode hold up compared to the others? How does the latest Doctor hold up? And what is that music?!
All this and more in the final episode!
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Chad Tsunami. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Chad Tsunami. My name's Chad Tsunami and today I'm going to be reviewing the final Doctor Who special, The Giggle. Two weeks ago we talked about the Starbeast, then we talked about the slightly creeper while Blue Yonder
00:00:34
Speaker
and today we are at the most anticipated episode featuring some old foes, old allies and you know what, without any further ado, let's get into it. Without spoiling too much of this review, I absolutely loved this episode. I thought it was so well done, the balance between fun and creepy, it was just absolutely fantastic. I really appreciated this
Nostalgia and Villain Introduction
00:01:01
Speaker
episode.
00:01:01
Speaker
I think I'm probably mirroring a lot of Doctor Who fans, whovians and casual watchers are Doctor Who when they say this but I don't think I've really enjoyed an episode of Doctor Who like this in a cute good while because usually when I watch the show I usually go back to the Christopher Eccles scenario, the old
00:01:21
Speaker
the Tenant Ones, maybe some of the early Matt Smith but then as soon as it hits Matt Smith, I know, I know, very controversial, my interest of the show started going down and that was more because I was growing up and
00:01:36
Speaker
and I was just losing interest in the show so seeing David Tennant run is like a cozy nostalgia blanket to me. So of course going into this episode, we were introduced to a classic who villain, that of course being the Toymaker.
00:01:52
Speaker
played by Neil Patrick Harris and I've honestly got to say that Neil Patrick Harris did an absolutely tremendous job in this role. I mean that's like saying water is wet but you know what he did fantastic, David Tennant did fantastic, Catherine Tate did fantastic,
00:02:10
Speaker
It was also amazing to see other characters come back such as Kate Stewart and Mel and as always this episode is going to feature spoilers so if you haven't watched the giggle and you still want to watch it either on BBC iPlayer or Disney Plus please pause the episode, go away and watch it and then feel free to come back to listen to my thoughts. So the episode starts off in 1925 where we see a man purchase a doll from
00:02:36
Speaker
Let's face it, a rather creepy shop owner, which we'll later come to know as the Toymaker, and I have to say, Neo Pachacaris absolutely blows this performance out the water. He is fantastic. He has this perfect balance between over the top, campy but at the same time absolutely unsettling and
00:02:58
Speaker
If there's any Trekkies out there, you know exactly what I mean by this.
Chaos and Creepy Elements
00:03:02
Speaker
He feels very much like the character Q. So basically, for anyone who doesn't know, Q is a character that can essentially do anything he wants. He can summon things into existence, he can change the fabric of space and time and reality as a whole. And the fact we have such a chaotic character that doesn't abide by the rules is just absolutely incredible. And what I loved about it as well was the somewhat fantasy twist.
00:03:28
Speaker
on it because the Toymaker almost felt like a very mythological character where although he could do anything that he wanted, the fact was he couldn't turn down the opportunity to play a game and challenge other people throughout the cosmos and later on of course he talks about gods and time lords and things that he has brought down a peg purely because he won a game with them.
00:03:52
Speaker
And I guess that is quite interesting as a whole because although the toymaker is quite childish, he is very methodical, he's calculating but at the same time he is just such a chaotic character. So essentially you do not know what's going to come next with him, whether it's turning people into
00:04:11
Speaker
Balls or Dancing to the Spice Girls, which I am convinced that was written into Neil Patrick Harris' contract. I do not believe for a second that he didn't go to Russell T. Davis or anyone else inside. I went an over the top dance number like the previous Masters had and you know what, I loved that. That was absolutely fantastic. He was just winding everyone up there. That was great.
00:04:35
Speaker
But going back to the actual narrative, the beginning is very strong because we do get unnerved by the toymaker, by his very fake accent, which I have to admit, his pseudo-German accent really got irritating the more it went on because you knew that's not really how he spoke. And you could understand for the first time we see him and he's winding up the doctor and then he keeps changing accents. I think
00:05:04
Speaker
On the flip side of that, although I found it a little bit annoying, I think that that adds to the chaos of the character, that he keeps constantly changing, you're like, please stop, sick to a voice, and he's like, no! But something else that this brings into the fray is
00:05:23
Speaker
probably one of the more common fears I think I've seen floating around, and that of course is the ventriloquist dolls. I was actually talking to fellow Hoovian in the podcast and Luke from the NERD nostalgic podcast, and I think him and I agree when they will say ventriloquist dolls. Really creepy. I think this once probably ruined a generation of people when it comes to these kind of dolls, but it was just so creepy, so unnerving.
00:05:51
Speaker
Again with the body horror in this, there's a scene later on where the Doctor and Donna end up in this weird, I don't know how to explain it, it's almost like the Black Lodge in Twin Peaks, or rather the waiting room before the Black Lodge where
00:06:07
Speaker
they're just constantly running, they're going through the same door over and over again and there's all these creepy dolls and then you get one of the characters who bought the doll when the first scene getting turned into a doll. That was pretty creepy even though the effects were a little bit off at times I still thought there was something about it I was just like oh I don't like that at all so some
00:06:29
Speaker
how they made it creepier than last week. I'm going to say it, I think this was probably a little bit creepier than Wild Blue Yonder because at least there was, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but at least with the note things, there was some kind of consistent progression like the world
00:06:45
Speaker
learning, there were rules, but with the toymaker, he just did what he wanted. That was amazing and crazy, I absolutely loved it. Definitely, I would go as far to say that he was one of my favourite villains of all time and I have no doubt that they'll probably bring him back in some form or another.
Social Commentary and Humor
00:07:03
Speaker
But going back to the story itself, I have to admit it was really unnerving when you were watching the chaos unfold at the very beginning and
00:07:12
Speaker
everyone was just going mental in the streets. I did like the exchange between the very irate man and the taxi driver where he was saying about how his taxes built the roads and everything and I was like oh my god it's just like a twitter thread.
00:07:28
Speaker
And as thin as the analogy probably was for this, because the whole idea was that the Giggle, which is what this episode is named after, is a subconscious message that is playing through every screen on Earth. So the further people go in time, the more they start to go crazy and believe that they're in the right and
00:07:48
Speaker
Honestly, in this day and age as an allegory for people who are constantly demanding that they're in the right, they know what they're talking about when they might not know. I don't know, I have to say even though it was filmed last year, it's still mighty prevalent in 2023 so
00:08:07
Speaker
I don't know, I thought it was quite well done. Although I have to admit there was a scene where I think for once I made the joke before the show did where they are flicking through the TV and there's a scene where it's a British politician saying, oh we don't care about you and everything. I kind of row my eyes and thought yeah nothing's changed there but then Donna made exactly the same joke and I was like well
00:08:30
Speaker
at least the show and I are on the same page. There was also another funny bit where one of the news reporters from Russell T Davis' original run came back and she was now a conspiracy theorist because they had these armbands called Z-Dexes and the first question you think is, oh why didn't you give them out to everyone?
00:08:51
Speaker
to which David Tennant in the show as a whole becomes a mind reader and says well why didn't you just do it and they say it outright and then they flick on the TV and you see the American news station saying how oh it's there to control you, it's there to control your brain and I can't wait to see the Auntie Zdex podcast or something. I was honestly surprised that they didn't have a conspiracy podcast or something going
00:09:15
Speaker
on there and I have to admit something I did chuckle at was when Kate shows the doctor what happens when she takes the armband off and essentially she just becomes a horrible person just saying absolutely horrible things to everyone in the room and all I could keep thinking was wow she was literally a representation of
00:09:33
Speaker
probably the worst of the Doctor Who fanbase before she got brought down and she was like oh yeah of course I'm acting completely out of character there. But amongst the comedy and the haha the giggle there was a lot of really unnerving stuff. Like there was a scene where you see a pilot saying that he could land anywhere and it was almost very much like Independence Day where he's like oh I'm back and you know he's about to crash a plane. Presumably full of people and that is just a
00:10:03
Speaker
horrifying horrifying thought that obviously you don't see it firsthand. You see it cut out as it crashes and that is punctuated perfectly with the musical score
Doctor-Donna Dynamic and Regeneration
00:10:14
Speaker
in this. The musical score? Fantastic. I absolutely loved how good the score was. It creeped me out, it gave me hope, it was just top tier. But I have to admit there's a lot of themes that I absolutely loved in this episode despite the fact that The Doctor is this almost the
00:10:32
Speaker
eternal hero that keeps jumping from adventure to adventure and never stopping. I thought that was really interesting, really, really well done. And it was quite unnerving, although granted, it was a bit of a spoiler when he kept saying, oh, this is what happened to Amy Pond. That's alright then.
00:10:49
Speaker
That was quite creepy, the intensity of him seeing that in an American accent, where he talked about Amy Cawnd, he talked about Clara, and then he talked about Bill. And the thing I found interesting was the fact that they did this story with the Doctor and Donna because although both of them are such an iconic duo,
00:11:07
Speaker
Personally, I think they are probably one of the best of the entire New Who run, and I think that stems from the fact that they are just friends, and you can tell that Donna really cares about the Doctor. You know, she's not the stereotypical of interest, like Rose, and she's not kept at arm's length like Martha was. She is just someone who really cares about him, and I've very platonicly of course, and
00:11:33
Speaker
just wants to see the best for him. So no matter what happens, she knows what's going on and she completely understands the gravity or the mavity of the situation. Which I have to admit, I'm really surprised that never came back in this episode. I thought there was gonna be like a retcon or something like that but no, it never brought up again. Must just be a wild blue yonder isolated reference.
00:11:55
Speaker
So I've talked about how amazing Neil Patrick Harris was as a toymaker, how amazing Donna was, how amazing Catherine Tate was, how amazing David Tennant was, how amazing all of the cast were. But there's one particular character I haven't touched on yet and
00:12:11
Speaker
I have to say this is linked into something that could potentially be divisive amongst fans, and it's something I'm personally not sure about myself, and I'll get onto why I think that. It's not for the reasons you might think, but I'll get onto why I think this, because at the climax of the story, everything seems to be hopeless. People are rampaging on the streets, they are killing each other, and The Doctor, of course, challenges the toymaker to one last game.
00:12:40
Speaker
and this is where we get something quite unexpected and I hate to say it but I actually got this reveal spoiled for me. Not so much in the way of how it would actually happen but more about the aspect of the bi regeneration and I've put this off long enough
00:12:58
Speaker
This is the thing that I was a little bit on the fence about. So, of course, with the binary generation, this means that David Tennant gets to stay as himself. And by extension, we get the 15th Doctor, Chutty Gatwa, who
00:13:14
Speaker
On the one hand initially I was a bit... I wasn't really sure about his performance but at the same time I feel as if we don't have enough to go off of with this incarnation because when I saw David Tennant for the first time after Christopher Eccleston, really didn't like him. When I saw Matt Smith after David Tennant, I wasn't a big fan. When I saw Peter Capaldi. Well, I like Peter Capaldi. What can I say?
00:13:41
Speaker
But yeah, I wasn't really sure. And it's just getting used to the incarnation because we haven't seen him go off on an adventure and I'm really excited to see what he brings to the table because he seems to be full of energy, he seems to be very charismatic. I'm really looking forward to that. But on the other hand, the bi-regeneration
00:14:03
Speaker
I would say I'm not 100% sold on it, and the reason being is that, again, you'll know by listening to these episodes that I was really not a huge fan of The Metacrisis Doctor. I felt like a really cheap
00:14:19
Speaker
and weird way to give Rose her happy ending by giving her her own version of David Tennant and it feels like Donna was doing the same here where she gets her own David Tennant and after that I was laughing so much at the comments online where people were like but what about Martha?
00:14:38
Speaker
Why doesn't she get her own David Tennant? Which I find really funny. But I genuinely don't know how to feel about it. But there are theories that David Tennant's split all means that we could be seeing the first of the curator character. And the curator character of course was the one featured in the 50th.
00:14:56
Speaker
anniversary special, Day of the Doctor, where we saw Tom Baker curating all of these artifacts and other art pieces which I thought was really interesting but I just don't know because I feel as if, although I love David Tennant, I think David Tennant is by far one of the best doctors out there
00:15:14
Speaker
I feel as if it could potentially overshadow Shutee's incarnation, and I really hope that's not the case because, as I said, he has a lot more energy. He seems a lot more active and carefree as opposed to the breeding tenant run as 10 and 14, but yeah.
00:15:33
Speaker
it's a strange one. That's all I'll say, it's a really strange one to have to deal with because as I said we've not really had this until the Metacrisis Doctor in Season 4. I have to admit I did read that some people brought up the aspect of the Rebel Flesh or I mean even the Doctor's Daughter for example where they've got a potentially similar type character going out the cosmos. You know you've also got
00:15:59
Speaker
Clara out there with her own TARDIS, so I feel as if it's too early to tell what kind of Doctor this
Reflection and Conclusion
00:16:05
Speaker
is going to be. I hope he's going to bring a breath of fresh air into this because for a show that's been going on for 60 years, there is a lot of lore to take into account.
00:16:14
Speaker
and I can see why they would want to reboot the character. They just want to make him his own thing. They want to introduce new fans to the show, which I think is absolutely fantastic. Although I have to say I was on TikTok the other day and there was this very strange American creator who was like, have you all ever heard of this show called Doctor Who? And I was like, what?
00:16:36
Speaker
or as David Tender would say, what? Yeah, that was a bit off-putting. Jesus, I started watching this in 2005. How do I feel old? But whether or not I'm happy about if this is going to be a positive change, if it's going to be negative for the future of the show, the fact of the matter remains that for once Tenet's incarnation of the Doctor finally gets the happy ending that he deserves.
00:17:00
Speaker
he has found a family, he can finally rest now, he doesn't have to worry about the fate of the universe until Big Finish come along clearly and say yeah we're gonna have more adventures with this one but it also harkens back to I think
00:17:15
Speaker
kids. Journey's end where he's talking to Rose on Bad Wolf Bait and he turns round and says, oh you can live a normal life day in and day out. He's going on an adventure that I could never have and to see him have his happy ending is absolutely beautiful but the one thing I was annoyed at or nearly annoyed at was when
00:17:37
Speaker
they were implying that Shutee was just going to take the TARDIS and David Tender was like no no don't take the TARDIS and I was like if they had just done that if David had lost these TARDIS then I would have been mightily annoyed but I'm just glad that they both got a happy ending and I am optimistic to see what they do with the show going forward because it does look a little bit flashier. The BBC janky CGI is kind of no longer there
00:18:04
Speaker
But it'll be interesting to see what future generations of Whovians actually think of the show, but quickly going back to the regeneration scene. Two things that slightly irked me was the fact that when we were introduced to Shutagami, they said, you know, what the hell's going on?
00:18:19
Speaker
and everything I thought that was really interesting and then it pans out and it shows that he doesn't have any trousers on and I don't know about you guys out there listening but I don't think I've ever watched a TV show where you can take a scene seriously where someone's in their underwear and they're like oh it's going to be okay and this touching is that scene was all I could keep thinking was
00:18:39
Speaker
My God, Russell T Davis, and get that man some trousers for God's sake. The only other nitpick, or not so much a nitpick but kind of funny callback was when the toy maker talked about trapping the master in his gold tooth and there was like this random man that grabbed the tooth and then pulled it away very much akin to the mystery woman.
00:19:00
Speaker
at the end of the season 3 finale that took the master's ring. So yeah, that was really bizarre because the way it was angled, the person would have had to have been like hagging off unit headquarters, which is actually something I never mentioned.
00:19:15
Speaker
So can we all just admit that the unit headquarters has essentially just become the next Avengers building? Because it just sticks out like a sore thumb. And I have to admit, going back to what I said in my Starbeast review, although unit were pretty useless in the past, I feel as if with the Toymaker and all the chaos it was kind of justified for them not to be as effective. You know what, thumbs up all round in that regard.
00:19:41
Speaker
But after watching all three of these specials, I have to say that I absolutely adored the Giggle out of the three of them. If I had to rank them, I would say the Giggle came first, followed by Wild Blue Yonder, and then probably the Starbeast at the bottom. Each story brought a positive, it brought a negative, and it brought a kind of middling around. So the fact we got three special episodes instead of one for the 60th anniversary is absolutely fantastic.
00:20:09
Speaker
The only other thing I want to point out before closing off this episode is something that a lot of detractors have been saying about the future of Doctor Who. And it's a common theme that I've noticed that the further and further you go away from the beginning of the reboot from Eccleston, Tenon and even Matt Smith's run,
00:20:29
Speaker
There's essentially less to like about the show in some regards, but I feel as if on the flip side of that, people were missing the point of Doctor Who. Doctor Who, much like James Bond for example, and I can't believe I'm making that comparison, but Doctor Who is a very dynamic show. It's not static
00:20:47
Speaker
it's not stuck in one particular bubble of personification. You know, William Hartnell's representation of the Doctor is starkly different compared to Tom Baker, and then Flashing Forward, even Sylvester McCoy's rendition. And the fact of the matter is, it almost is, ironically enough, a time capsule of the landscape of when the show's coming out.
00:21:12
Speaker
And I have to say, there are things that I don't like about the show. I've brought that up before. I didn't like the meta crisis stuff. I didn't like the timeless child stuff. I didn't like the way the Doctor was portrayed in certain runs of the reboot. But the fact of the matter is, whether I like something, or whether I hate something in the run,
00:21:32
Speaker
each iteration of The Doctor caters to a different audience. And I have to say, I actually remember when Jodie Whittaker's run was in full swing, and personally, while I would say that's not one of my favourite runs of the series, I remember going to a comical and once to, ironically enough, see Colin Baker. And I saw a lot of families there, and the kids, particularly young girls, were dressed up as Whittaker's Doctor. And it made me realise that while I didn't like
00:22:01
Speaker
apart of the show. That doesn't mean that that experience is the consensus for everyone. You know, there's a whole generation of Whovians out there who are growing up and their first doctor might even be Shutegawa, or it might have been David Tennant just a couple of weeks ago there, or it might be Matt Smith.
00:22:19
Speaker
that might be Peter Capaldi, there's lots of people I've seen who say things like that, that, oh, Capaldi was my doctor, Whittaker was my doctor, Smith was my doctor, rather than what I was used to, because I remember watching it, and of course Christopher ecosystem was my first doctor, then it was David Tennant who swiftly became my doctor after that, but back in the day you would have people say, oh Colin Baker's my doctor, McCoy's my doctor, Tom Baker's my doctor, all of these different opinions, and that is the beauty of Doctor Who.
00:22:49
Speaker
Doctor Who's always evolving and whether a certain story beats land or whether they don't, at the end of the day there'll be someone out there who this show calls out to. Personally I think that's the most important thing because Doctor Who feels like a somewhat safe space for fans of the show who can talk to one another, they can say I like this, I didn't.
00:23:09
Speaker
like that. And you know what, the fact that the show's still running after 60 years is just a testament to how beloved this show is. It may continue for many more. But what did you think of the giggle? Did you enjoy it as much as the other 60th specials? Or were you not laughing as much at this one?
00:23:25
Speaker
And what are your thoughts on Tootie's first appearance? Did you think it was a triumphant debut? Will you a bit look warm about it? Please feel free to reach out and let me know what you think about this because I would love to hear from fellow Whovians about this. But on that note, for the final time, thank you all so much for joining me for these past few episodes. This is probably going to be the longest episode yet, so I greatly apologise for this practical ramble of the series.
00:23:53
Speaker
But if you would like to hear more Doctor Who content in 2024, then please reach out and let me know because I would love to hear what you guys think about it. But if you want to listen to my thoughts on the previous anniversary specials, then you can check us out on our website, Chatsunami.com. I also want to thank our Pandalorian Patrons, Robotic Battle Toaster and Sonya. Thank you so, so much for supporting the show. But as always, stay safe, stay awesome and most importantly, stay hydrated.