{"id":175515,"date":"2025-12-09T14:17:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T14:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/175515\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T14:17:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T14:17:11","slug":"lost-doctor-who-adventure-with-william-hartnell-and-classic-villain-finally-added-to-bbc-iplayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/175515\/","title":{"rendered":"Lost Doctor Who adventure with William Hartnell and classic villain finally added to BBC iPlayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Celestial Toymaker, the lost Doctor Who adventure with William Hartnell and a classic villain, has finally been added to BBC iPlayer. Previously only available via physical media after its release on DVD and Blu-ray in 2023, the special episodes are now available to stream for free in the UK. <\/p>\n

The story follows Hartnell as the First Doctor along with his companions Steven Taylor (Peter Purves) and Dodo Chaplet (Jackie Lane) as they face off against Michael Gough’s villainous Toymaker.<\/p>\n

The synopsis reads: “Arriving in the strange world of the Celestial Toymaker, the Doctor and his companions find themselves trapped there and forced to play a series of deadly games.”<\/p>\n

Before being restored via animation, The Celestial Toymaker was known as a lost Doctor Who story following the wiping of the original 1966 master tapes, with the BBC archives only containing episode four.<\/p>\n

Consisting of four episodes, the animated instalments are titled The Celestial Toyroom, The Hall of Dolls, The Dancing Floor and The Final Test.<\/p>\n

\"william<\/p>\n

BBC<\/p>\n

Related: Best streaming services<\/a><\/p>\n

Fans of the sci-fi series in the UK can find all four episodes by heading to BBC iPlayer<\/a> and looking for season 3 of Doctor Who (1963-1996). <\/p>\n

Marking a change from previous lost episodes, which were done in a more traditional and cartoonlike animation style, the restorations for The Celestial Toymaker used motion capture, with visuals provided by Shapeshifter Studios. <\/p>\n

Speaking about the new style, audio engineer Mark Ayres called the move “experimental”, explaining the process behind the animation. <\/p>\n

\"william<\/p>\n

Mirrorpix\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Related: The War Between the Land and the Sea: Why the Doctor’s absence is actually a good thing<\/a><\/p>\n

“This, basically, is all done with motion capture, so they’ve got actors in to act all the parts along to the soundtrack,” he said (via Radio Times<\/a>). <\/p>\n

“It’s all synchronised to the soundtrack \u2013 sometimes it doesn’t work and I have to tweak the soundtrack where the dialogue hasn’t quite synchronised. But it is a new technique, it is a motion capture technique, and it means the characters are far more fluid.”<\/p>\n

“[We’ve] put an awful lot of hard work into it \u2013 I’m proud of it and the animators in Australia, they have really worked hard on this,” he added. <\/p>\n

The Celestial Toymaker is available to stream via BBC iPlayer<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Love TV? Get your Christmas viewing sorted with the Good Housekeeping Christmas TV Guide<\/a>, featuring 14 days of Christmas TV listings, plus everything you need for the ultimate festive viewing experience! Just \u00a34.75 \u2013 available now at all good magazine retailers. <\/p>\n

\"Lettermark\"<\/p>\n

Reporter, Digital Spy<\/p>\n

Harriet is a freelance news writer specialising in TV<\/a> and movies<\/a> at Digital Spy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A horror enthusiast, she joined Digital Spy after working on her own horror website, reviewing films and focusing largely on feminism in the genre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In her spare time, Harriet paints and produces mixed-media art. She graduated from the University of Kingston with a BA in fine art, where she specialised in painting. She also has an MA in journalism from Birkbeck University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Celestial Toymaker, the lost Doctor Who adventure with William Hartnell and a classic villain, has finally been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[2115,112663,2117,156,2116,111,139,69,112662,437],"class_list":["post-175515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-c7e294ae-80f4-4793-869c-d33c0f0122aa","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-locale-gb","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-shorttitle-lost-doctor-who-adventure-finally-added-to-iplayer","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}