THE TARDIS LANDS – AND SUDDENLY THE DOCTOR becomes invisible. “This is some form of attack!” he tells his companions, Steven and Dodo. Outside the ship, he’s restored long enough to recognise his surroundings: they’ve arrived in the world of an old adversary, the Celestial Toymaker – a powerful entity who makes people his playthings.
Appearing before them in a Chinese mandarin’s gown, the Toymaker spirits first the TARDIS, then the Doctor away. Steven and Dodo will have to win a number of games if they want the TARDIS back. And so: while the Toymaker introduces the Doctor to the threecornered Trilogic Game, in which a pyramid of ten horizontal pieces at point A must be rearranged on point C via point B within 1,023 moves, Steven and Dodo race the clowns Joey and Clara, two of the Toymaker’s playthings, across an obstacle course in a bizarre variation on Blind Man’s Buff. Dodo exposes Joey as a cheat, and when the clowns are defeated they revert back to their original form… a pair of dolls.