The Greatest Show in the Galaxy

I never liked clowns.

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy is a rather meta story. It started as somewhat surreal, but as soon as Whizz Kid showed up, a very tongue in cheek vibe could be felt. It probably didn't help that the story had an obvious disdain for that character. This is a rather odd contrast with Silver Nemesis which aired prior to this. That was complete fan service romp (albeit with some cheek). It lends credence to the idea that the folks in charge of Doctor Who didn't know which way was up at this point.

Plot Summary

The Doctor and Ace are in the TARDIS when they are visited by a robot. It taps in to the console and advertises The Psychic Circus, both to view and to compete in. Ace is hesitant but the Doctor shows interest. The robot goads her a little as well and she agrees. The two arrive and engage with a local fruit seller, who is dismissive of them and anything to do with the circus.

Elsewhere on the planet, two people, Bellboy and Flowerchild, are running away from the circus. They are pursued by clowns in a car and spied upon by kites above. The two split up with Bellboy trying to draw their pursuers attention. Flowerchild arrives at an abandoned bus and is attacked from behind, her attacker dragging her away leaving one earring behind. She had given the other to Bellboy.

The Doctor and Ace move along the road after a biker who was going to the circus. They are nearly run down by the clowns in the car, who pick up Bellboy after collapsing near the fruit stand. The Doctor and Ace stop and have tea with an explorer named Captain Cook and his assistant Mags. While there a robot buried in the sand awakes and begins to attack them. Ace knocks it out with a blow to the head.

The group walks on together and finds the same bus Flowerchild came to. Upon entering, they are accosted by a robot conductor with a lethal ticket machine. The Doctor tricks the robot and destroys it. Captain Cook and Mags walk on towards the circus but Ace and the Doctor stay behind to rest. Ace finds Flowerchild's earring and pins it to her jacket. The two then continue on towards the circus.

Bellboy is deposited back at the circus and then dragged into the center ring. Captain Cook and Mags arrive shortly after and observe him being punished in the ring. Mags begins to scream at the sight although the ringmaster mutes her scream. As Ace and the Doctor approach the circus, Ace can hear her scream but the Doctor cannot. With much reluctance, she enters the tent with the Doctor.

The Doctor engages in conversation with the gypsy running the ticket booth while she discusses the history of the circus. She seems rueful about their current stay on this planet. The chief clown invites them in to the big top. It is dark and they stumble about until a light comes up. There they see a family of three watching. The Doctor tries to engage them in conversation but they ignore him as the show starts. The Ringmaster invites the Doctor to participate in the show and after accepting is lead back. Ace is kept from the Doctor and she runs away from the clowns through the tunnels.

The Doctor sees Captain Cook, Mags and the biker in another room and goes to them. As he does, bars drop behind him and he is locked in a cage. Captain Cook informs him that it is now a game of survival. The biker is led away as the next act in the ring. In the ring, he impresses the family with a feat of strength but fails to impress them when he attempts to tell jokes. For that failure, he is vaporized.

Ace runs through the tunnels, eluding the clowns. She gets back to the main entrance where she overhears the gypsy and the ringmaster talking about the old days and how they are just part of a machine now. Ace is spotted and she runs back with the clowns chasing her. She finds Bellboy tied to a workbench and tries to talk to him but he does respond. The chief clown enters and drags Bellboy away to work on repairing the robotic clowns.

The Doctor and Mags hatch a plan to escape. While juggling, the start arguing about who will enter the ring first. When two clowns try to break up the argument, they strike them down and run into the tunnels. Captain Cook stays in the cage however. The Doctor and Mags wander through the tunnels until the come to a ancient stone passage. Although Mags is reluctant, they enter.

Ace nears the same entrance when she is cornered by the mentally damaged worker Deadbeat who alerts the chief clown. He drags Ace to the repair workshop and locks her in with the robot clowns. She notices that they start to move and advance towards her.

At the arrival of a new contestant, one who claims to be the circus' biggest fan, the ringmaster discovers the Doctor's escape. Captain Cook goes along and helps them find the Doctor and Mags, who have just discovered a well with an eye in it, identical to those on the kites. The Captain and the clowns take Mags but the Doctor runs off back towards the entrance.

Ace begins to fight off the clowns when they suddenly stop. In the same room is Bellboy who shuts them down upon seeing Ace whom he remembers showing him kindness. He talks wistfully of the days of the circus before it's current plight, when they were free to decide things themselves and just entertain. Filled with regret that one of his robots killed Flowerchild, tells Ace to keep Flowerchild's earring and also gives her a remote that controls a robot with the ability to fire lasers from it's eyes, similar to large one Ace knocked out with Captain Cook and Mags.

At the entrance, the Doctor spies the gypsy's crystal ball and sees a similar eye peering out of it. Deadbeat approaches the crystal but backs away fearful. The Doctor runs up to him in the tunnels and speaks of the eye and his fear. Deadbeat indicates for the Doctor to follow him.

In the big top, the family are growing restless and getting angry. The chief clown continues his search for the Doctor but orders the Ringmaster to send Captain Cook into the ring as the next contestant. Captain Cook in turn, takes advantage of Whizz Kid's enthusiasm and tricks him into going into the ring ahead of him. Whizz Kid readily agrees and dies shortly afterward.

The Doctor and Deadbeat break into the robot repair room where Ace and Bellboy are being held. Bellboy remembers that Deadbeat was once called Kingpin and he led them to this planet searching for something and it all went wrong from there. Deadbeat mutters information about the eye and the Doctor knows he must go back to the well. As they prepare to go, Bellboy stays behind to buy them time as he doesn't care anymore with Flowerchild gone.

The Doctor's group heads to the well where Deadbeat holds up a medallion with an eye on it. Ace recognizes it as something similar she saw at the bus. The Doctor decides that he will stall the circus people while Ace and Deadbeat head to the bus to retrieve the missing piece. Meanwhile the chief clown enters the original locked room but rather than give up the Doctor, Bellboy sets his own robots on him, imploring them to kill him. The chief clown backs out as the robots move in.

Ace and Deadbeat sneak out while the Doctor goes back to the cage. He urges Captain Cook and Mags to enter the ring with him to give them all a better chance. Mags agrees readily but Captain Cook does so reluctantly. Upon entering the ring, the Captain asks for moon spotlight to focus on Mags. The beam causes her to begin to turn into a werewolf. She chases the Doctor and the family is entertained by the affair. As she corners the Doctor, he appeals to her mercy and to fight it. Captain Cook however comes up to urge her on. She then rounds and kills Captain Cook.

Deadbeat and Ace arrive at the old bus. Ace searches while Deadbeat waits outside. She finds a sealed box that she suspects contains the missing piece but cannot open it. Her actions arouse the robot conductor who had been repaired. He attacks her and in doing so, jars open the box. Deadbeat picks up the missing piece and reassembles his medallion. As he does so, his memory returns. He tries to pull the conductor off Ace, but is knocked down. He shouts to Ace to push the button hidden under it's cap. She does so and the robotic conductor explodes.

After Mags recovers, she and the Doctor flee the ring. The family, knowing there are no more acts waiting, demand more entertainment. The Ringmaster and the gypsy protest that they will bring more, but the clowns sweep upon them and disappear them into baskets. The Doctor tells Mags to get to Ace and Kingpin to help them with the medallion. He will stay behind and stall. Mags flees the circus and the clowns gather into their car to chase after her.

The Doctor reenters the circus but separates the layers so that he appears in the family's true time, as the stone gods of Ragnarok. They demand to be entertained and he sets to do so with vaudevillian magic tricks. The gods are not amused but allow him to continue to see if it improves.

Mags reaches Ace and Kingpin and warns them. They see the clowns approaching and Ace gets an idea. She leads them back to the damaged large robot where Ace first met Captain Cook and Mags. She activates it using the remote that Bellboy gave her as the clowns approach. Using it's laser, it destroys the robot clowns and then guns down the head clown. Ace then deactivates the robot and the group takes the car back to the circus.

Arriving back at the circus, the group observes through the gypsy's crystal ball that the Doctor is with the gods. They run to the well but the undead body of Captain Cook follows them. At the well, he knocks down Kingpin and seizes the medallion. Ace and Mags rush him and the medallion falls into the well. The Doctor takes the medallion and uses it to reflect the gods' energy back at them. They become exhausted and collapse, causing the temple to crumble. Captain Cook stumbles and falls into the well as the entire circus begins to shake.

Ace, Mags and Kingpin run clear while the Doctor calmly walks away from circus as it explodes behind him. Kingpin vows to rebuild the circus and invites Mags to help him. He also invites Ace and the Doctor but the Doctor politely declines.

Analysis

The Greatest Show in the Galaxy was the child of necessity but that same freedom produced an interesting story. Studio filming was lost for this story so they made up for it with some old fashioned quarry shooting and an old circus tent. They also got creative with the story, including some very meta moments. Whizz Kid is a very obvious reference to the fans, going so far as to give him lines about not seeing the circus in the early days but still loving it. That the fan representation is shown so much disdain by the other characters and then killed by the family (who feel like a representation of the BBC) does hint rather strongly that the show was growing weary and disdainful of the very thing that was keeping it alive. Still, it was creative and interesting to see a show finally push back a bit from all those that were nibbling it to death.

On the whole, I would have to say that I rather enjoyed this one. It continued to have the problems that one associates with the Seventh Doctor era but they were more muted and allowed a fairly decent story to shine through. My quibbles remain the same as on nearly every Seventh Doctor story: the introduction was a bit muddled with more confusion than mystery to establish things, a somewhat rushed ending where the Doctor suddenly knows something and no explanation given as to where the information came from, and the typical odd cinematography that is a distinction of nearly every 80's show. They couldn't really help the last one so I give that a bit more of a pass.

The use of a tent and silks to disguise the lack of a studio was a rather interesting idea and seemed like a good first step towards the modern show. All parts were played well but I thought the head clown was particularly good. I can understand the general creepiness of clowns, although I don't have a problem with them, but the chief did a very good job in taking what could have been a slightly silly role and becoming genuinely sinister. Even better, he's not shown as being blatantly incompetent as some villains are shown to be. Yes, the protagonists give him the slip here and there, but aside from that, he is rather good at his job and gives a bit of a Joker vibe as he does so.

Aside from the acting, I think the thing I enjoyed most was the camera work. The director did a nice mix of close-ups and tight shots in addition to the standard long shots to both highlight tension and also disguise the location. It was also nice to see an appropriate use of lighting as well. Hallway shots were suitably dark as were other locations which helped to give the story a more dour and sinister mood. This also contrasted nicely with the normal atmosphere of a circus which is generally light and playful.

On the negative end of the scale, I would note the beginning and the end as alluded to earlier. Seventh Doctor stories seem to try and pack a lot of information in at the beginning but they also do it in such a way so as to not reveal anything that often leads the watcher confused. For instance, it was unclear to me throughout Episode One whether Flowerchild had actually be killed or simply knocked out and dragged away. It also seemed odd that no one would every openly admit that the conductor killed her. In fact, I was never really clear on why the bus was guarded unless it was a safeguard to ensure that no one could escape. But I felt more confused than curious, although that lifted as things sped along in Episode Two.

I was also annoyed at two points in the end. First was the quick disposal of the Ringmaster and the gypsy. It would have made more sense to me if they were magicked away but reappeared in the holding cage. But after they disappear in the baskets, they are simply gone as though they have been killed. It seemed like an odd way to dispose of them. I also would have liked to know how the Doctor knew that the entities being entertained were the gods of Ragnarok. That they are powerful alien entities is obvious, but that the Doctor seems to know all about them is never made clear and that annoying. It is another moment where it feels like a bit of exposition or some other scene were cut out. I would have almost preferred the entities to remain unnamed as their actual identities is not important to the story and just have the Doctor deal with them.

But on the whole, those are rather minor quibbles. Ultimately this is an entertaining story with it's flaws being relatively minor compared to the story and performance at large. Knowing the full ending, I'd be curious to watch this one again to see if it makes anything clearer. Ultimately though, each episode kept me curious as to what was going to happen next and how the situation was going to be resolved. The meta jokes also brought an extra layer of entertainment to me as well.

Overall personal score: 3.5 out of 5