25x4. The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
Writer: Stephen Wyatt
Director: Alan Wareing
Script Editor: Andrew Cartmel
Producer: John Nathan-Turner
Synopsis: The
Doctor and Ace travel to the planet Segonax after viewing an intriguing
ad for the Psychic Circus, only to discover that what began as the
brainchild of a group of hippies has turned into something far more
sinister - a trap for would-be fans and visitors who are forced into
the ring to entertain the gods of Ragnarok and pay with their lives if
they disappoint their patrons.
Review: In watching
"The Greatest Show in the Galaxy," I got a sense of the Sylvester McCoy
era finding its footing and successfully telling the kind of story that
was attempted but not quite pulled off in previous installments. We
have another distinct and imaginative setting - you would not easily
mistake the costumes and set design of the Psychic Circus for anything
out of a different Doctor Who serial
- but this time it's supported by a more fully developed premise and
one of the strongest casts of guest characters that the show has given
us in quite a while. We learn that the Psychic Circus was once the
creative outlet of a group of idealists who genuinely loved to
entertain people, then became corrupted when Kingpin, one of their
number, discovered a portal to the realm of the gods of Ragnarok. There
is a genuine air of tragedy surrounding Bellboy, who created many of
the robotic clowns and detests what his creations have become, and
Kingpin, who was driven nearly insane by his encounter with the gods.
Meanwhile, the friendship between the Doctor and Ace finds a distorted
mirror image in the more cynical relationship between the explorer
Captain Cook and his companion Mags. Unlike the Doctor, who also loves
to explore but who doesn't hesitate to intervene wherever he finds evil
and injustice, Cook is a believer in "survival of the fittest" who
readily sacrifices others to the Circus's blood-stained performances
and openly refers to Mags (whose werewolf nature he exploits to try to
gain favor with the denizens of the Circus) as a "specimen." He's an
explorer in the most amoral sense imaginable, accumulating knowledge
and experience with no ethical investment in the fates of those around
him, while the Doctor believes that Mags can rise above her nature and
disdains the notion of viewing others as specimens. This also helps
balance the latest hint that the Doctor's past is more complicated than
we previously thought - he's apparently clashed with the gods of
Ragnarok before - by emphasizing that his altruistic nature is still
there underneath the more mysterious veneer that we've lately seen him
assume. Finally, "Greatest Show" works as a sort of metaphor for show
business and for Doctor Who itself. If the "Whizzkid" who meets his end on the circus stage is a caricature of a somewhat irritating type of
fan and Captain Cook is the Doctor's distorted mirror image, then the
gods of Ragnarok can only represent the most pernicious influences on
the creative process, with their incessant demands for "more" and their taste for pointless violence and death.
The only real shortcoming here is the ending, in which the Doctor
deflects the gods' power back at them using some sort of magic with a
medallion - it's not really explained how this works, and I'm still
iffy on the idea of Doctor Who crossing the line from science fiction into fantasy - but overall this is a successful and memorable entry in the Who canon.
Rating: *** (out of four)
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