Doctor Who Club of Australia

[ADAMK]

What do people make of this (Season 25) 1988-89 story written by Stephen Wyatt?

This is the analysis from the official BBC website (WARNING! SPOILERS): http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/greatestshow/analysis.shtml

[Theta Sigma]

Found this out from the Doctor Who Reference Guide about The Greatest Show In The Galaxy:
http://www.drwhoguide.com/who_7j.htm

"This story was intended to be shown before The Happiness Patrol and Silver Nemesis. Two continuity errors were introduced when the broadcast order was changed. Firstly, Ace is given Flowerchild's earring by Bellboy, but she is already wearing it in both the previously transmitted stories. Secondly, in this serial, Ace is looking for the rucksack she blew up in Silver Nemesis."

I remember it looked very creepy the last time I saw it in 1998 and funnily enough one person at the Emailcash forum remembers this serial as being a Tom Baker story!!!

[SharazJek]

The only reason I don't give this one an excellent is because of the non-explanation of the 'gods' in episode 4.

Other than that, it's a magically surreal ride. Quite probably my favourite of season 25.

I would love to see what Stephen Wyatt could do with an audio script.

[meglos]

I like this one. It's one af my favourites for this season. I like the fact that it is quite strange.

[Dazza]

Quite good. The circus scenes would've been much better with darker lighting.

[Theta Sigma]

I think it was very daring to use "The Greatest Show In The Galaxy" as the title for this serial.

Very surprised to see Ace briefly wearing the Fourth Doctor's scarf and then Mel's blue dress from Paradise Towers (writer Stephen Wyatt's previous story).

After an unprecedented six stories in a row (including the unseen Remembrance of the Daleks) written by first-time writers to the series, The Greatest Show In The Galaxy breaks this trend as Stephen Wyatt provides his second story for the Seventh Doctor and for the series itself.

This story has clowns and incidentally in between Parts 1 and 2, the ABC showed one of its "This is where it is" promos which included a clip for Foreign Correspondent of someone applying a clown make-up!

[dunmall]

it was overall a pretty good story, did any one else notice that the ringmaster is one of the space marines from Aliens???

[Sulp Niar]

Normally, watching something like this would have been quite welcomely freaky... unfortunately, a couple of hours before hand, I had sat down and watched Series II of the League of Gentlemen, with the circus ep. Papa Lazarou is just much freakier.

Nonetheless, it's certainly better than the tripe that was Silver Nemesis, and it's good to see Syl can finally balance the dark and light sides of his character adequately.

[adamclark83]

I quite liked Mags in this story. I was so glad she survived. Had she died, I wouldn't have been very happy. She was quite pretty too.

[charlie]

This was a weird one, and I liked it save episode two which I thought was kind of slow-moving.
The ringleader annoyed me after the second one of his songs and they were obviously struggling for lyrics with the last one.
I would have liked this one more if Captain Cook didnt have such an easily recognisable name.

And SharezJek is right, it is a little weak on the explanations.

Mags was cool. I wanted her and Kingpin to join the Doctor, one companion just insn't enough.

[adamclark83]

Mags would've been great as a companion.

[adamclark83]

Also, I quite liked the music that was played when Mags turned into the werewolf.

[Wester]

I enjoyed this story mire than I thought when first seeing it back in the 1980s. Great concept and I loved the Chief Clown.

The planet 'hanging over' the circus reminded me of Pitch Black.

[SharazJek]

[dunmall]

every one loves a good old evil clown
it was a pretty good story, but very "80s" in feel lol i don't know how else to desribe it