DOCTOR WHO REVIEW: THE GREATEST SHOW IN THE GALAXY
Written By: Steven Wyatt
Directed By: Alan Wareing
Roll Up, Roll Up. The Greatest Show in the Galaxy is in town, and for a limited time only! with flying acrobats, tremendous ventriloquists and hilarious clowns this is a show you wouldn't want to miss. It's non stop entertainment for the whole family!
Yes, it has come to that time where in my reviews of 'best doctor' stories I review my favourite seventh doctor story. Some of you may be a little surprised to know that it is "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" and you're probably thinking "Why aren't you reviewing Remembrance of the Daleks?" well the reason being is that Remembrance is such a popular story with fans and it is a story that I do really enjoy, however, having said that. There is something very samey about Remembrance in terms of its popularity that kind of puts me off it being my favourite seventh doctor story. It's a story which everyone likes. In all honesty I do like "Greatest Show" more than any other of Sylvester McCoy's other stories.
The McCoy era is a bit of a marmite era with fans. You got Season 24 which isn't to many people's tastes when you got stories such as: Paradise Towers, Delta and the Bannerman and Dragonfire, all of which are stories that I really like.
Season 25, the 25th anniversary season of Doctor Who. Remembrance of the Daleks is a fantastic opener to the show, truly awesome and brilliant story. After that is The Happiness Patrol, that's a good story, Silver Nemesis - bit crap, Greatest Show - Amazing! In my top 10 best doctor who stories ever!
Season 26, arguably in terms of performance Sylvester McCoy's best season, because his character got a lot more darker and mysterious then which provided and excellent twist on things. Battlefield - great story, really like it. Ghost Light is very good, if not a bit confusing, Curse of Fenric - brilliant. It's on par with Remembrance and Survival for me is good for two episodes and the last episode lets it down a bit, but that last scene of the story makes up for all the stuff I didn't like leading up to it.
So those are my feelings towards the McCoy era. I'm a huge fan of the seventh doctor, Sylvester McCoy for me is my number 2 favourite doctor, after Jon Pertwee who is number 1. I've always enjoyed and loved watching his stories and his performance, however wacky or straight he played it McCoy for me, always felt more like the doctor I wanted. Without Pertwee's dazzling velvet jackets and cravats and kick ass action moves. I guess my main fault with McCoy that restricts him from being number 1 for me is the fact that he is not Jon Pertwee.
But that being said, there are only two stories from McCoy's era that I can think of, that I don't like. They are "Time and the Rani" which is pretty naff and "Silver Nemesis" which lets be honest, is terrible. Apart from those two stories, I like every other story of that era. That's pretty good going for a taste of different verity of story telling. It's very chalk and cheese in terms of taste.
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy was the last story in the 25th anniversary season of Doctor Who. It was written by Steven Wyatt who wrote "Paradise Towers" for season 24, Sylvester's second story. Due to the success that Paradise Towers got and how well it came together quite smoothly and quite enjoyably, John Nathan Turner, the producer was in favour of using Steven again to write another story which turned out to be this story. JNT came up with the title "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" which Wyatt and script editor Andrew Cartmel hated. But seeing as they had pretty much the free will to basically do what they wanted, they used the title that John gave them and took it from there.
The story goes that there is this circus which is called the physic circus where weird and supernatural things happen. People from all around the galaxies come to audition for the circus and are put to the test and thats how the circus puts on a show. If they don't meet the satisfaction of the audience then they die. It's a very dark story, but at the same time really beautiful, efficiently exuberant and just interesting.
You start watching it and you think "what the hell is this?" and then once you're in the mood of the story, it really carries you along. I like how the writer has woven in all this mysteriousness and back drop which gives the viewer a lot more to invest in. I think the soundtrack and music added a lot to that.
I really liked the locations that were used on this story, such as the desert which has the atmosphere of an alien planet and adds to the unusualness of the story and the circus was very well achieved, considering that the production team couldn't film in the studio, because the BBC had a problem with asbestos, so they had to film it all on location.
However looking at it, I think the story actually looks better for it. All the scenes in the tent just look and feel more real and obviously in the studio, things to tend to be a bit limited in terms of what you can have so authentically.
Sylvester McCoy himself, is brilliant in this. This story allows him to be serious and a bit a clown, for instance there is the scene where he swings from the rope into the audience area, but there's also moments where he is very cold and stern and get the essence of the character that he later becomes in season 26. McCoy drops you nice little hints in his characteristics that help the audience get an idea in the way that the story is going.
I really like Sophie Aldred as Ace. Ace of course, has a fear of clowns so this story provides a test for her to over come. She gets here fair share of blowing stuff up and has plenty of opportunity to show what her character can do.
Ian Reddington as the chief clown, very creepy and fantastical. His facial expressions and his hand gestures say a lot in what he does. The smile as well is what does it for me.
I also was very impressed with the character of Captain Cook, who in the story is a very nasty character. A true semi villain if you like to call it that in supporting Reddington's Chief Clown as the main villain of the piece.
I also liked all the stuff with the eye and deadbeat and the connections that were made there. It's not too difficult a story to follow really, nothing is so complicated that you can't understand what's going on. If you properly sit down and actually watch the story, everything is pretty clear and everything runs quite smoothly and you enjoy it. That doesn't mean to say that you have to be in the right mood to watch it. At least not in my view. For four episodes it really carries you along and you become invested in all the things that happen after the other until eventually it leads to the conclusion which rounds the whole story up rather nicely.
All in all, Greatest Show is a nice mix of different things for different people and is a rather unusual mood for a Doctor Who story, however it is in a really fantastic story, one I enjoy again, and again and again.
NEXT WEEK: The TV Movie.
