7.8: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
In which clowns are creepy.
Broadcast: December 1988-January 1989
Watched: February 2021
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Part One
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Part One
“Is there no end to you weirdoes?”
Beautifully done. Sets up that the circus is sinister but keeps it all off stage. We know something awful has happened to Flowergirl but it’s mysterious exactly what. And the cliffhanger (“Well are we going in or aren’t we?”) continues that. We don’t see what happens to Bellboy, only that it makes Mags scream.
Love all the design and imagery. The undertaker clowns. The kites with eyes. The Doctor learning to juggle from a book hanging down from the ceiling. The junk mail that talks back. Was thinking that was an influence on Kerblam! when the robot conductor showed up looking like the Kerblam man.
Other thoughts... the promotional vid for the circus uses the phrase “Time Of Your Life” which, given the overlapping content, makes me wonder if this influenced that Missing Adventures novel, too.
Is Bellboy a Quadrophenia reference?
Every story this year has a black character in it. I think that’s a first.
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Part Two
“Are you a robot too?” “No?”
Some episodes I love but find I don’t have that much to say about. Weird.
Anyway. It’s all very unsettling. The way the ringmaster keeps effortlessly rhyming with the Doctor’s dialogue. The 50s nuclear family, dourly munching their popcorn, the only audience members but not part of the audience noise. The corridors of the big top, as eerie and strange as any fake spaceship. The terrifying room of robot clowns. Even the way the villain is from the Ashes to Ashes video.
I like Whiz Kid representing all of fandom. And the subtext that this is about the ‘60s dream turning corporate, but it’s all in the imagery, it’s never spelled out. [It’s just dawned on me that oh my god this is a story about Boomers, RTD should write a sequel.]
It is good and it’s a shame Wyatt didn’t do more.
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Part Three
“You were absolutely right. Clowns can be creepy.”
This is weirdly sedate in some ways: tiny sets, only a few characters, limited action. It should feel low stakes., yet somehow it doesn’t.
There’s some interesting symbolism in the way the hippy dream dies when Kingpin goes mad and returns when he regains his sanity. He’s basically Aslan.
Bellboy’s suicide, and the chief clown’s reaction to it, is seriously dark. I remember the chief clown being much more of a focus than he is. Sign of a memorable performance.
The Captain is *such* a shit. The cliffhanger is ridiculous and stagey and somehow, considering that Jessica Martin is basically doing some weird contemporary dance thing, kind of amazing.
The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Part Four
“It was your show all along really, wasn’t it.” Was it? What evidence is there that the Doctor knew what he was doing, really?
Slightly frustrated by this, which I wasn’t expecting. McCoy gurns a lot in the opening fight scenes and isn’t quite silly enough to sell the clowning bits. I also feel like it goes a bit too far towards abstraction, we’re never told what the stakes are, what the Gods wanted or why they took the circus to get it. “It’s all a matter of timing, don’t you know” – can the Doctor somehow see what Ace and co are doing?
On the other hand – McCoy’s calm walk from the explosion, the chief clown’s casual betrayal of his friends as the circus starts consuming itself, Peggy Mount’s complete lack of fear and disgust showing that this whole thing still looks ridiculous to anyone outside it, Mags… It’s still terrific – but it’s one of those where it’s just close enough to perfection that the stuff that isn’t perfect really niggles.
And the bit where Deadbeat turns back into Kingpin feels like an influence on the fob watch in modern Who.