Customer Reviews

Doctor Who - Greatest Show in the Galaxy [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Hey, a story with a title describing how I feel about Doctor Who! The Doctor and Ace land on Segonax, home of The Psychic Circus, which back in its earlier days, was a travelling entertainment show. Well, it's the same way on Segonax, except that it's more like a terminal case of the Gong Show or Survivor.

Coming to perform are Nord the Vandal, a brutish musclebrain on a roaring three wheeled bike with cow's horns for handlebars, wearing a winged helmet, intergalactic explorer Captain Cook and his assistant Mags, and the Whizz Kid, a skinny nerd with thick round glasses who's the Psychic Circus's biggest fan. Cook is a khaki-uniformed, pompous, selfish boor, looking out for number one, and quick to bore anyone with his travels. "I remember something similar happening on the planet..." He drops more planet's names than I've had hot meals. Well, maybe not that much, but you get the idea.

The Doctor, Cook, Mags, and Nord are captured, each awaiting their performance. Cook comes up with a survival of the fittest philosophy, all the while sitting leisurely at tea. He says it best concerning the Circus: "Anyone dumb enough to get into the ring gets killed." Or anyone unaware of the dangers, I'd like to add.

The Circus's employees are either disenchanted and rebelling (Bellboy and Flowerchild), under the thrall of the current owners (Ringmaster, Morganna the fortune teller, the Chief Clown), or mentally damaged (Deadbeat). It's the latter who actually helps the others discover the mystery of who's behind the Circus.

Ian Reddington (Chief Clown) has effective makeup that makes him look like the Joker from the Batman TV series. Veteran actor T.P. McKenna plays Cook to oafish, smarmy perfection, and Jessica Martin has an expressive, appealing, and exciting (in the cliffhanger to Episode 3) performance as Mags.

I got two things out of The Greatest Show In The Galaxy, one of the shows last superlative moments. It's an allegory on TV culture, demands by the viewers for better shows and by the BBC for better ratings. Cook's comments while in the cage point to this: "Your chance of survival in the ring are better if you keep them entertained." The Doctor asks, "Why, will they let you out again?" "No, you'll last longer." Whizz Kid is a stereotypical anal-retentively obsessed TV program fan, the family is the viewers, the ones in control the BBC, the Chief Clown the BBC Controller, and the Ringmaster and Morganna the BBC programmers.

However, it's also an allegory about warm and small businesses taken over by a larger, impersonal corporate entity. The difference with the Circus is, the only way out is to be killed. Bellboy wistfully tells Ace how the Circus used to be. "We all had high ideals when we started. We shared everything, enjoyed making people happy. If we all had a problem we'd sit down and talk it through. We were so happy." He's so disenchanted over the death of Flowerchild, he doesn't want to go on living: "the fun and freedom of being what you want to be all gone. They took everything bright and beautiful and buried it." Morganna says "We used to have fun." The Ringmaster tells her that they are part of a machine and more successful now, and that the other employees "couldn't take the pace. They wanted to live in the past, ... in the old lazy ways." If this is the future of all workplaces, then give me the past, give me liberty, or give me death.

It grieves me that some people judge McCoy's era (which was one of the series' highest points) on his first few adventures. Most of the stories of Seasons 25 and 26 are examples of how the McCoy era changed overnight from being a bland, garish pantomime into an era filled with multi-layered stories, the kind of genuine mystery surrounding the central character unseen since the sixties and a wonderfully dark, unchildish atmosphere.

'Greatest' is a classic. Whether or not you're scared of or suspicious of clowns there's no doubting they make good villains. The psychic circus' Chief Clown especially is excellently portayed. The story is filled with strong characters, including T.P.McKenna's scheming Captain Cook, the youthfully innocent Mags who hides a sinister secret. The Whizzkid is a humorous parody of the most irritating kind of Dr Who fan: "I never got to see the early days. I know it's not as good as it used to be but I'm still terribly interested". There is also a marvellously creepy family watching the show, providing an association with the audience by saying what the viewer is thinking. The psychic circus itself is genuinely eerie and the whole 4 episodes are filled with refreshing originality, good design and well-thought-out ideas, all assisted by one of the very finest Dr Who soundtracks.

Amazingly, a lot of so-called Who fans don't really get this this story, which is fine with me, but for those of you who thought the program was on its last legs, "Greatest" happens to be about Doctor Who! The Circus is the show, the Gods are the BBC executives in the Dark Circus(love that name!), Captain Cook represents Who's adversarries, like Star Trek, The (yecch)A-Team and any other competing shows, and could Bellboy represent the Doctor himself or JNT? And let's not forget Whizz Kid(Yikes!) If fans want to relish in the so-called "Golden Era of Who", such as the Baker/Hinchcliffe/Holmes era, I feel sorry for you, as there are MANY enjoyable and entertaining adventureses THROUGHOUT the entire program. Sure, some episodes stick out like a sore thumb, but if the last few years of Who do absolutely nothing for you, blame it on the BBC and narrow minded fans! Remember people, it's only a TV show!

Frankly, reading the other reviews I'm a bit puzzled. Ok, more than a bit, to be honest. The episode that *I* saw had a weak and underdeveloped plot line, a cheesy music score that was played too loudly most of the time (admittedly that may be due to my own copy of the episode), over-acting and bad scripting. From the first unbelievable premise- a junk mail robot somehow *invades* the Tardis- the show just went downhill. Why were there dark gods on the planet? Why did King Pin/ Dead Beat go to the planet looking for them in the first place? Why did the circus people cooperate with them in killing people? Why was there a medallion to defeat them? How did the Doctor get into their "alternate universe?" (I just don't accept psychedelic color sequences as reasons, I'm afraid). The show *did* have a few redeeming qualities: Captain Cook was one of the best villains I have ever seen, the clowns were indeed creepy, and the family was quite disturbing. However, these minor points do very little to save such a poorly conceptualized episode.

First, ignore the last review. The author's messing with you. Second, "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy" is a wonderfully surreal, subtle, and stylish production. In it, the Doctor and Ace visit the famous Psychic Circus to participate in a talent contest only to find its been turned into a trap for killing the participants, apparantly for the amusement of a very creepy 20th-century family of three who are permanantly seated by themselves in the stands... On top of all this, the music score is one of the best the series has ever had, and on this video you'll get to hear it in stereo which you probably didn't get to hear if you saw it on PBS years ago.

The intrusion of junkmail materialising in the TARDIS, leads the Doctor and Ace to the Planet Seganox, where the main attraction is the Psychic Circus, where clowns are sinister, and the audience has to perform for their lives! After an inauspicous debut for Stephen Wyatt with "Paradise Towers", "Greatest..." is like Hamlet! One of the most psychadelic Who stories since "The Claws of Axos". Everyone involved is in fine form, even with the production nightmare. The last two seasons of Who are filled with layers of intrigue and mystery, something lacking in the program since the Hartnell and Troughton eras. Some might say that this adventure is a metaphor of the production, the fans and the program's adversaries(such as Star Trek, the executives of the BBC, ect). Whiz Kidd is every Doctor Who fan in an exagerated form. The Doctor leaving the Circus at the end as the tent explodes is not to be missed! "You ain't seen nothing yet!"

In a way, this story encapsulates the good and bad aspects of the McCoy era. On the one hand, the humor is sharp, the characters are more interesting, and the story is more imaginative than anything in the Colin Baker or later Davison eras. McCoy was also, to me, more convincing as the Doctor than either of his two immediate predecessors. On the downside, it's obvious the show's budget wasn't stretching as far as it once had, and the writers' ideas don't coalesce into a comprehensive-- or fully comprehensible --whole. This dichotomy affects all the McCoy stories to some degree, but this story and "Remembrance of the Daleks" perhaps best demonstrate the era's virtues without becoming object lessons of its faults (as "Battlefield" and "Silver Nemesis" did, respectively).

With this serial, Doctor Who ascended ground-breaking new heights. The director, Peter Ubute took the brave step of including interprative dance routines in place of a normal narrative in certain scenes. Thus the Doctor and his companion tie each other up in black ribbons as a metaphor for their fear of the unknown, and all the villains that feature dress in white to symbolise deceit and cunning. This story stands out from other Doctor Who stories for its sheer artistic merit, and the performances of all the cast, who make what could have been a disastrous experiment into a great success.

When I started watching Doctor who it was with the Doctor Who, played by Sylvester McCoy. As his seasons were not always the best to say the least this is one of only a couple that he had really good writing for. I have always been partial to him, because that is the Doctor I began watching the series first with. I definately recomend this film to anyone is a fan of the Doctor.

This story falls under a very small category of Dr. Who for me... episodes I'm too scared to watch. From the moment the rapping ringmaster cracks his whip and starts to gyrate to the corny rapping beat you know this is going to be a pretty bad episode. The character names are ridiculous... Pig Pen, Kingpin, and Flower Child. The particulars of the plot are annoying... people going out to perform for the Gods of Ragnorock. We've got a corny, nerdy fan boy, an effete English explorer, and a Werewolf with all the scariness of a member of ths cast of Cats. How could even the most talented actor do a good job pulling off a story with names, costumes, and dialogue like this! There's also a scene where the doctor performs vaudeville style which just doesn't work on TV. The decline of Dr. Who was not Sylvester Mckoys fault however. He was a good Doctor on a bad show. Nor was it John Nathan Turners fault...