The Greatest Show in the Galaxy

The fantastic Ian Reddington.

I think that so far, without a doubt, this is the best Sylvester McCoy story. It is let down by the final episode which is rather impossible to follow and when you look at it closely doesn’t make a lot of sense, but all in all Steven Wyatt’s second story is creepy, full of great characters, well directed, well shot and achieves everything that ‘Paradise Towers’ was lacking in atmosphere.

It’s just a pity that episode four, or to be more exact the last 10-15 minutes of the story, is so bewildering. The reveal of the ‘Gods of Ragnarock’ is something of an anti-climax because

really, who are they? They don’t have a place in Doctor Who folklore yet the Doctor says he has been hunting them all through time, so that’s somewhat strange. The polystyrene circus in another dimension is not the most impressive set, well it isn’t when it crumbles, but the show was millimetres away from being cancelled so these things can easily be forgiven. But the events of the final episode need to be addressed because it really left this viewer mystified as to what had gone on.

Mags (Jessica Martin) and the Doctor.

King Pin has the medallion, which he needs to get to the Doctor in the ‘dark circus’. Now despite never discussing how this was to be done, the Doctor spends his time trying to entertain the Gods of Ragnarock whilst constantly looking at his watch as if  waiting for the appointed time at which the medallion is to arrive. Either that or he is worried about how long he can survive. He then points a sword which he created from nothing (well a small piece of metal he just happened to have) at the ground, in the ‘real’ dimension the medallion falls down the pit aimed at the eye, and it appears at the end of the sword. How was this pre-organised? Then the Gods fire at the Doctor and he uses the medallion to deflect the ‘laser beams’ (for want of a better word) back at the Gods and the circus itself. That was the plan?  I’m sorry maybe people were so taken by McCoy’s bag of magic tricks (most of which are achieved by trick photography although he is in his element here which is great to see) that they didn’t notice the illogical nature of the plot and the way it was all resolved.

The somewhat dodgy Gods of Ragnarock.

At the end of the day, no matter how good the story is the audience wants a good resolution that they can understand. The better the story, the more disappointing a dud resolution is and that’s exactly the case with ‘The Greatest Show in the Galaxy’.

The first three and a half episodes are the best stuff for a long time. The clowns, led by the amazing Ian Reddington are wonderfully creepy. TP McKenna’s Captain Cook is a truly superbly realised character, double-crossing, back stabbing, killed and then brought back to life. Jessica Martin as Mags is again perfect casting, I even liked the Whiz Kid (Gian Sammarco).

As sick as I am of quarries, I didn’t mind the location so much either. It suited the story. All in all the story is very enjoyable, creepy, with a magnificent atmosphere. The music by Mark Ayres is perfect and Alan Wareing’s direction is spot on, both first timers. Considering the production was nearly cancelled like ‘Shada’, and the studio worked was instead mounted in a tent in a car park, it just goes to show that working under duress can really bring a production team together to create something amazing. This was heading for full marks until the final episode. I

Ace puts a big robot out of action.

especially liked the ending to episode one, which is not the traditional ‘peril-style’ cliff-hanger, but instead a dilemma when Ace is asked by the Doctor ‘Are we going in or aren’t we’ as we hear screams coming from inside the circus. Also, a great effort from McCoy and Aldred, supported by a great guest cast.

8/10

Silver Nemesis

Anton Differing.

Bleh. What total and utter bleh. I don’t know what to say, but this story is rubbish. The Cybermen are rubbish. Cricket glove hands and a fallibility not just to gold but to gold coins. Nazis? Totally superfluous to the plot, indulgent crap by writer Kevin Clarke who thankfully never wrote for Doctor Who again. Not his fault though that this story has a nearly identical plot with a carbon copy resolution to ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’. Andrew Cartmel, why did you let this through?

'Excellent'? No. Not even a little.

Fiona Walker as Peinforte.

This sudden mysteriousness of the Doctor is offset by the fact that McCoy is not very mysterious. I liked Lady Peinforte – beautifully cast, Fiona Walker was perfect. Anton Differing as De Flores, the Nazi, is hilarious as he doesn’t seem to know what his lines mean, let alone what the story is about. In fact the casting is great, but it doesn’t get them out because the script is utter shite and the story looks very very cheap. It’s supposed to be the 25^th anniversary special for Pete’s sake! Not even the brilliance of the Dolores Gray cameo can save this.

It’s just a run around for three

The Nemesis statue.

episodes, with a lot of setups for jokes and amusing situations which would work in a sketch comedy show, but there’s no substance to this at all. Everyone wants the nemesis statue and they round around fields for three episodes trying to get it and then it destroys the Cyber-fleet. This Doctor likes destroying things it seems.

Delores Gray.

Nice shots of Ace up on the gantries in the factory shooting Cybermen with coins. Pity the idea Cybermen could be so easily killed in bollocks. I mean the whole thing features some great locations, but there is no substance to the story at ALL. Terence Dudley’s scripts have more to them. ‘Delta and the Bannerman’ had more to it. Pft.

1/10

The Happiness Patrol

The Kandy Man watches as Gilbert M looks for the Doctor.

‘The Happiness Patrol’, by Graeme Curry, is a studio-bound adventure which has a lot to like but fails to fully deliver on good ideas completely. Why? Well, most of it is down to production values sadly. It seems to have been a stretch for the production team to make everything as good as it needed to be, and sadly that increases the level of disbelief for the viewer.

The premise is good, and the casting on the whole is superb, supremely led by Sheila Hancock as Helen A, the ruler of the colony Terra Alpha, where it is law to be happy. Curry used Margaret Thatcher to base this character on, and Shelia Hancock’s portrayal is sublime. She has a pet called Fifi, is it a dog or a large rodent, or something in between? Unfortunately the puppet doesn’t stand up well enough and it’s hard to see how it could do much damage to a person if they had a hard implement in their hands.

In the waiting zone.

The Kandy man does her dirty work, using his ‘fondant surprise’ to execute people, and I for one loved the design although I may be in the minority there. I thought it worked very well, being made liquorice allsorts.

Joseph C overseas a 'fondant surprise'.

What lets the story down more than anything are the streets. Sad to say, but even though it all happens at night I don’t get the sense that people are outside. The surface is a shiny black – just the painted studio floor, which is a dead giveaway. The lighting is suitably dark, thank goodness, but yet it doesn’t give the impression of being outside. I don’t know if the waiting zone, for example, is meant to be in or outside. We don’t see people entering or leaving buildings at any stage, we don’t see the entrance for buildings, and that also is puzzling as a viewer.

The amazing Shelia Hancock as Helen A.

The Kandy kitchen and Helen A’s headquarters, on the other hand, are beautiful. Ronald Frazer and Harold Innocent as Jospeh C and Gilbert M, the two main male characters turn in wonderful performances. Some bits, mostly with Ace (no fault of Sophie Aldred) are a little squeamish, and whilst sometime McCoy really shines as the Doctor, he also made me squirm at other moments – especially at the forum when he was laughing. He has certainly improved, but moments where he drops the ball seem to creep out in every story.

Whilst much of the story may be about Thatcher’s Britain in the 1980s, the theme of people telling you to be happy is something most of us can relate to. Sometimes we are not happy. This is a truth. People will always tell you how to feel and what to feel and how to react to a situation. Don’t let them, the truth lies within.

A flawed but ultimately interesting story with wonderful guest

performances from those mentioned as well as Georgina Hale and Rachel Bell.

7.5/10

Remembrance of the Daleks

I am at loss to explain what the Doctor is doing here.

This is held up as one of the best stories of Doctor Who. It’s quite good, especially if you can ignore McCulloch’s dreadful music and the appalling title which means absolutely nothing, but it also left me feeling a bit unhappy about a few things. McCoy, in my mind, still seems to be going through the motions and the way he deliberately rolls his ‘r’s and over-pronounces some words to be honest is a bit much and I really feel he’s not in character, but at least he’s a far cry from ‘Time and the Rani’ where he seemed desperate to be funny.

Dursely McLinden as Mike Smith

The Daleks are back, and following on from ‘Revelation of the Daleks’, we have two factions, one headed by Davros now going by the guise of the Emperor Dalek, and the other headed by the Black Dalek controlling a young girl. Why? Because why not I guess. There’s great pace and energy through the four episodes, penned by first-time Who writer Ben Aaronovitch. Pamela Salem (Toos in ‘Robots of Death’) is just one of many quality actors recruited for this tale with deliberate nods to the past and very much a UNIT feel. We also have Michael Sheard returning to who as the Headmaster.

The Doctor with Gilmore and Rachel Jensen (Pamela Salem)

We see Daleks rising up stairs for the first time, a space shuttle actually land on Earth without any CSO, and the biggest explosion in Who-history. I think if you don’t delve too deep below the surface this is an almost perfect Doctor Who. However, it’s not.

The character of the Doctor, for starters, is too dark. To intentionally programme the Hand of Omega, which he calls a ‘stellar manipulator’ (oh Pu-lease!) to destroy Skaro’s sun, taking Skaro and other planets along with it, that is not something the Doctor would do in my book.

Maybe the Thals have died out, I don’t know, but still it’s very harsh to destroy a world. The Omega device appears to go forwards in time, but it’s all a bit confusing really. Cartmel and McCoy made a decision to make the Doctor darker, suggesting he had something to do with the days of Rassilon and Omega too. It flies in the face of who the Doctor has been up until now. Not to mention McCoy is not very convincing as a ‘dark character’, in my opinion. Mind you, I prefer it to his clowning around.

Inside a Dalek. Ewwww!

I really liked the use of nods to the past. In ‘Attack of the Cybermen’ the nods to the past were convoluted and confusing, yet important to the plot. Here, Totter’s Lane, the Coal Hill School, mentions of Zygons and Yeti, and even what appears to be Doctor Who about to be aired on BBC One, are incidental to the plot so the casual viewer might not know they were even there, and if they did and didn’t get them, it didn’t matter. For the fan though, they were nice touches.

The Black Dalek, Radcliffe and 'the girl'.

Ace makes a good impression, very different companion even if she is a bit much at times. The series is the better for her introduction. This story feels a lot more like Doctor Who than any of the previous season which is an interesting choice. We seemed to be going in a different direction in Season24, but season 25 sees more of a traditional feel in its opening instalment.

Where there's Daleks, there's always Davros it seems.

This feels like just about the most expensive Doctor Who story to date. A Dalek shuttle which is actual sizes that was lowered by a crane, some pretty awesome explosions, a high proportion of the story shot on OB. It’s only let down by one or two things, such as the music (especially) and the use of a lightning ball as the ‘time manipulator’. And the idea that the Doctor set a trap for the Daleks prior to November 1963 even though in ‘The Daleks’ he had never met them before.

But Doctor Who tales aren’t supposed to make perfect sense right? And we get some awesome scenes of Daleks exploding and the organic matter that is inside. Oh another returning face – Peter Halliday as the blind priest, I wonder if the casting was deliberately nodding to the past. Moving the coffin with the Hand of Omega though, that seems unnecessary and perhaps was just an idea for a scene that Aaronovitch wanted included.

Andrew Morgan makes a much better fist of this tale too which is good for him. I do wonder about its status as an absolute classic though, maybe fans are just agog at the explosions and so many Daleks in London. Great story though.

7.5/10