Doctor Who/Recap/S25/E04 The Greatest Show in the Galaxy

"You're just an aging hippie, Professor."

- Ace

The Doctor and Ace head off to a circus that has, inexplicably, set up shop on a desert planet. They poke around a bit—buying gross food from a travelling vendor, chit-chatting with self-important adventurer Captain Cook and his companion Mags, trying to flag down a ride from a Mad Max extra—and utterly fail to notice that this is the sort of circus that people run away from.

In fact, the circus has adopted the innovative cost-saving practice of imprisoning its customers and making them perform, with a penalty of death if the other customers—in particular, a jaded trio of mother, father, and little girl—are bored. So it is that Ace and the Doctor promptly find themselves backstage, in an unusually well-secured green room with Captain Cook, Mags, the Badass Biker guy, and a starstruck über-fan named WhizzKid.

After much sneaking around in the circus's billowing tent backstage, the Doctor and Ace discover that it was once a free-spirited hippie circus of, like, love and joy and freedom, man... until they settled down on this planet, where they apparently all had to register Republican and sign their circus over to evil gods. Guess they should have read the HOA fine print.

Eventually, Ace and Mags go to dig a medium-sized mecha out of the desert, which they use to fend off the extremely creepy head clown. Now they just need to find and destroy the evil amulet controlling the circus, while the Doctor is left to amuse the Evil Gods of Entertainment.

The amulet gets destroyed, which takes out the circus in a giant fireball of evil gods and creepy clowns, and Sylvester McCoy walks unflinchingly, both in-character and in real life.

"Whizz Kid: Well yes, of course. I've never been able to visit it before now, but I've got all sorts of souvenirs. Copies of all the advertising satellites that have ever been sent out. All the posters. I had a long correspondence with one of the founder members too, soon after it started. Although 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."
 * Alien Lunch
 * Animorphism
 * Badass Biker
 * The Cast Showoff: The "entertainment" and magic tricks that the Doctor performs in episode 4 is assisted by Sylvester McCoy's small background in amateur theatre.
 * Circus of Fear
 * Continuity Nod: While Ace's looking for her rucksack in the TARDIS wardrobe, she throws the Fifth Doctor's coat to the floor and emerges a while later, wearing the Fourth Doctor's scarf.
 * Creepy Child
 * Daylight Horror
 * Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?
 * Egomaniac Hunter: Captain Cook
 * Eldritch Abomination: The Gods of Ragnarok
 * Evil Clown
 * Evil Counterpart: Captain Cook for the Doctor.
 * Fan Boy / Straw Fan: WhizzKid was, yes, a sly parody of Doctor Who fans.
 * Hair-Trigger Temper: Nord, Vandal of the Road
 * The Mad Hatter: Deadbeat/Kingpin
 * Miles Gloriosus: Captain Cook, a blustering braggart who is quick to pontificate about his many exploits, but makes sure to keep himself as far from danger as he can. It's a minor moment of awesome when, even as Cook has him penned in by a werewolf and at the mercy of the clowns, the Doctor finally has all he can stomach of Cook's tedious waffling and tells him to shut up.
 * New Age Retro Hippie: Kingpin, Bellboy, Flower Child, et. al.
 * Psychopathic Manchild: The villains are Eldritch Abominations who need to be constantly entertained.
 * Similar Squad: Captain Cook and Mags, for the Doctor and Ace.
 * Spot of Tea: Captain Cook is taking tea in every scene in which he appears. Even when the party is attacked by a Humongous Mecha.
 * Take That: Whizz Kid is meant as a deeply unsubtle one to the more..obsessed fans of Doctor Who.


 * Theme Tune Rap
 * Unexplained Recovery:
 * Unflinching Walk
 * Wolf Girl: As is common in Doctor Who—see, for instance, its many vampires—the specific variety of werewolf seen here has never been seen before and never will be again. Convergent evolution, we guess.