Wednesday, 25 March 2015

(679) The Greatest Show in the Galaxy - Part 2

This episode was broadcast just before Christmas 1988, its hardly the most christmassey episode that there has ever been but after not enjoying the previous episode a great deal it was nice to know that things improve greatly in this episode. I still maintain that the cliffhanger from the previous episode is appalling bad. However its all forgotten when the Chief Clown suddenly appears and convinces the Doctor and Ace to enter the Circus tent.

I like how there is a bit more information about the Psychic Circus when Morgana talks about how the Circus went from place to place but have made home on Segonax and is then stopped from saying by who. This means that they suddenly become good guys because they are being repressed by a mystical force and also by the Chief Clown. There is something odd about the family that are just sitting in the stands of the circus. Obviously I know their involvement in the story but there is a nice mystery about them.
The Doctor gets handpicked by the Ringmaster and it’s clear that it’s a trick. There are moment where the Doctor knows that something is going on and is letting himself been manipulated so that he can get to the centre of it. The manipulative Doctor starts to show more of itself in this serial and in this episode. He wants to meet the people but doesn’t say so although his face tells us this. McCoy really starts to own the role in this season and its this aspect of the character that he seems to thrive in.

The geek that was annoying in the previous episode is still annoying in this episode and it’s explained that he has come of his own choice but it’s not clear whether this is a known thing on earth and who told him about it. He gets to perform in the circus much to his shock. I am happy about this because that this means his time on the show is going to be shorter. Another character that bugged me in the previous episode Nord is also back in this episode but I didn’t find him annoying, it seems that the reigning in happened between episode although he doesn’t last long as he’s killed in the centre of the circus.
The tent set is very good and I think that lends something that wouldn’t have been achievable in a studio set. None of the interior sets are spacious and all of them mean that the characters are all up close and personal. I even like the exterior filming (although I didn’t mention in the previous episodes review), it helps that they were filming during lovely weather as this makes the quarry filming not seem like it was filmed in the endless number of quarries that the show has visited over the previous twenty-five years.

The cliffhanger is much better than the previous one and as a whole the episode is much better than the opening one. The writing is stronger and the performances are much better. It’s funny to think about the production problems that the show was having during this time and if you didn’t know this then you would be able to tell on screen because the whole thing works. The rating for this episode is back in the sevens and the average rating for the story is in the sevens although its still one of the lowest rated McCoy stories. Half way through and the story itself is still something that is puzzling me because again there are things that quite good but its still not a great story. I worry that the next two episodes wont really change anything but maybe I will be proved wrong.

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