The Greatest Show in the Galaxy

The Seventh Doctor and Ace are invited to the Psychic Circus on the planet Segonax. Aside from others that have been invited, the Circus is surprisingly empty; a few entertainers and stagehands are present alongside the Ringmaster and Morgana, the ticket seller and fortune teller, and the only audience is a stoic family of three: a father, mother and daughter. The Doctor and Ace quickly learn that they are expected to perform for the circus, and those that fail to entertain the family are annihilated. Escape is nearly impossible, as the Chief Clown, aided by numerous kites used for surveillance, leads a group of mechanical clowns around the wastelands of Segonax to recapture those that escape.

The Doctor and Ace discover the corpse of Flower Child, a worker who had attempted to escape. Ace takes one of her earrings and pins it to her jacket as a keepsake. The Chief Clown later notices this and demands to know where Ace got it, and she flees into the circus, finding the robot mechanic Bellboy hiding there. He recognises Flower Child's earring, but his memories have been disrupted when he was captured, but tells Ace he does remember there being more people at the circus. Ace helps to untie him and they take to hiding in a circus caravan, where Ace tries to help Bellboy recover his memory.

The Doctor, meanwhile, has joined with intergalactic explorer Captain Cook and his young female companion Mags, who had also been invited to the circus. They all are told that they will be expected to entertain in the near future by the Ringmaster. Mags joins the Doctor as he explores the circus to try to learn what really is going on. They find a well with a glowing energy source at the bottom, with an eye symbol similar to that on the Chief Clown's kites and Morgana's crystal ball. Just then, they are cornered by Cook along with several mechanical clowns, informing the Doctor is on next. The Doctor escapes encountering a worker named Dead Beat who has a medallion with the same eye symbol.

Eventually, he comes to the same caravan that Ace and Bellboy are hiding in. Ace has been able to help Bellboy restore his memories. In the past, Dead Beat, then known as Kingpin and owner of the Psychic Circus, had come to Segonax in search of a great power; in finding it, the power had driven him mad and caused him to enslave the rest of the circus to that power. The Chief Clown locates the three in the caravan, and Bellboy, feeling responsible for Flower Child's death as he had been forced to construct the robotic bus conductor, offers to sacrifice himself to let the Doctor and Ace escape.

The Doctor and Ace locate Dead Beat, and take him to the well. The Doctor recognises Dead Beat's medallion is missing a piece and believes it in the bus, and thus offers to cover for Ace and Dead Beat to look for it, while he takes his role in the ring. At the main tent, Cook says that the Doctor, he, and Mags are up next. Cook asks for a beam of moonlight to aid in his performance, but this instead reveals Mags to be a werewolf. However, instead of attacking the Doctor, the transformed Mags attacks and kills Cook. The family cheers, entertained by the violent display, and the Doctor and Mags escape in the confusion. With no other entertainment, the family orders the Ringmaster and Morgana to perform, but they fail to entertain and are also killed.

The Gods of Ragnarok, on display at a Doctor Who exhibition.

Ace and Dead Beat recover the medallion piece from the bus, and once attached, Dead Beat recovers his Kingpin personality. Kingpin helps to defeat the Chief Clown and his robots before they return to the circus, only to find the Doctor is again been called to entertain the family. The Doctor has determined that the family are really Gods of Ragnarok, who feed on entertainment and kill those who do not satisfy them. The Doctor instructs Ace and Kingpin to throw his medallion, linked to the dimensional portal that the Gods use, into the energy well while he tries to give them time by performing for them. Ace and Kingpin complete this in time just as the Doctor is about to be obliterated; the medallion falls into the ring, as the well was a dimensional portal to it, and the Doctor uses the medallion to reflect the Gods' powers back onto them. The Doctor leaves the main tent as it explodes.

The Doctor regroups with Ace, Mags, and Kingpin. Kingpin and Mags decide to reclaim the circus and take it to a new planet to start it anew, and the Doctor and Ace say their goodbyes.

The character of Whizz Kid was created as a parody of obsessive fans.[2] Sylvester McCoy was coached in the magic tricks he performs in episode 4 by Geoffrey Durham, formerly known as the Great Soprendo.[2]

Owing to the discovery of asbestos at the BBC, which led to the temporary closure of various television studios, this story nearly met the same fate as that of the uncompleted Shada - that of being cancelled after the location work had been completed. However, a tent was erected in the car park of BBC Elstree Centre, where the crew completed all sequences previously scheduled for the studio.

The last episode of the story received the highest viewing figure of Sylvester McCoy's time in Doctor Who - 6.6 million against Coronation Street.[4]

Reviewing The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Tat Wood described it as "a story with so much going right" and a sign of how he believed the show had improved since its mid-1980s period.[4] Noting how difficult the story had been to film, he stated "it was worth it. This is everything Doctor Who should be."[4] In The Discontinuity Guide, Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping said: "The ideas in this, one of the most iconic stories, are very imaginative and the direction is psychedelic."[2]

In his 2015 book Unofficial Doctor Who: The Big Book of Lists, author Cameron K. McEwan wrote: "While certainly not underappreciated by Sylvester McCoy fans (all twelve of them), those who are less impressed with the Seventh Doctor's run will find much to enjoy in this four-parter." McEwan concluded "... the highlight is most definitely Ian Reddington's role as Chief Clown. A superb performance and, still to this day, one of Who's finest villains."[5]

In the book The Doctors Are In, Graeme Burk wrote: "It's delightfully subversive and funny. Like all good satire, there is a variety of interpretations of what the target might be. But it's undergirded by some scary set pieces to make it tense, brilliant direction by Alan Wareing, some thoughtful moments and a stunning performance by Ian Reddington as the Chief Clown. McCoy, guided by Classic Who's last great director, turns in a lovely, nuanced performance." Co-author Robert Smith stated "this might be the ultimate McCoy story" which "showcases McCoy's quirky range".[6]

In 2017, Entertainment Weekly chose the robot clowns from the story as among the "26 Scariest Pop-Culture Clowns" and described Ian Reddington's performance as "chilling".[7]

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• The Greatest Show in the Galaxy at BBC Online