The Psychic Circus

Main Range #261

Released: 11 February 2020

Listened: 3/24/21

This final trilogy for the Seventh Doctor has him going up against other renegade Time Lords in each story, although the stories themselves aren’t related. In this first one, it’s the Master, although the Richard Dreyfus version, considered the “First Master” depending on how you look at it. Unfortunately, Dreyfus made some impolitic remarks after recording this story, and Big Finish dropped him from appearing again. Stephen Wyatt wrote the story, as he’s the writer of “Greatest Show in the Galaxy” and “Paradise Towers,” both of which feature heavily here. Unfortunately, because this is a prequel to “Greatest Show” for everyone except the Doctor, that means the Doctor can’t actually resolve anything, without wrecking his own timelines. So we see how the Circus was created, how it was corrupted by the gods of Ragnarok, and how Kingpin became Deadbeat, without fixing any of it. We also see the origin of the Chief Clown (kind of), but we don’t get an explanation of why he’s so chatty in this story, but mostly silent on TV. Although the Master is apparently behind most of it, neither he nor the Doctor physically appear in the story; they spend most of their time as psychic projections. The problem is, I don’t feel like we really needed an origin story for the circus, especially not one tangentially involving Paradise Towers, and there was certainly no need for the Master’s involvement. There’s also no mention of Mags, who was just a companion a short while ago, but there’s no real reason why there would be. It does capture the somewhat surreal feel of the original story, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.