The Greatest Blow In The Galaxy

The One Hundred and Fifty-Seventh Entry in the Charles Daniels
Unauthorized Programme Guide O' Discordia


Serial 7J - The Greatest Blow In The Galaxy - 


 In the TARDIS control room Ace has her face twisted in disgust,
as she brushes her teeth for what is obviously not the first time
of the day.

 "That was 'orrible!"

 "ACE!  If I hadn't used the time crystals when I did, the entire
earth would have been conquered by the Nestle consciousness.
You gave a great service to the future of your entire species."

 "I gave service alright!"

 An awkward silence filled the room as Ace put yet another layer
of toothpaste on her brush.

 "Who was that weird old bloke anyway?"

 "Let's not talk about that, it's all over and done with now.
And since you've been such a good girl, I'm going to take you to
the circus."

 "Oh god.  This has way too many pedo overtones for me."


 The Doctor tries to cheer up Ace by attempting to teach her the
classical art of juggling, however Ace retorts that she's had
enough of moving balls about.

  After a few tense moments the Doctor pilots the TARDIS to a
travelling circus currently performing on "the lush garden world
of Aridius".  Aridius is however not the tropical jungle wonderland
promised in the brochure, but instead is..umm...arid.

  In frustration, Ace snuffs a clown.  

  The Doctor chastises Ace.  The clown may have been an annoying
prat, but that was no excuse to hand him three cans of nitro9 and
force him to start juggling at gunpoint.

 Two frantic circus performers, Bellboy and Flower Child, run in
terror from the pulpy remains of their old pal, Bubbly The
UberClown.

 The Doctor rushes after Bell Boy and Flower Child to assure them
that Ace is just a naughty little girl, who won't be a threat any
longer.

 Ace seems terribly bored but the Doctor bribes her, with candy
floss and caramel corn, to spare the lives of the two Cirque du
Soleil rejects.

 The Doctor asks the duo what horrific and unusual deaths have
plagued the circus recently.  The two relate that, other than the
recent senseless murder of Bubbly, absolutely no manner of disaster
has visited them.  

 Flower Child explains that they are but happy circus folk spreading
joy and laughter through the cosmos.

 The Doctor looks over the two with a suspicious eye.  The time
lord explains that there must be some unknowable evil at play
in the circus and demands that they take tea in a nearby abandoned
hippie bus.
  
  The hippie bus turns out to contain countless VHS tapes of obscure
science fiction programmes, countless action figures, spaceship
models, and a deranged fanboy named Whizz Kid.
 
  Whizz Kid is stunned to have visitors and has to clear all of
his furniture of dozens of full series box sets.

  Whizz Kid explains that he is creating "living fan fiction".
He has created two science fiction characters from the cult 
Scandinavian science fiction series "Hologram Man and Werewolf
Girl".  Using advanced biotech engineering he has created living
breathing versions of the characters who act out his badly written
fan scripts.

 The Doctor and Ace meet the hearty galactic explorer Captain Cook
and his punk companion Mags - both created by Whizz Kid using
a freakish software product called "Play God: Home Version".

 Ace asks Mags what she is doing on Aridius, and she explains that
she is seeking out a buried Aztec robot mummy, so that Whizz
Kid can use it to control the world.

 At exactly 3pm the hippie bus' door slams open and a robotic bus
conductor kills Flower Child and Bellboy, before tipping his hat
and politely walking away.

 "WHAT WAS THAT!?" Exclaimed Ace.

 "Oh, just the robotic bus conductor of death." Explained Whizz Kid.
"He kills any circus folk that wander into my bus.  Don't want them
stealing my collection.  Almost all of it is one of a kind,
handmade, irreplaceable stuff.  I follow all the directions from
Blue Peter religiously."
 
(That must be one of the most horrifying cliffhangers ever done)
 
 
Part Two

 Ace is caught off guard that anyone could take Blue Peter
seriously.

 The Doctor asks Whizz Kid to explain the history of the psychic
circus.  Whizz Kid claims that he is the biggest expert on the
topic, as he regularly reads every fan website and subscribes
to their comic book.

 The Psychic Circus was founded by an alcoholic Wiccan Star Wars
fan named SexGoddess69 (or so goes her chat handle on
irc channel #mysticalbabes) and some random guy, who pretended
to be into healing crystals because he thought it would get him
laid by gullible hippie chicks, named George Timpsy.

 Whizz Kid is a big fan of the duo but is annoyed that the total
poser George Timpsy was in fact completely correct, and his lame
ass "I have the power of the sacred Reiki magics" chat up line
actually worked on SexGoddess69, who is incredibly hot, and he
should know because he pays a monthly fee for the webcam.

 Ace doesn't understand virtually any of what Whizz Kid is talking
about, and to explain his grief he offers to sing a filk he wrote
to express his pain -- thankfully the Doctor screams in terror
and stops that from happening.

 Whizz Kid leads the Doctor and Ace to the main attraction tent
of the circus and then says he has to "leave them for dead", he
refuses to go inside.

 The Doctor and Ace continue into the tent and find that it seems
completely dark and abandoned. As their eyes grow accustomed to
the light they see a family of a Dad, Mum, and a fat guy complete
with a large beard and a gingham dress, sitting between the two
pretending to be their pre-teen daughter.
 The "Little Girl" sits stoically in the bleachers, eating ice
lollies and drinking lager, while waiting for the show to
start.  It eventually does -
 
 Ignoring Ace's pleas the Doctor jumps into the centre of the
ring and shoves a live ferret down his trousers.   As the insane
gambling commences, the Doctor juggles live kittens and tells off
colour jokes about Peruvians.

 Insanely embarrassed, Ace hides in the lobby and witnesses a
confrontation between Whizz Kid and a strange janitor named
Deadbeat; Whizz Kid is desperately trying to get backstage with
an illicit photograph of SexGoddess69, insisting that, as her
biggest fan and devotee, the least she owes him is an autographed
copy of images he illegally downloaded off pay sites.  

 Deadbeat has a side job as a bouncer, keeping the freaks away from
the circus, but eventually he is too annoyed with the little bastard
and is worn down by Whizz Kid's single-minded enthusiasm.  Deadbeat
pretends to pass out under the power of Whizz Kid's "alien nerve
pinch" and carefully lays down on the floor for a nap, hoping the
jerk will just go away.

 Meanwhile the Doctor is playing the spoons and speaking in
backwards puns, largely for his own amusement. 

 The audience seems pleased but the Doctor's act is beginning to
falter - the Doctor knows countless jokes and endless magical
tricks, but the ferrets have begun their biting!

   
Part Three

 Smoking a fag and trying to chat up Ace, Deadbeat professes a
total lack of interest as to what's going on in the Circus;
The candy floss, the dismemberment, the juggling, and suicides...
it's just another job for him. 

 Ace senses that Deadbeat may be the key to what's going on,
whatever that is -- assuming that anything is actually going on.
Ace follows and tries to question him; Deadbeat doesn't answer, 
thinking that Ace might prefer the silent and moody type.

 Not far into the underbelly of the circus, Ace is attacked by
hyped up clowns. Ace is deftly saved by Deadbeat who explains that
the clowns are not actually "evil" or "demonic" per se, but instead
are hooked on a very powerful variety of cocaine.

"You mean all these clowns are hooked on coke?  And willing to
kill for it?  That must be some damned good shit."

"The greatest blow in the galaxy, Ace."

"WEIRD!  That's just what that creepy old guy said to me.  Word
for word.  Eerie."

 
 Deadbeat explains that everything in the circus is hooked on drugs,
even the robot aztec mummy.

 "The Robot Aztec Mummy?  That's real?  I thought that was just
some stupid fanfic thing made up by Whizz Kid."

 "Oh it was.  But he made it, meticulously, all from designs off
Blue Peter.  All he needed was a plastic bottle, some string, some
enamel paint, and some toilet paper.  OH yeah, and the essence of
an undead Aztec warrior -- man, children's TV these days, huh?"

 Deadbeat explains that he used to be the leader of the circus; he
had the much more sensible name of Kingpin back then though. He led
SexGoddess69 and her boytoy George Timpsy through the galaxy for
a magical source of enlightenment.  Unfortunately, what he thought
was ground unicorn horn turned out to be cocaine, and things got
a bit wacky from there.

 "I did wonder what the hell the dude in that alley in Detroit was
doing with powdered unicorn parts...but, hey, we were young and
stupid."

 
Part Four

 Ace has sex with Deadbeat for no apparent reason, and while still
floating from the glow she constructs a small bomb capable of
taking out the entire circus.

 Talking about bombing, the audience has become bored by the
Doctor's outrageously awful Inspector Clouseau impersonation.
 
  Ace and Deadbeat make their way back to the hippie bus.
As they "struggle", Deadbeat notices that Ace is leaning on a
fanzine about the founding of the Psychic Circus.  Deadbeat is 
shocked that the origin story tells only of SexGoddess69 and George,
he has been completely forgotten!  

 Angered, Deadbeat finishes who he's doing and stands proud.  He
vows to help Ace destroy the circus!

  "Great, yeah.  Umm...hey, what about me?  I didn't...y' know?"
Replied Ace slightly annoyed.

 
  Under the nearby tent the rather dysfunctional family of circus
goers demand better entertainment.   The Doctor is just about
to do a complex "juggling flaming torches whilst riding a unicycle"
act when he passes through a dimensional gateway and finds himself
in the Dark Circus of the Gods of Ragnarok. 
 
  About twenty minutes later, Ace and Deadbeat stumble out of
the hippie bus, smoking cigarettes and looking deeply relaxed.
Whizz Kid is approaching the bus and looks at the pair with
astonishment -

"WOW!  Did you two just...DO IT?  That is so awesome!
No one has ever had sex in my room before!
What's it like?" 

 Deeply cross, Ace punches Whizz Kid in the face and knocks him
cold.

 Deadbeat and Ace enter the Psychic Circus and discover the Doctor
performing tricks for the ancient gods.

 "AH!  Ace!  Deadbeat!  You've come to witness my eventual triumph
over the dark Gods of Ragnarok!  Oh, how I have fought their evil
since the dawn of time!  Every fibre of my being, continuously
primed for their destruction throughout all my adventures."

 "Really Professor??  That's queer, you've never mentioned them 
before."

 "ACE!!" 

 A dark rumbling comes from the trio of godly entities -

 "So at last Cth-"

 "RONALD!!"

 The being of unspeakable darkness cleared its throats "Oh yes,
mortals are present.  My apologies!  So at last..Ronald Jones,
you have come to reclaim your powers and sit on the all mighty
council of chaos."

 Ace shoots the Doctor a damning look, as he sweats and stammers -
"What was that?  Oh no, terrible mix-up I'm afraid.  I've come to
kill you.  To destroy you.  And to ensure that, overall, you have
a fairly rough evening.  And remember...I didn't actually sign
anything...in blood."

 The tallest, more vile and strange of the gods, Grr'aaahooo
(so named for his infamous head cold), stared down at the Doctor
his eyes glowing red with fire -

 "Welp!  Got us on a technicality boys.  Better luck next time."

 The unspeakable gods of chaos disappear into a wisp of smoke.

 
 Ace is mildly surprised -

 "I thought those beings of unspeakable evil were...I don't know,
more bad ass, more vengeancey.  I thought they'd rip your heart
out for laughs and go for a disco afterwards."

 "The gods of war, the gods of hate, the gods of greed...yes, Ace,
that's exactly what they'd do.  But the dark and ancient gods of
Ragnarok are gods of chaos, and damned unpredictable bastards they
are too."

 Ace, Deadbeat and The Doctor calmly walk out of the tent of the
Psychic Circus as it folds up and disintegrates in a blaze of
energy behind him.

 Deadbeat offers Ace and the Doctor a job at a new, less lethal,
circus he's had in mind for a few years, but they turn him down
primarily on grounds of sanity.


  Back in the TARDIS Ace asks the Doctor why he turned down the
opportunity to be a dark unspeakable god of absolute power -

 "What are you talking about Ace, they weren't going to make me
a dark and unspeakable god of absolute power.  I've never heard
anything so ridiculous."

 "Professor, that is EXACTLY what they were offering you."

 "Not at all.  They just asked if I wanted to be in their little
club, and I figured I didn't have any free weekends, with saving
the universe and all.  I don't even know what their little club
was about...oh wait.....OH NO.   DAMN IT!! DAMN IT!!!  THEY DID
OFFER TO MAKE ME A DARK AND UNSPEAKABLE GOD OF ABSOLUTE POWER!
And I turned it down!!!  DAMN! DAMN!" 
 

Book(s)/Other Related - 
The Compleat Book of Erotic Irish Poetry
Doctor Who - No More Clowning Around
Doctor Who, Taking The Piss

Links and References - 
>From Ace's POV this story is a direct sequel to Head From Ace.

You can read my summary of that story here:
http://nitro9.earth.uni.edu/doctor/cdguide/guideaaa.html

DVD and Book covers here:
http://www.whoguide.com/3rddoc.htm


Untelevised Misadventures -
Apparently the Gods of Ragnarok are the Doctor's oldest and most
disturbing foes.  Since we've never heard of them before or seen
them since, I am left to draw the conclusion that all previous
and further adventures with these villains were as boring as hell
and therefore precious time was not wasted on showing them before
a viewing audience in order to make way for adventures in the
Doctor's life that were more exciting and gripping --

And when you consider how bad many of THOSE adventures were,
the other encounters with the Gods of Ragnarok must have been
TOTAL pants! 
 

Groovy DVD Extras -
A missing scene has been added back into the DVD release version.
The deleted 41 second sequence now appears in episode three and
features the Aztec Robot Mummy lumbering up to Deadbeat and Ace
and then dramatically asking to bum a smoke.
This sequence was cut for the dual purposes of time and to
preserve the horror of the Aztec Robot Mummy, assuring that we
don't ever get a good long look at him, or even a vague glance...
the prop being so laughable that it was ultimately decided that
the monster was much more scary if people just sat around and
talked about him occasionally.  



Dialogue Disasters -

        Mum: I don't think much of this, Father. 
    
        Dad: Nothing's happening, is it.
  
        Mum: Not that I can see. 

Little Girl: Mum, Mum! 

        Mum: What is it? 

Little Girl: I want a pint and a copy of Fiesta!

----



Dialogue Triumphs -


  Doctor: So you're a fan, are you?

Whizzkid: Well yes, of course.  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.

  Doctor: Well that clinches it!  I'm not signing your Dapol
          Dustbin now!


------------------------------------------------------------


Viewer Quotes -

"I, for one, embrace clown apocalypse."
         - Terrance Wilby (1990)

"The first time I saw this story, I was kind of hoping it was
porn.  But then, that's how I spent most of the early 90s."
         - Lonely Guy Film Reviews, (2002)        

"Call me weird, but sex on a bus just isn't - ROMANTIC.
I'm not saying 'no', but there should be candles or something."
         - One night stand, 1992

"You know if you watch Head From Ace and THEN watch this story
immediately afterwards; you really don't get anything out of it,
other than having to take lots of cold showers."
         - Robert Grumbly (2003)
                  

Psychotic Nostalgia -
"I HATE how this story portrays all clowns as psychotic 
drug abusing killers!  Okay, I know that I'm not a good counter
example to that...but some of them, a few of them...
no killing at all!"


Thing That Irks Me Personally -
If it was "NO BIG SURPRISE" that Ace was going to have sex with
the first deadbeat she saw....why didn't someone tell me about
this?!?!!?  That loser could have been ME!


Sylvester McCoy Speaks!
"Like the Doctor, I've always felt that I exist somewhere outside
of society; Just peeking into reality every so often to stop
for directions and make sure that I don't miss the 8:17 to
Paddington. 
 I want to stand back from society - to judge it, to love it,
to hate it, to have sex with it and then feel terribly guilty
afterwards." 
 

Rumors & Facts -

 John Satan-Turner was a man who had a singular burning fear -
clown pornography.

 JST was by all accounts perfectly at ease with clowns and the
clown lifestyle, at times even dressing as one.

 However, something about the sight of clowns actually physically
having sex together, triggered a deep and instinctual fear.

 
 "I think the clown sex is what really did his head in." Commented
lifelong friend Kenneth Bridge. "John was pretty far gone into the
question mark pornography, and one of the brightest stars in the
whole underground punctuation fetish club scene in the late 70s and 
throughout the 80s.  But, clowns...they made him break into a fever.
 You could see the terror in his eyes. All that make up, the giant
red noses, it was the whole iconography of the clown sex-life that
he couldn't come to grips with."
 
 Apparently to confront this personal fear JST demanded a script
which featured "clowns and empty sex".

 He commissioned Stephen Watt to compose the script immediately.
When Watt complained that the premise offered him was completely
insane and undeliverable, JST shot back with this following
advice - "Well set it in a circus!"

 This was NOT exactly what Watt had been driving at, but still,
it was a paying commission so he quickly decided to overlook
any roadblocks. 

 After carefully looking over the simple premise -

 "Clowns and empty sex.  4 episodes."

 Watt realised that clown sex actually wasn't technically demanded.
Watt decided to use the opportunity offered by the vagueness of
the premise to craft a strange sexual situation for the young
companion Ace, assured he could simply avoid any criticisms from
JST with the magical phrase - "Something for the dads, remember
John?"

 As a jolly joke during the writing of episode one, Watt created
three completely useless characters (Whizz Kid, Captain Cook,
and Mags) who served absolutely no purpose in the plots whatsoever.
Watt realised that these characters were entirely redundant and
mostly had been aimed to take the piss out of Doctor Who fans, but
Watt hadn't counted on widespread hatred of Doctor Who's fanbase
which had by this point been enshrined into a sort of mini-religion
within the halls of the glorious BBC. Amen.


 In many ways it is a miracle that this story was ever made.
Just before shooting commenced someone said the word "asbestos"
in the proximity of the BBC Television Centre.

 Levelheadedly, BBC management decided to close down all the
studios and kill the man for saying such a thing during a
period of heightened paranoia.

 It was later discovered that the gentleman in question, a Mister
Grovesland of Croydon, was a building inspector who had said -

"Yes.  I looked this place up and down and I'm happy to say not
a trace of asbestos anywhere!"

 His body would later be found floating in the Thames.

 But before all this nasty business was finally sorted out, by
vigilante inquiry, it meant the loss of the first block of
recording slated for the story.

 As the contracts used by Doctor Who were notoriously illegal
and unlawful, none of the performers could be pressed to honour
them as time was taken securing a new shooting location.

 There was briefly a light at the end of the tunnel when the BBC
gave them permission to kill off an entire suburban neighborhood
and use all the streets and buildings as exterior locations.

 This permission ultimately came to nothing however as shortlived
drama series "The Shadow Of The Nose" came in and took over
the area before the Doctor Who production staff busked for enough
change to afford the bus fare.

 Eventually Doctor Who bribed a boy scout for use of his tent,
and the team were back in business.

 And so 25 years on Doctor Who still knew how to get a story made
no matter what the cost to human life, decency, or dignity; just
as long as they didn't exceed their budget of 7 guineas, 4
shillings, and an ha'penny (as the BBC was so rigidly traditional,
or tragically behind the times, it was still using the LSD system
well into the early 90s).

 Season 25 taught us that robots are evil, that candy can kill,
and most of all that robots made out of candy are as deadly as
they are delicious.

 There are many different opinions about the quality of the season
as a whole and the stories which comprised it.

 As for The Greatest Blow...I think it kinda' sucks.