The Greatest Show in the Galaxy is horrible. From beginning to end, it was one of the most painful Doctor Who stories I've ever watched, up there with stories like
Fear Her, Love & Monsters, Mindwarp and
Time and The Rani.
It started off with the ring master rapping, which is one of the top ways to make me loathe something (and he kept doing it through out the story). It only went downhill from there. The villains were bad and super annoying. The side characters were mostly terrible. The "whizz kid" felt like the Doctor Who team whining like 5 year olds at their fans (because that's what you want to do when your show's ratings have tanked, give the finger to the only people keeping you on the air
).
The circus theme wasn't used in anyway approaching interesting, and the "gods of ragnarok", while having an interesting look, were never really explained and just not really done well. Even the Doctor was an ass, berating Ace and bullying her about her dislike of clown. It felt like I was watching the very early 6th Doctor at his worst once or twice during this story. Ace was treated fairly generically. Someone called her chicken, and she responded exactly like every single young, "hot headed" character in poorly written stories do. Now, that kind of response can work, like with Marty in Back to the Future, but it just seemed lazy here.
The only ok element I can think of is that Mags was an ok side character. She was also the only good side character.
overall, this is easily the worst 7th Doctor story. Its even worse than
Time and The Rani.
Next up is
Battlefield. I hope its good, it sounds interesting. So, I'm on the last season of classic Who. I'm honestly about ready to be done with the 7th Doctor. He's not bad, but honestly, at this point, he's the closest I can imagine they could get to being a "generic" Doctor. He's generally heroic, but can be petty, cruel, and a bit clueless. I heard before going in that the 7th had a reputation as a schemer/planner, which sounded interesting, but he's barely lived up to that so far. He doesn't have much that makes him feel unique, outside of his look. I've seen 8 of his stories, and don't feel like he's grabbed my attention like the other Doctors. I like his good adventures well enough, but once I'm done with him I don't see myself coming back to rewatch any of his stuff, except maybe
Delta and the Bannerman. I'm hoping his last season has one or two classic episodes, because at this point his run is just kind of ok, and doesn't leave much of an impression (except for the fact that it has one of the worst Who serials I've seen).
I loved Paul McGann's portrayal, and really wish he'd been in the 50th anniversary show. Much as I also enjoy John Hurt, McGann would have really been better. He had the part nailed perfectly, right from the get-go.
I meant I've got a lot to watch from Doctor's 1-3 and 5. I've seen 2 5th Doctor stories, The Five Doctors and The Caves of Androzani. Looking at it, I can see why it looks like I meant the episode The Five Doctors (Which is a good episode, although The Three Doctors is my favorite team up). Basically, this is what I've seen from all of the Doctor Who franchise:
