The greatest show in the galaxy

Doctor and Ace, despite the fear of clowns in the latter, visit the Mental Circus on the planet Segonax. Other visitors arrive there: a fan-child, a biker Nord and a boring intergalactic explorer Captain Cook with his companion Mags, a “unique individual”.

The main clown travels the planet in the company of mechanical clowns, using kites to search for the runaway robot repairman Bellboy and his partner, Child of Flowers. On board an abandoned bus, the last one is killed by a conductor robot that attacks both Doctors, Captain, Ace, and Mags. The doctor turns it off, and Ace finds the Child of the Earring and pins her on the jacket. Travelers go to the circus, but Ace refuses to hear Mags screaming from the inside: she saw Bellboy being punished. The doctor, however, convinces her.

Inside, they meet the teller and fortune teller Morgana, and the Doctor and Ace join the audience: a strange family of father, mother and daughter, calmly watching the scene. An entertainer appears and invites the Doctor to take part in the presentation, which he agrees to and goes backstage where they keep Nord, Captain and Mags. Nord is first released on stage, and when his attempt at performance fails, he is killed.

The main clown notices an earring on Ace's jacket, and she escapes deep into the circus, where she finds Bellboy, tied to a workbench. He, having seen the earring, begins to trust her, but his memory is damaged, and he can tell her that all visitors to the circus disappeared. Returning, she sees the debate of the Morgans and the entertainer about the moral side of their case. They are interrupted by a child-fan, who is also taken to the ring, where he also cannot entertain his family in the hall, and therefore perishes.

The doctor and Mags penetrate deep into the circus, where they find a strange passage. Mags begins to behave strangely when she sees the moon engraved on the arch, but the Doctor reassures her. At the end of the tunnel, they find a deep shaft with pulsating energy below, from where a strange symbol of the eye peers out, which is also found on the main clown's kites. Morgana also sees the eye in her crystal ball, which makes her doubt her loyalty to the forces that control the circus and the planet. The captain with a group of clowns catches the Doctor and Mags and reports that the Doctor will go to the ring next.

Having escaped from the Captain, the Doctor meets the Loafer, realizing that he is the key to the situation. Ace makes Bellboy remember: one of the workers, the Loafer, who was nicknamed the Boss, brought them to Segonax in search of a great power that soon drove him crazy and enslaved the rest of the circus. The death of the Child of Flowers was at the hands of the robot that Bellboy built. He decides not to blame himself anymore and help the others escape. He distracts the clowns and dies.

Meanwhile, the Doctor, Ace, and Loafer arrive at the mine. The latter has a medallion with the same eye, but part missing from the middle, and he and Ace go to the old bus. The doctor, in order to gain time, gives up and appears on stage with Mags. The captain arranges a simulation of a lunar eclipse, and Mags turns into a werewolf. But she attacks the Captain, which pleases the trinity of spectators. The doctor and Mags run away, and the family requires more entertainment. Entertainer and Morgan try to entertain them and die.

Ace and the Loafer destroy the conductor and find part of the medallion. With the whole medallion, the memory of the Loafer is restored, and he becomes the Boss. Having destroyed with the help of the robot the Main Clown and his minions, they return to the circus, where they discover that the Doctor is now on stage. That turns out to be an interdimensional portal, and the family - the gods of Ragnarök, feeding on entertainment and killing everyone who does not satisfy them. A series of tricks and tricks gives him a delay so that Ace and the Boss throw a medallion into the well, the Doctor caught him and reflected the power of the gods in them. Those become victims of their own strengths, and the Doctor returns to the Psychic Circus, already crumbling and exploding, from where he runs away with his friends. He flies away with Ace, and Boss and Mags decide to have a circus on another planet. Already in the TARDIS, the Doctor reports that he seems to be now as afraid of clowns as Ace.

The series was almost befell the fate of the Shada series: the cessation of production after filming in the open. Asbestos was found in the BBC pavilions, which caused their temporary closure. However, in the parking lot of one of the BBC studios, an awning was erected, where the scenes originally planned for the pavilions were shot ^[4] .

Sylvester McCoy was trained in magic tricks and tricks for the fourth episode of the British comedic magician Jeffrey Darham, known as the Great Soprendo ^[5] .