Freakshow (audio story)

Freakshow
Doctor:	Fifth Doctor
Companion(s):	Tegan, Turlough
Main enemy:	Thaddeus P. Winklemeyer
Main setting:	Buzzard Creek, Arizona, 1905
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Mark Morris
Director:	Lisa Bowerman
Music:	Toby Hrycek-Robinson
Sound:	Toby Hrycek-Robinson
Read by:	Mark Strickson
Release details
Release date:	3 March 2010 (DWM download) 31 August 2011 (The Specials box)
Format:	MP3 digital download Two episodes on one CD
The Companion Chronicles
← Previous	The Mists of Time
Next →	The Revenants

Freakshow was an audio drama in Big Finish Productions' The Companion Chronicles series. It was initially a digital download exclusively offered to readers of Doctor Who Magazine Issue 419, but was later released as part of the The Companion Chronicles: The Specials box set.

Publisher's summary

The TARDIS arrives in Arizona 1905, where travelling showman Thaddeus P. Winklemeyer is offering the residents of Buzzard Creek the elixir of life. Winklemeyer also owns a unique carnival, which is full of caged alien creatures. And in Turlough he has found a brand new exhibit...

Plot

to be added

Cast

• Turlough - Mark Strickson
• Thaddeus P. Winklemeyer / Berman Labazeen - Toby Longworth

References

• Turlough believes that the Doctor does not trust him and is still testing him due to his previous involvement with the Black Guardian. He is annoyed that the Doctor entered his room without knocking and comments that he would not dare to do the same to Tegan.
• After the TARDIS materialises in Buzzard Creek, Arizona in 1905, the Doctor gives Turlough a stetson. Turlough regards stetsons as silly and comments that they are only worn by actors in "those ridiculous cowboy films." However, he is soon grateful that the hat offers him shade from the sun.
• Buzzard Creek has a general store, a meat market, a bank, a hotel, a milliners, a barber shop, a large white church, a saloon, a windmill and a blacksmith shop run by Jed Harper.
• The aliens in the Freakshow consist of:
  • "Aqua Boy" — no given name/race. A blue skinned water-breather
  • "The Mimic" — no given name/race. A shapeshifter
  • "The Wild Man of Borneo" — Berman Labazeen, an eight-foot Krolock with black, matted fur
  • "The Porcupine" — Splayne, no given race
  • "The Butterfly" — no given name.
• Winklemeyer also has two Sythaks, which are giant snakes native to the swamps of Palliox, a planet near Trion. Winklemeyer claims that he caught them in the jungles of India.
• Winklemeyer tells the people of Buzzard Creek that he possesses the Elixir of Life.
• Winklemeyer is a Vermaal.
• Tegan refers to Winklemeyer as "Willy Wonka."
• Smart implants were outlawed eighth centuries earlier by the Hexen-Brock Treaty. The Doctor saved Jallican Brock from assassination by a Tamaranian death squad at the signing of the treaty.
• The Doctor compares Tegan and Turlough to bickering siblings.
• Turlough records a deposition for the Galactic Authorities.

Notes

• The DWM download was considered a promotion for the Big Finish line, so the file began with an introduction by Nicholas Briggs giving a brief history of the company's audio releases.
• This audio drama was recorded on 24 April 2009.

Continuity

• Turlough is working through the personal troubles raised by working for the Black Guardian. (TV: Enlightenment)
• Turlough comments that Tegan once referred to him as "unreliable" and stated that turning arguments around was something which he was very good at. (TV: Terminus)
• Turlough refers to Terminus (TV: Terminus) and the Eternal ships (TV: Enlightenment).
• The First Doctor, Steven Taylor and Dodo Chaplet previously visited Tombstone in the Arizona Territory in October 1881, where they witnessed the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. (TV: The Gunfighters)
• The Doctor laments the destruction of his sonic screwdriver by the Terileptil leader in September 1666. (TV: The Visitation)
• The Eighth Doctor's Eutermesan companion C'rizz would later be forced to perform in the showman Jacob Crackles's freakshow in London in 1851 in the same manner as the alien creatures in Thaddeus P. Winklemeyer's freakshow. (AUDIO: Other Lives)

Releases

• Freakshow was available to readers of Doctor Who Magazine who went to the Big Finish website and entered a code to be found within the magazine. The digital download offer was only available from 3 March to 26 May 2010.
• Big Finish subsequently reissued the story as part of The Companion Chronicles: The Specials, which was released in August 2011.

External links

• Official Freakshow - The Companion Chronicles Specials page at bigfinish.com
• Freakshow at the Doctor Who Reference Guide