Freakshow (audio story)

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.

Freakshow

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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
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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...

to be added

After the TARDIS materialises in Buzzard Creek, Arizona in 1905, the Doctor gives Turlough a stetson.
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.
Smart implants were outlawed eight 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 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.

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 alien creatures in Thaddeus P. Winklemeyer's freakshow are forced to perform in the same manner as Captain Kybo in Jonathan Jaggers' circus in 1884 (AUDIO: Judoon in Chains) and the Eighth Doctor's Eutermesan companion C'rizz in Jacob Crackles' freakshow in 1851 (AUDIO: Other Lives).

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.