In Doctor Who: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Stephen Wyatt adapts his storyline featuring the Seventh Doctor and his companion, Ace, who find themselves fighting for survival in the nightmarish Psychic Circus. The episode was the final story of classic Doctor Who’s twenty-fifth season. Though Ace always found circuses, and specifically clowns, somewhat frightening, she did not anticipate finding one where the spectators were forced to perform or die. The Doctor, however, always has something up his sleeve, be it a plan or a magic trick. Wyatt faithfully adapts his own story, though he uses the novel format to include some added dialogue or extend scenes that weren’t as long due to production costs.

Some, like Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping (authors of The Discontinuity Guide) or David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker (authors of Doctor Who: The Television Companion) interpret the story as a metaphor for Doctor Who, with Captain Cook representing Star Trek, the Gods of Ragnarok who demand entertainment taking the place of BBC executives, the Chief Clown standing in for BBC Controller Michael Grade, and Whizz Kid parodying obsessive fans. Whether or not Wyatt intended this, the story is sure to entertain fans of Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor and Sophie Aldred’s Ace. ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/1079514.html?#cutid5

Wyatt's book is not really an improvement on the TV original. Shorn of (for once) decent production values and the compelling performances of the actors, the holes in the plot and clunky scene-setting are more apparent, and Wyatt, having written a TV script, is reduced to reporting what we saw on screen without being able to add much to it. Fails the Bechdel test - each female character is rigidly paired off with a male, and on the rare occasions that they converse it is always about one of the men (usually the Doctor). ( )