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 DWM 419, but was later released as part of the The Companion Chronicles: The Specials box set. It starred Mark Strickson as Vislor Turlough.

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...

Part one
''Turlough starts recording himself with an evidence pod handed to him by the Doctor, who walked into his bedroom without knocking and seems to have been testing him since his pact with the Black Guardian was revealed. He begins his testimony.''

The Doctor agrees to take Turlough back to Trion via a zig-zag route intended to throw off the Black Guardian and any of his agents. The TARDIS materialises in 1905 Arizona as a brief stop, but Turlough insists on going outside, angry at the Doctor and Tegan for not trusting him, and walks to Buzzard Creek where he claims to have been robbed and is given Jed Harper's hospitality. Thaddeus P. Winklemeyer arrives in town with his Menagerie of Medical Marvels: Aqua Boy, the Mimic, the Wild Man of Borneo, the Porcupine, the Butterfly and two serpents that Turlough recognises as Sythaks from Palliox.

Winklemeyer claims that the "freaks of nature", whom Turlough deduces are all aliens, will all be restored by his Elixir of Life and feeds it to them, making them all take on human forms. Turlough detects low-level mind control, however, and is able to see that the supposed transformation is just a disguise. In the night, he leaves Jed and his wife's home to make amends with the Doctor and sees the Porcupine inexplicably turn to ash, after which Winklemeyer, who sensed his mind break through his ruse, tells him that he will join his show. A Sythak captures him and locks him in a cage with the Wild Man.

Part two
The Wild Man, Berman Labazeen, explains that Winklemeyer is a Vermaal propogating his species by feeding parasitic embryos to humans in the Elixir of Life and that he and the other freaks are forced to comply with his demands due to smart implants in their brains. Unlike the humans, the freaks are given coloured water and sugar. Turlough is rescued by the Doctor and Tegan and the Doctor breaks into Winklemeyer's trailer to steal the override unit for the smart implants, but he is detected and Winklemeyer sends a Sythak after him.

Turlough stands in front of Tegan to protect her when they are attacked by the second Sythak, which Berman saves them from by crushing its skull. He is poisoned, however, and Turlough and Tegan go looking for an antidote before the first Sythak approaches and Winklemeyer catches the Doctor. The Doctor claims that he has released an anti-elixir into the water supply which will kill off the Vermaal spores and contacted the galactic authorities about his use of smart implants, which Turlough does not believe is true, but Winklemeyer will not leave before killing the Doctor and controls the Sythak with a flute. Using an identical instrument, the Doctor fights for control.

Winklemeyer loses the contest as Turlough has had the Mimic disguise itself as the flute and the Sythak grabs him, locking him away in a cage. Tegan hugs Turlough when they find that Berman is dead and the Doctor gives the override unit to the Mimic, who disables the implants. After burying Berman, the Doctor takes the freaks home, leaves Winklemeyer to the authorities and takes Turlough and Tegan away, but Turlough is no longer sure that he wants to return home and is finding TARDIS travel interesting.

Cast

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

Worldbuilding

 * 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.
 * Lance Harper is Jed's son.
 * 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 calls Winklemeyer Willy Wonka.
 * Berman is a Krolock.
 * 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.

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 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)

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.