Carnival of Monsters

066 – Carnival of Monsters
Doctor Who serial

Major Daly trying to best a Drashig with a tommy gun.
Cast
Others
Production
Writer Robert Holmes
Director Barry Letts
Script editor Terrance Dicks
Producer Barry Letts
Executive producer(s) None
Production code PPP
Series Season 10
Length 4 episodes, 25 minutes each
Originally broadcast 27 January–17 February 1973
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by →
The Three Doctors Frontier in Space

Carnival of Monsters is the second serial of the tenth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 27 January to 17 February 1973.

It was also the title of a 1999 BBC documentary looking at some of the adversaries that the Doctor had faced in the programme.

Contents

Plot

The TARDIS misses Metebelis Three and materialises on the SS Bernice, a ship that suddenly disappeared while travelling the Indian Ocean. Being repeatedly arrested as stow-aways, they find out that ship's occupants keep repeating their actions, having no recollection of earlier encounters. The pair escape from the ship through a strange hatch plainly visible to them both but ignored by the crew and passengers. The Doctor and Jo venture through the circuitry of some sort of giant machine and arrive at marsh lands.

They soon discover that they are not outside but are still inside the machine. Chased by Drashigs, huge swamp-dwelling carnivores, they escape back into the circuitry. Here, the Doctor realises that they have materialised inside the compression field of a Miniscope, a machine that keeps miniaturised groups of creatures in miniaturised versions of their natural environments. The Time Lords have banned such machines but apparently one escaped. The Drashigs break into the circuitry and the Doctor and Jo flee back to the ship. They are separated in the confusion as the crew defend against the Drashigs.

The events inside the miniscope are intercut with events involving its owners, travelling showman Vorg and his assistant Shirna, who have just arrived at the planet of Inter Minor but are suspected of being spies and refused entrance by a three-member tribunal. The tribunal learns that objects removed from the machine soon return to their normal size when Vorg extracts a foreign object stuck in the circuitry - actually the TARDIS - from the machine. Two of the tribunal members dissatisfied with the leadership their planet, plot to let the Drashigs escape from the machine and allow them to wreak havoc, causing a crisis and the president's resignation.

Creeping through the machine's circuitry, the Doctor eventually finds a way to the real outside and is restored to normal size. He cooperates with a reluctant Vorg to return into the machine by a linking it with the TARDIS. After he goes back into the Scope, which is now overheating due to the Drashigs' damage, the device he attached is shot by a tribunal member and ceases to function, leaving the Doctor stranded. He finds Jo, but they collapse on the floor as the heat gets too much for them.

Two Drashigs escape, but Vorg manages to kill them by fixing the eradicator, sabotaged by the mutinous tribunal members. He then fixes the Doctor’s device, pushing the Phase Two switch which brings the Doctor and Jo back, just in time, and also returning all of the Scope’s other occupants to their rightful space-time positions.

As the penniless Vorg tries to get enough credit bars to return home by using the old three-magum-pods-and-a-yarrow-seed trick, the two travellers depart in the TARDIS.

Continuity

Production

Serial details by episode
Episode Broadcast date Run time Viewership
(in millions)
Archive
"Episode One" 27 January 1973 (1973-01-27) 24:46 9.5 PAL 2" colour videotape
"Episode Two" 3 February 1973 (1973-02-03) 24:11 9.0 PAL 2" colour videotape
"Episode Three" 10 February 1973 (1973-02-10) 24:49 9.0 PAL 2" colour videotape
"Episode Four" 17 February 1973 (1973-02-17) 24:10 9.2 PAL 2" colour videotape
[2][3][4]

Cast notes

Outside references

Believing the Doctor to be a showman like himself, Vorg attempts to speak to the Doctor in Polari, a cant slang common in circus showmen, the theatre and in gay subculture in Britain of the 1950s and 1960s, and popularised in the BBC Radio programme Round the Horne. The Doctor appears unable to understand Vorg, despite his usual ability with languages and the TARDIS's translation capabilities.

In print

Doctor Who book
Doctor Who and the Carnival of Monsters
Series Target novelisations
Release number 8
Writer Terrance Dicks
Publisher Target Books
Cover artist Chris Achilleos
ISBN 0-491-02114-3
Release date 20 January 1977
Preceded by '
Followed by '

A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in January 1977.

Broadcast, VHS and DVD releases

References

  1. ^ Golder, Dave (3 September 2010). "SFXclusive! Doctor Who Live: The Creators Speak". SFX. http://www.sfx.co.uk/2010/09/03/sfxclusive-doctor-who-live-the-creators-speak/. Retrieved 12 October 2010. 
  2. ^ Shaun Lyon et al. (31 March 2007). "Carnival of Monsters". Outpost Gallifrey. Archived from the original on 18 May 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080518101842/http://www.gallifreyone.com/episode.php?id=3p. Retrieved 30 August 2008. 
  3. ^ "Carnival of Monsters". Doctor Who Reference Guide. http://www.drwhoguide.com/who_3p.htm. Retrieved 30 August 2008. 
  4. ^ Sullivan, Shannon (7 August 2007). "Carnival of Monsters". A Brief History of Time Travel. http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/serials/ppp.html. Retrieved 30 August 2008. 
  5. ^ [Source DVD commentary]

External links

Target novelisation