- Carnival of Monsters
-
066 – Carnival of Monsters Doctor Who serial 
Major Daly trying to best a Drashig with a tommy gun.Cast Others- Michael Wisher — Kalik
- Terence Lodge — Orum
- Peter Halliday — Pletrac
- Leslie Dwyer — Vorg
- Cheryl Hall — Shirna
- Tenniel Evans — Major Daly
- Jenny McCracken — Claire Daly
- Ian Marter — Lt John Andrews
- Andrew Staines — Captain
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 a serial in 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 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 has 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
- The aliens on display in Vorg's miniscope include: Drashigs, Ogrons and Cybermen. This is only one of two times that the Cybermen appear during the Third Doctor's era (a hallucination of one appears in The Mind of Evil). He eventually meets the Cybermen in The Five Doctors.
- The 2010 arena show Doctor Who Live is a sequel to the serial starring Vorg's son, Vorgenson, and the Minimiser, a device similar to the Miniscope.[1]
Production
Serial details by episode Episode Broadcast date Run time Viewership
(in millions)Archive "Episode One" 27 January 1973 24:46 9.5 PAL 2" colour videotape "Episode Two" 3 February 1973 24:11 9.0 PAL 2" colour videotape "Episode Three" 10 February 1973 24:49 9.0 PAL 2" colour videotape "Episode Four" 17 February 1973 24:10 9.2 PAL 2" colour videotape [2][3][4] - Working titles for this story included Peepshow.
- This story was recorded as part of the production block for the previous season but deliberately held over for Season Ten: this was to enable Barry Letts to direct the production, since his role as producer would have made it difficult to do so at the start of a production block (as he had found out with Terror of the Autons).
- The titles for Carnival of Monsters were prepared, like Frontier in Space with a new arrangement of the theme music performed by Paddy Kingsland on a synthesizer. Known as the "Delaware" arrangement (the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was based on Delaware Road), it proved unpopular with BBC executives, so the original Delia Derbyshire theme was restored, and only appears on an uncorrected version of episode two that was shipped to Australia in error. This edit, which also featured a few extra scenes, was used in the 1995 VHS release. (The opening and closing title sequence versions of the theme has been included as an extra on the DVD release of the story. The original 2m 30sec theatrical release of this music was wiped many years ago.)
- The ship used was the RFA Robert Dundas which had been decommissioned and was scrapped immediately after filming. As the ship was actually in transit on its final voyage down the Medway River in Kent all external shots had to be filmed at a low angle or the banks of the estuary would have been visible.[5]
Cast notes
- Ian Marter would later play the Fourth Doctor companion, Harry Sullivan.
- Tenniel Evans was a long time co-star of Jon Pertwee in The Navy Lark.
- Michael Wisher had already appeared twice in 3rd Doctor stories and provided Dalek voices in others. He appeared with the 4th Doctor as Davros, the creator of the Daleks.
- Peter Halliday had appeared previously in the 2nd Doctor story The Invasion (Doctor Who) and would later appear as the blind vicar in the 7th Doctor story Remembrance of the Daleks.
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
A novelisation of this serial, written by Terrance Dicks, was published by Target Books in January 1977.
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 ' Broadcast, VHS and DVD releases
- When the serial was repeated on BBC2 in November 1981, daily, Monday-Thursday (16 November 1981 to 19 November 1981), at 5.40pm as part of "The Five Faces of Doctor Who", Barry Letts (then the series' Executive Producer) requested that the last few moments of episode 4 be edited to remove a shot where actor Peter Halliday's baldcap had slipped.
- This was released on VHS in 1995.
- This story was released on DVD in the United Kingdom on 15 June 2002, using the originally transmitted versions of episodes 2 and 4.
- This story was released on DVD in the United States on 1 July 2003.
- A special edition of the DVD was released in the United Kingdom on 28 March 2011.
References
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Carnival of Monsters". Doctor Who Reference Guide. http://www.drwhoguide.com/who_3p.htm. Retrieved 30 August 2008.
- ^ 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.
- ^ [Source DVD commentary]
External links
- Carnival of Monsters at BBC Online
- Carnival of Monsters at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
- Carnival of Monsters at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- Carnival of Monsters at the Internet Movie Database - 1999 documentary
- Carnival of Monsters on BBCWorldwideTV Youtube channel
- Carnival of Monsters reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide - fan review
- Target novelisation
- Doctor Who and the Carnival of Monsters reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
- On Target — Doctor Who and the Carnival of Monsters
Doctor Who season 10 serials - The Three Doctors
- Carnival of Monsters
- Frontier in Space
- Planet of the Daleks
- The Green Death
Doctor Who: Cybermen stories First Doctor Second Doctor Fourth Doctor Fifth Doctor Sixth Doctor Seventh Doctor Tenth Doctor Eleventh Doctor - "The Pandorica Opens"
- "Closing Time"
Torchwood Minor appearances - The War Games
- The Mind of Evil
- Carnival of Monsters
- Logopolis
- Mawdryn Undead
- "Dalek"
- "Human Nature"
- "A Good Man Goes to War"
Categories:- Third Doctor serials
- Doctor Who serials novelised by Terrance Dicks
- 1973 television episodes
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