User Reviews

Part one appeals to me in the exact same way that bith Android invasion and Invasion of the Dinosaurs do, it's an episode that gives you a great deal of mystery, some toyally bizarre events are happening, and you need more to see what's happening.

There are.some terrific characters Vorg and Shirna, what a fun, comical duo they are, seemingly just there for a flight of fancy, but obviously they have more going on then appears on the surface. I also loved the Major, truly a character from another time. When isn't it nice to see Ian Marter on screen?

The effects are a mixed bag, but decent for the time I guess. One amusing scene, where one of the locals is trying hard to keep his mask on.

Plenty of fun, 8/10

Review of all 4 episodes:

The ideas for this story are very good with plenty of interesting and exciting elements. It is not always fully successful in presenting these ideas so is not one of the greatest serials but it is great fun and very good. All 4 episodes are very satisfactory but could have been greater with a little more cleverness in the presentation. Even with the imperfections in execution this is still good quality and a lot of fun.

The effects are not great but I do not judge that too harshly as it was OK for the day. The costumes, make-up and sets/equipment is more problematic to me, it is like a premonition of the mid 80s serials with these gaudy, over the top and unimpressive elements but the story, script and acting are all strong enough which is the main thing and overcomes visual shortcomings.

The story involves The Doctor having been given back his power to travel through space and time unhindered by the Time Lords. He and Jo then find the TARDIS has landed aboard the S.S. Bernice, an early 20th Century ship but finding that events keep repeating in a loop. Meanwhile we see a pair of travelling entertainers arriving on a distant planet in the future where they encounter a hostile reception from the ruling class of alien beings. These two seemingly unconnected story lines are revealed to be very much linked.

The interest of the two apparently unrelated story lines and the mysterious repeating of events aboard the ship are a great idea and the script is very good. The first episode is the best in my opinion as this mystery element is great. The appearance and actions of the travelling entertainers is a bit over the top and a slight let down for me as are some of the design aspects throughout the story. The alien beings two classes both look pretty unconvincing and also provide a strangely unresolved moral element as the seemingly cruel oppression of the servant beings is inexplicably ignored. These faults stop the adventure from reaching its potential but there is still good material to make it a very decent, enjoyable story overall. There is lots of nice dialogue, interesting characters, Pertwee and Manning in great form as The Doctor and Jo and a story which is good.

My ratings: Part 1 - 8.5/10, Part 2 - 8/10, Part 3 - 7.5/10, Part 4 - 8/10. Overall - 8/10.

This serial marks the first occasion on which the Third Doctor is allowed to pilot the TARDIS under his own control. (For the reasons why he was exiled from Earth, and why his exile was eventually ended, see earlier episodes). Of course he ends up somewhere he did not expect to be; the Doctor losing control of the TARDIS was a common plot device in his adventures. At first he and Jo believe that they are still on Earth, to be precise on board a ship crossing the Indian Ocean in the year 1926. It soon transpires, however, that they are indeed on an alien planet, if not the one they were aiming for. They have actually materialised inside a miniscope, a machine that keeps miniaturised creatures, including humans, in miniaturised versions of their natural environments, and hence functions as a sort of miniature zoo. This miniscope has been transported by its owner, an interplanetary travelling showman named Vorg, to the planet Inter Minor.

One strand of the plot deals with the attempts of the Doctor and Jo to escape from the miniscope. The other strand deals with political intrigues on Inter Minor. The inhabitants of this planet are a race of grey-skinned beings who also dress all in grey and (if the ones we see here are a representative sample) have a rigid, pedantic, rule-bound bureaucratic mentality and a deep distrust of outsiders. Two members of the planet's ruling elite try to engineer the escape from the machine of the Drashigs, ferocious carnivorous monsters, hoping thereby to provoke a political crisis and the overthrow of the planet's President, whom they despise as too liberal.

The serial was written by Robert Holmes, who often tried to introduce some of his own political and ethical ideas into the programme. As in the Fourth Doctor adventure "The Sun Makers" he uses sci-fi as a vehicle to satirise British politics, and as in "The Two Doctors", which contained some pretty overt vegetarian propaganda, there is a clear "animal rights" agenda. The concept of the miniscope is used to ask questions about the ethics of keeping animals in zoos.

The special effects are not always convincing, especially during the scene in which the ship is attacked by a giant plesiosaur. (The miniscope can, apparently, bring together creatures from different periods in a planet's geological history). Few people, however, would watch the series for the sake of its special effects, and it must be said that the Drashigs are actually quite effective, a welcome addition to the gallery of "Doctor Who" monsters. Jon Pertwee is on top form and there are some well-realised minor characters, such as Leslie Dwyer's rascally Vorg. The plot is a complex one, but never difficult to follow, and Holmes's thought-provoking ideas add interest to the script. I have long thought that the Third Doctor's era was something of a golden age for "Doctor Who" and "Carnival of Monsters" is well up to standard.

Review of the Complete Story:

CARNIVAL OF MONSTERS is a real mixed bag serial from Jon Pertwee's tenure as the Doctor. The narrative involves a dual storyline in which the Doctor and Jo end up on a 1920s-era cruise ship only to find themselves trapped in a time loop where events keep repeating themselves (as in the recent film TRIANGLE). Meanwhile, aliens on a distant planet find themselves at the mercy of a pair of entertainers who have a new type of 'carnival' on offer.

The initial storyline, with the Doctor and Jo on the ship, is a decent piece for Who. The special effects are cheap and cheerful, with a plethora of rubbery monsters wreaking havoc and some choice dialogue between the characters. Unfortunately it's the alien stuff where this falls apart, as it feels like a spoofy pantomime-level thing at best, similar to in the Sylvester McCoy-era story, THE GREATEST SHOW IN THE GALAXY.

The ubiquitous Leslie Dwyer makes an appearance as a flamboyant character but there are no others of note here and the grey-faced aliens are a real bore to boot. The whole miniaturised theme is rather silly with some LAND OF THE GIANTS-style special effects thrown in. Unfortunately it's not really all that successful, making this more of a curiosity piece than anything else, mildly entertaining at best.