Carnival of Monsters
Encyclopedia
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.
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 Lord
s 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.
, 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.
, was published by Target Books
in January 1977.
Target novelisation
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
science fiction television series Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 27 January to 17 February 1973.
It was also the title of a 1999 BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
documentary looking at some of the adversaries that the Doctor had faced in the programme.
Plot
The TARDISTARDIS
The TARDISGenerally, TARDIS is written in all upper case letters—this convention was popularised by the Target novelisations of the 1970s...
misses Metebelis Three and materialises on
SS Bernice, a ship that suddenly disappeared while travelling the Indian Ocean
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...
. 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 Lord
Time Lord
The Time Lords are an ancient extraterrestrial race and civilization of humanoids in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, of which the series' eponymous protagonist, the Doctor, is a member...
s 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
Shell game
The shell game is portrayed as a gambling game, but in reality, when a wager for money is made, it is a confidence trick used to perpetrate fraud...
, the two travellers depart in the TARDIS.
Continuity
- The aliens on display in Vorg's miniscope include: Drashigs, OgronOgronOgrons are a fictional extraterrestrial race from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The name may be derived from the mythological ogres....
s and CybermenCybermanThe Cybermen are a fictional race of cyborgs who are amongst the most persistent enemies of the Doctor in the British science fiction television series, Doctor Who. Cybermen were originally a wholly organic species of humanoids originating on Earth's twin planet Mondas that began to implant more...
. 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 EvilThe Mind of EvilThe Mind of Evil is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from 30 January to 6 March 1971.-Plot:...
). He eventually meets the Cybermen in The Five DoctorsThe Five DoctorsThe Five Doctors is a special feature-length episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, produced in celebration of the programme's twentieth anniversary. It had its world premiere in the United States, on the Chicago PBS station WTTW and various other PBS member stations...
. - The 2010 arena show Doctor Who LiveDoctor Who LiveDoctor Who Live is an arena stage show based on the BBC TV programme Doctor Who.-Plot:The live show is an implied sequel to the 1973 Doctor Who television episode Carnival of Monsters...
is a sequel to the serial starring Vorg's son, Vorgenson, and the Minimiser, a device similar to the Miniscope.
Production
- 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 AutonsTerror of the AutonsTerror of the Autons is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, broadcast in four weekly parts from 2 to 23 January 1971...
). - The titles for Carnival of Monsters were prepared, like Frontier in SpaceFrontier in SpaceFrontier in Space is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from February 24 to March 31, 1973...
with a new arrangement of the theme music performed by Paddy Kingsland on a synthesizer. Known as the "Delaware" arrangement (the BBC Radiophonic WorkshopBBC Radiophonic WorkshopThe BBC Radiophonic Workshop, one of the sound effects units of the BBC, was created in 1958 to produce effects and new music for radio, and was closed in March 1998, although much of its traditional work had already been outsourced by 1995. It was based in the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in Delaware...
was based on Delaware Road), it proved unpopular with BBC executives, so the original Delia DerbyshireDelia DerbyshireDelia Ann Derbyshire was an English musician and composer of electronic music and musique concrète. She is best known for her electronic realisation of Ron Grainer's theme music to the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and for her work with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.-Early...
theme was restored, and only appears on an uncorrected version of episode two that was shipped to AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in error. This edit, which also featured a few extra scenes, was used in the 1995 VHSVHSThe Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
release. (The opening and closing title sequence versions of the theme has been included as an extra on the DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
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 DundasRFA Robert Dundas (A204)RFA Robert Dundas was the lead ship of her class of coastal stores carriers of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary.Launched on 28 July 1938, the Robert Dundas was commissioned on 10 November 1938, and served until decommissioned on 8 December 1971. Laid up at Chatham, the ship arrived Grays, Essex, for...
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.
Cast notes
- Ian Marter would later play the Fourth DoctorFourth DoctorThe Fourth Doctor is the fourth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC British television science-fiction series Doctor Who....
companion, Harry SullivanHarry SullivanHarry Sullivan is a fictional character from the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who and is a companion of the Fourth Doctor...
. - Tenniel Evans was a long time co-star of Jon Pertwee in The Navy LarkThe Navy LarkThe Navy Lark was a radio sit-com about life aboard a British Royal Navy frigate named HMS Troutbridge, based in HMNB Portsmouth, though in series 1 and 2 the ship and crew were stationed offshore at an unnamed location known simply as "The Island." In series 2 this island was revealed to be...
. - Michael Wisher had already appeared twice in 3rd Doctor stories and provided Dalek voices in others. He appeared with the 4th Doctor as DavrosDavrosDavros is a character from the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Davros is an archenemy of the Doctor and is the creator of the Doctor's deadliest enemies, the Daleks...
, the creator of the Daleks. - Peter Halliday had appeared previously in the 2nd Doctor story The Invasion (Doctor Who)The Invasion (Doctor Who)The Invasion is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in eight weekly parts from 2 November to 21 December 1968...
and would later appear as the blind vicar in the 7th Doctor story Remembrance of the DaleksRemembrance of the DaleksRemembrance of the Daleks is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 5 October to 26 October 1988....
.
Outside references
Believing the Doctor to be a showman like himself, Vorg attempts to speak to the Doctor in PolariPolari
Polari is a form of cant slang used in Britain by actors, circus and fairground showmen, criminals, prostitutes, and by the gay subculture. It was popularised in the 1960s by camp characters Julian and Sandy in the popular BBC radio show Round the Horne...
, a cant
Cant (language)
A Cant is the jargon or argot of a group, often implying its use to exclude or mislead people outside the group.-Derivation in Celtic linguistics:...
slang common in circus showmen, the theatre and in gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
subculture
Subculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
in Britain of the 1950s and 1960s, and popularised in the BBC Radio programme Round the Horne
Round the Horne
Round the Horne was a BBC Radio comedy programme, transmitted in four series of weekly episodes from 1965 until 1968. The series was created by Barry Took and Marty Feldman - with others contributing to later series after Feldman returned to performing — and starred Kenneth Horne, with Kenneth...
. 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 DicksTerrance Dicks
Terrance Dicks is an English writer, best known for his work in television and for writing a large number of popular children's books during the 1970s and 80s.- Early career :...
, was published by Target Books
Target Books
Target Books was a British publishing imprint, established in 1973 by Universal-Tandem Publishing Co Ltd, a paperback publishing company. The imprint was established as a children's imprint to complement the adult Tandem imprint, and became well known for their highly successful range of...
in January 1977.
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 VHSVHSThe Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
in 1995. - This story was released on DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in the United Kingdom on 15 June 2002, using the originally transmitted versions of episodes 2 and 4. - This story was released on DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in the United States on 1 July 2003. - A special edition of the DVD was released in the United Kingdom on 28 March 2011.
External links
- 1999 documentary- Carnival of Monsters on BBCWorldwideTVBBC WorldwideBBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...
YoutubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
channel - fan review
Target novelisation