Carnival of Monsters

It is another four-parter and by Jove, they rush by in comparison with some of the recent six parters.

The Doctor, his ability to hop about the universe restored by grateful Time Lords* at the end of The Three Doctors is supposed to be taking Jo to Metabelis Three but materializes on board what appears to be a ship making its way to Bombay. The Doctor's not convinced it is Earth - although Jo just thinks he's covering for his mistake. However, the Doctor turns out to be right. The passengers and the crew of the SS Bernice repeat the same behavior over and over again and then the Doctor notices a rather bizarre addition to the floor...it turns out that they are trapped in a Miniscope.

Meanwhile, outside the Miniscope it's owner, a traveling showman called Vorg (Leslie Dwyer) & his charming lady assistant Shirna (Cheryl Hall) are trying to convince a trio of stuffy Inter Minorians (Kalik, Orum, and Pletrac - a pre-Davros, post-Farrel Michael Wisher; Terence Lodge and Peter 'Packer' Halliday) to admit them and their Miniscope for entertainment purposes.

The Doctor and Jo clamber about the insides of the machine - a quite impressive set - before stumbling across the unpleasantly carnivorous and persistent Drashigs.

Will the Doctor and Jo escape the Miniscope? Will Kalik's devious plan to overthrow his brother the President succeed? Will the Drashigs eat everyone and everything?

Yes, No and No.

It's all frothy fun. The Doctor gets to do some nice moral high grounding over Miniscopes and tell us of his and the Time Lord's role in banning them. The scenes involving Kalik, Orum, and Pletrac are all nicely played and all three actors put in lovely, fussy performances.

In fact, the strength of this story is its cast. There are good performances from the crew and passengers of the SS Bernice, which includes Pertwee's mate from the Navy Lark Tenniel Evans; a pre-Harry Sullivan Ian Marter and Jenny McCracken. Leslie Dwyer and Cheryl Hall do a fine job too, especially Dwyer's playing of the moments where Vorg changes attitude mid-sentence but I think the acting prizes go to the Three Stooges: Wisher, Lodge and Halliday.

So not a hugely deep or important story but a lot of nice stuff. I've heard it suggested that this is Robert Holmes' commentary on Doctor Who itself, with Vorg's line about it being 'just entertainment...nothing political' is a highlight in this regard. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't but it feels like we've earnt a bit of light-heartedness. For the record, my favorite line is Vorg's: "The generators were built by the old Eternity Perpetual company. They were designed to last forever; that's why the company went bankrupt."

* And probably a grateful production team