Plot:
Three squabbling bureaucrats on a once isolationist planet review the case of the first ever economic migrants who’ve just arrived: a pair of carnival entertainers with a device called a miniscope. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Jo find themselves off course, arriving on what seems like a perfectly normal ship bound for Bombay in 1926. But the passengers and crew are reliving the same few minutes over and over again, including an attack from a prehistoric and anachronistic sea monster. The TARDIS has materialised inside the scope, which is a miniaturised Zoo slash structured reality series, with specimens/housemates including that shipful of humans, a Cyberman, an Ogron, and a colony of Drashigs - fearsome predators who chase the time travellers through the works of the device, causing havoc. The Doctor escapes from the miniscope, goes back to his normal size, returns the scope’s inhabitants to their correct times and places, and – somewhat in passing – quashes the treasonous plans of one of the bureaucrats.
Context:
Back to random selection: the whole family (me, better half and three kids – boy of 9, boy of 6, girl of 3) sat round and watched the Special Edition Re-visited DVD over two nights, two episodes a night. This was accomplished in an atmosphere of silent appreciative concentration from all. Wow.
First-time round:
First-time round:
Starved of adequate TV (more on that to come), I stumbled across this season just after it had got underway and found myself watching a black-and-white adventure show about cavemen. I couldn’t have known it then, but this was the first ever Doctor Who story, An Unearthly Child, midway through episode 3. I tuned in the next day, and the next week, and thereafter I was hooked. Carnival of Monsters was the third offering, so was only the second complete story I ever watched, and the first in colour.
Reaction:
There’s a theory that Doctor Who, the supposedly ever-changing format, will never be as good or as ‘right’ as when you first watch. ‘Your’ Doctor will always be better than the next one when he or she comes along. ‘My’ Doctor was the first five chaps (more on that to come), so I’ve never really had a problem with change; but, I may have excess love for stories like Carnival of Monsters, as they were the first ones I ever saw. As such, when I was rewatching this time, I was trying my hardest to step away from that residual nostalgia and review it cold. But that extended silence that met its airing, from my usually noisy and distracted family, is a very good indicator. It’s brilliant.
Most of the brilliance comes courtesy of the writer, Robert Holmes. This is presumably the story Producer Barry Letts had particularly in mind when he said that Holmes was good enough to be doing serious TV plays of the week as well as genre television: a high concept piece with a hard kernel of seriousness under its playful day-glo exterior. Despite its meta claim that it is “simply to amuse, nothing serious, nothing political”, Carnival of Monsters shares themes with more famously metaphorical The Curse of Peladon, inspired by - still relevant now - issues of the UK joining up with a supranational community: isolation / strength versus compromise / unity. Whereas the Peladon stories were pretty heavy-handed, Holmes uses this theme for character motivation and world creation, sketching it in with only a few deft strokes.
The script is rich with wit and depth, and replete with fully-formed characters. Letts also deserves kudos for this; it’s maybe his best direction of actors for Who. One can feel the sheer rehearsal glowing off the screen: Vorg and Shirna click and spark like a double act; Kalik, Orum and Pletrac feel like they’ve been bickering for years of unseen backstory. At the climax, when the SS Bernice’s crew and passengers collapse as the scope dies, it is affecting in a way that transcends any tatty décor or wonky visual effect.
The regulars are well served too; Pertwee is at his least uncharming here, and Jo is clever and resourceful. Maybe this is the feeling of the show breathing clean air again; after years being cooped up on Earth, this is their first voyage of freedom into the unknown. There’s a lovely look of disappointment from the Doctor in the final episode when he realises that even after getting control of the TARDIS back, he still can’t steer it, and has ended up not on Metebelis 3, but planet Vote Leave instead.
Connectivity:
There’s a theory that Doctor Who, the supposedly ever-changing format, will never be as good or as ‘right’ as when you first watch. ‘Your’ Doctor will always be better than the next one when he or she comes along. ‘My’ Doctor was the first five chaps (more on that to come), so I’ve never really had a problem with change; but, I may have excess love for stories like Carnival of Monsters, as they were the first ones I ever saw. As such, when I was rewatching this time, I was trying my hardest to step away from that residual nostalgia and review it cold. But that extended silence that met its airing, from my usually noisy and distracted family, is a very good indicator. It’s brilliant.
The script is rich with wit and depth, and replete with fully-formed characters. Letts also deserves kudos for this; it’s maybe his best direction of actors for Who. One can feel the sheer rehearsal glowing off the screen: Vorg and Shirna click and spark like a double act; Kalik, Orum and Pletrac feel like they’ve been bickering for years of unseen backstory. At the climax, when the SS Bernice’s crew and passengers collapse as the scope dies, it is affecting in a way that transcends any tatty décor or wonky visual effect.
The regulars are well served too; Pertwee is at his least uncharming here, and Jo is clever and resourceful. Maybe this is the feeling of the show breathing clean air again; after years being cooped up on Earth, this is their first voyage of freedom into the unknown. There’s a lovely look of disappointment from the Doctor in the final episode when he realises that even after getting control of the TARDIS back, he still can’t steer it, and has ended up not on Metebelis 3, but planet Vote Leave instead.
Connectivity:
Both Heaven Sent and Carnival of Monsters place the Doctor into an enclosed environment where events repeat in a cycle.
Deeper Thoughts:
New Faces, Old Faces. When I was a young boy, I peered through a crack in the door of my parents’ bedroom one evening, to see a frightful sight that was to terrify me for some time to come. At that moment, I didn’t fully know what I’d seen but I later worked out what it was: Nightmare of Eden episode 3.
The theme tune freaked me out, and as if that wasn’t enough a little miniature tin horse was rolling around spitting out fire and killing people; I ran off after only a minute, thinking I’d never watch this scary programme ever again. As well as I can calculate, that was the first Doctor Who I ever saw. After that, I caught the odd glimpse before switching over to ITV – bits of Full Circle and The Keeper of Traken in Tom’s final series, for example – but by the final months of 1981, that was all.
On the 4th November 1981, I was at my maternal grandparents’ house, just round the corner from our place in Durrington-on-Sea, West Sussex. I was nine years old, the same age as my eldest boy is now. We’d always go round with Mum to Nana and Grandad’s for tea after school. Dad worked in London so wasn’t ever back until what seemed like the middle of the night, but probably was around the time that I get home now from my daily commute (pause for a pang of existential angst while Circle of Life from The Lion King plays in my head).
You can picture what kind of boy I was in those days, and you’d probably picture right: I collected stamps, organised school football tournaments rather than play in them, and tracked the results of cup matches on a chart rather than watch the games. I didn’t get glasses or a school briefcase until much later, but they were there in spirit. And I was obsessed with television. I watched a lot, memorised schedules, read Look-In; my sister still calls me Mike Teavee.
One of the reasons for the attraction of the medium was scarcity. With only three channels and no satellite, cable, VCRs, PVRs, computers or tablets, the good shows were like diamonds, and there was an ever present danger that one would run out of things to watch. Kids telly on BBC1 went on until about half five. The programme after John Craven’s Newsround was usually decent – it would have been something like Screen Test or Jigsaw in 1981, great shows – but that was your lot. After that, it was a lull filled with dull things for grown-ups before the sit-coms and game shows started later. It always felt half an hour too early to finish with the good stuff. News at six, fair enough, but half-five should be for fun. (I clearly wasn’t the only one who thought this – later in the 80s, the slot would be filled with funner things like Fax, Go For It, Masterteam, and eventually, and for a long time after, it was the evening Neighbours slot).
Desperate for something to watch, and banished to the spare room and its portable set, while the adults watched Nationwide in the living room, I flipped channels and found the aforementioned caveman adventure. It had started before I switched on, vaulting me over the issue of the theme tune. I don’t even know if I realised it was Doctor Who immediately – at that time, I was always finding enjoyable old monochrome films nestling in the schedules, including examples of Saturday morning film series, like The Batman or Buck Rogers, which were the inspiration for Doctor Who’s episodic structure. If I took it as one of those at first, it would explain how I came to be rapidly hooked on something which a couple of years previously had scared me witless. Or maybe scared and hooked are not so different.
John Nathan-Turner could have gone a different way; arguably, he should have. Only a year on from taking over as producer – when he’d made many, many efforts to make the show seem new - he was now trotting out a load of repeats that accentuated its heritage, maybe hastening the eventual perception in some quarters that it was an old show past its prime. Had he held his nerve, I might have missed Doctor Who altogether. Yes, I may have caught the next series on weekday evenings, while waiting for those sit-coms and game shows to come on. But then again, I would have missed the first episode of Davison because of cubs, so maybe starting with episode two would not have seemed worth it. The TARDIS would have sailed on past me and off into infinity.
It’s no exaggeration to state that the rest of my life would have been very different. But, seeing as I’ve enjoyed it, more or less, I’ll have to say a thank you to Carnival of Monsters and the four other stories, and here’s to producers not keeping their nerve. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
In Summary:
New Faces, Old Faces. When I was a young boy, I peered through a crack in the door of my parents’ bedroom one evening, to see a frightful sight that was to terrify me for some time to come. At that moment, I didn’t fully know what I’d seen but I later worked out what it was: Nightmare of Eden episode 3.
The theme tune freaked me out, and as if that wasn’t enough a little miniature tin horse was rolling around spitting out fire and killing people; I ran off after only a minute, thinking I’d never watch this scary programme ever again. As well as I can calculate, that was the first Doctor Who I ever saw. After that, I caught the odd glimpse before switching over to ITV – bits of Full Circle and The Keeper of Traken in Tom’s final series, for example – but by the final months of 1981, that was all.On the 4th November 1981, I was at my maternal grandparents’ house, just round the corner from our place in Durrington-on-Sea, West Sussex. I was nine years old, the same age as my eldest boy is now. We’d always go round with Mum to Nana and Grandad’s for tea after school. Dad worked in London so wasn’t ever back until what seemed like the middle of the night, but probably was around the time that I get home now from my daily commute (pause for a pang of existential angst while Circle of Life from The Lion King plays in my head).
You can picture what kind of boy I was in those days, and you’d probably picture right: I collected stamps, organised school football tournaments rather than play in them, and tracked the results of cup matches on a chart rather than watch the games. I didn’t get glasses or a school briefcase until much later, but they were there in spirit. And I was obsessed with television. I watched a lot, memorised schedules, read Look-In; my sister still calls me Mike Teavee.
One of the reasons for the attraction of the medium was scarcity. With only three channels and no satellite, cable, VCRs, PVRs, computers or tablets, the good shows were like diamonds, and there was an ever present danger that one would run out of things to watch. Kids telly on BBC1 went on until about half five. The programme after John Craven’s Newsround was usually decent – it would have been something like Screen Test or Jigsaw in 1981, great shows – but that was your lot. After that, it was a lull filled with dull things for grown-ups before the sit-coms and game shows started later. It always felt half an hour too early to finish with the good stuff. News at six, fair enough, but half-five should be for fun. (I clearly wasn’t the only one who thought this – later in the 80s, the slot would be filled with funner things like Fax, Go For It, Masterteam, and eventually, and for a long time after, it was the evening Neighbours slot).
Desperate for something to watch, and banished to the spare room and its portable set, while the adults watched Nationwide in the living room, I flipped channels and found the aforementioned caveman adventure. It had started before I switched on, vaulting me over the issue of the theme tune. I don’t even know if I realised it was Doctor Who immediately – at that time, I was always finding enjoyable old monochrome films nestling in the schedules, including examples of Saturday morning film series, like The Batman or Buck Rogers, which were the inspiration for Doctor Who’s episodic structure. If I took it as one of those at first, it would explain how I came to be rapidly hooked on something which a couple of years previously had scared me witless. Or maybe scared and hooked are not so different. John Nathan-Turner could have gone a different way; arguably, he should have. Only a year on from taking over as producer – when he’d made many, many efforts to make the show seem new - he was now trotting out a load of repeats that accentuated its heritage, maybe hastening the eventual perception in some quarters that it was an old show past its prime. Had he held his nerve, I might have missed Doctor Who altogether. Yes, I may have caught the next series on weekday evenings, while waiting for those sit-coms and game shows to come on. But then again, I would have missed the first episode of Davison because of cubs, so maybe starting with episode two would not have seemed worth it. The TARDIS would have sailed on past me and off into infinity.
It’s no exaggeration to state that the rest of my life would have been very different. But, seeing as I’ve enjoyed it, more or less, I’ll have to say a thank you to Carnival of Monsters and the four other stories, and here’s to producers not keeping their nerve. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
In Summary:
Devices showing moving pictures of monsters could very well change your life.
