Episode #66: Carnival of Monsters

"Would you kindly stop referring to me as "the creature", sir. Or I may well become exceedingly hostile!"

Episode 66:    Carnival of Monsters.
Companions:  3rd Doctor and Jo Grant.
Air Date:        Four episodes. 27th January to 17th February 1973.

The Doctor and Jo arrive on the SS Bernice, a cargo ship crossing the Indian Ocean. Things are not what they seem. A monster appears in the sea, events repeat themselves and a giant hand steals the TARDIS. Investigation reveals they are inside a miniscope, an alien peepshow sporting numerous miniaturised environments, which showman Vorg and his assistant Shirna have brought to amuse the populace of the planet Inter Minor.

The Doctor has been freed of his exile and takes Jo out into time and space, ending up not on the beautiful blue planet of Metabelis III but shrunken down inside a miniscope. Carnival of Monsters is quite a good and well done story. Part of it, I am sure is just the relief of getting away from UNIT's Earth based stories and back out into outer space. But, saying that, this story weaves a great tale that moves you from the deck of cargo ship, to a swamp filled with carnivorous drashigs, and deals with a pair of carnival style showmen. Plus, it features a dinosaur and you can't argue with that.

A crewman on the SS Bernice is played by Ian Marter, who would go on to play Harry Sullivan, a companion of the 4th Doctor.

Speaking of the SS Bernice, we have a sense here once again of time being something fluid. When they land on the ship and the Doctor realises where they are, he tells Jo that the disappearance of the ship is almost as famous as that of the Marie Celeste (see The Chase). However, at the end of the story, the ship sis sent back to where and when it came from, so unless something did happen to it in the Indian Ocean, it arrived safe and sound. So how did the Doctor know it had vanished? Sometimes thinking this stuff through can give you a headache.