Carnival of Monsters - Episode 1

So this is the first story since the Doctor was given his freedom by the Timelords and the celebrate this important event we are first introduced to grey people standing in front of CSO which means their bodies disappear from time to time. As you can probably tell I am not a massive fan of this adventure and whilst I was hoping that I would think differently of this story, it doesn’t take long for my opinion to be kept as it was.

We get our first mention of Metablias III in this episode which will be a recurring theme during this period of Pertwee’s tenure. The running gag of the Doctor trying to get the TARDIS to land there is quite amusing here because it just shows that when he’s allowed to go where he wants, he lands it in the wrong place. This is also the first time that Ian Marter who plays Lieutenant Andrew’s in this story. It’s a world away from Harry Sullivan and not as good. That said I think that anything with Ian Marter is worth a watch and gets to be fairly heroic trying to defend a lady.

When the story is with the Doctor and Jo and the SS Bernice, then I am interested because I find the relationship between Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning to be thoroughly entertaining and even the supporting characters on the SS Bernice to be fun and interesting. Sadly when the story goes back to the grey people then I start to lose the will to live. This is because nothing happens and all the characters are rather bland. I just don’t care about any of them and that’s the main problem.

The location work is quite good even though its just on a ship. Barry Letts is using some interesting angles to hide the fact that the ship isn’t actually moving and this helps make these scenes work. Sadly that’s all the location stuff that we get and after getting quite a lot in the previous story, it’s a shame that were forced to endure studio and CSO work.

In stats information, this is Barry Letts’ 77^th episode as producer meaning he is tied with Innes Lloyd and is nine episode behind Verity Lambert. In directing terms this is his 11^th episode and it’s a shame that Barry Letts and Robert Holmes’ names are attached to this story. The problem with this episode is that after following the wonderful ‘The Three Doctors’ , this story feels rather flat and is a mixed bag and the good stuff makes it watchable and at least its only four episodes long instead of six so we have to be grateful for small mercies.