Carnival of Monsters - Episode 3

The beginning part of this episode feels like a narration between Vorg and the grey people. They talk for a bit and then we cut away to the location stuff. This ends relatively quickly and the story goes off into its various plot strands and this is where I feel that for the first time the story has really found its feet because both sides of the story are just as good as the other.

The stuff that takes place on the SS Bernice is all very good and at least we get them to say something different instead of the repetitive dialogue that they have had to say for the previous two episodes. I still chuckle at myself thinking about the previous episode where Ian Marter and Jon Pertwee are doing that silly boxing bit. Despite these characters seemingly have come from an episode of Upstairs Downstairs, I still think that they are quite entertaining and don’t get annoyed by their presence.

The grey people (I can’t be bothered to find out their proper name) are a bit more interesting than they have been before now. Michael Wisher and Peter Halliday make these roles far more watchable than they otherwise would have been. Halliday is always a reliable performance and every time I think of him I think of Packer from ‘The Invasion’ which will always be his best performance. Wisher also gives a sound performance but unlike Halliday, his best performance is yet to come. The problem that they have is that the grey makeup is not very good. It’s hard to look at them without looking for where the face-paint stops just around the eyes and mouth. It does ruin it somewhat.

The Drashig’s make quite an impact in this episode and even when they are on dodgy CSO shots towards the end, they are still an effective creature. Their best moment comes I think when they are breaking through the ship and one breaks through what must be the cargo bay roof and roars and even though its CSO, its looks rather good and makes up for the poor CSO that we saw moments earlier (just about). I’m still not won over by CSO and even when you take away using 2014 standards to measure the effects, the CSO was never going to be a success and Barry Letts really should have tried for something different.

The cliffhanger is rather good as it shows Jon Pertwee stumbling out of the scope machine and then collapsing. It’s the perfect balance between putting the leads characters in a position of peril but not deadly peril as I always think that’s its rubbish because you know that Jon Pertwee and Katy Manning are going to make it. Anyway I found the story to be far more interesting this time and I think that the final episode will be a good way to end a story which has improved in my opinion.