Carnival of Monsters as a throwback to the early 1960s
In many ways, Carnival of Monsters is the model Doctor Who story. It has an excellent opening episode, with the mystery of the strange goings-on aboard the SS Bernice and their apparent lack of connection with the other, alien world strand of the story culminating in a wonderful piece of visual storytelling at the climax. This cliffhanger is a masterpiece of its kind, not only resolving parts of the mystery but escalating the peril and pushing the story forwards.
The later episodes have well-realised monsters in the Drashigs, some excellent and imaginative sets, and a uniformly impressive guest cast playing a raft of colourful – or amusingly, intentionally drab – characters. It’s certainly amongst Robert Holmes’s finest scripts for the series.
Coming immediately after the Earth-exile run of stories, it’s noticeable just how strongly Carnival of Monsters conforms to a much earlier conception of the series, not least in giving the third Doctor his first entirely random landing. In many ways it’s reminiscent of an ambitious Hartnell story: the first episode is solely concerned with the TARDIS travellers exploring a new and mysterious environment; later there’s a hint of education about science (flammable marsh gas) and historical culture (1920s ‘flappers’ and British colonialism); and there’s even a spot of moral indignation for the Doctor. It’s easy to imagine Hartnell railing against the existence of the miniscope.
The early mysteries and outlandish premise evoke the stranger Hartnell tales, like The Edge of Destruction and The Space Museum. Carnival of Monsters could almost be one of the ‘sideways’ stories which original story editor David Whitaker proposed would alternate with ‘past’ and ‘future’ stories when outlining a structure for season one.
In the early planning for Doctor Who first episodes, miniaturisation was a popular story theme, although it took until 1964’s Planet of Giants to reach the screen. At an even earlier stage in its development, Doctor Who co-creator Donald Wilson had suggested that the machine that would become the TARDIS should not only move in time and space but also “into all kinds of matter (e.g. a drop of oil, a molecule, under the ocean, etc.).” Although it’s coincidental, these concepts recur in Carnival of Monsters, with the miniaturised TARDIS arriving inside a piece of advanced technology, albeit with added “BEMs” [Bug-Eyed Monsters] of which the other co-creator, Sydney Newman, would certainly have disapproved.
The Doctor’s frustrating failure to acknowledge that he and Jo could have arrived in a time before the Time Lords had enacted their miniscope ban is reminiscent of the Hartnell years’ sometimes uneasy relationship with the implications of time travel and cause-and-effect in stories set away from recognisable moments in Earth’s history. It’s as if the production team here are so thrilled to finally be free of the Earth-based format that they have forgotten that time travel was also a core element of the series’ remit.
It’s also notable that in Carnival of Monsters the Doctor solves a short-term local problem, rather than bringing about large-scale change, as in the series’ earliest seasons. Here, he defeats no aliens and isn’t required to save the galaxy or even the world. For most of the story he is simply trying to save himself and his companion from immediate threats, much like in Robert Holmes’s later The Caves of Androzani. It is Vorg who is left to defend Inter Minor from the escaped Drashigs, although the Doctor does manage to repatriate the miniscope’s exhibits in the nick of time.
There’s nothing wrong with this more small-scale threat, but it is unusual just how isolated the Doctor is from the wider world the story inhabits. Look at how part one goes to pains to show that Inter Minor has a two-tier society: the unnamed ruling class, represented by the tribunal, and the underling Functionaries. The Functionaries are treated as slaves and, despite apparently low intelligence, at least some of them are aware of the injustice of their oppression, with one shown to be shot down when he dares ascend to a (physically and symbolically) higher level.
Is Holmes suggesting a caste system or colonial-style oppression on this world as a parallel to that of the British Raj as referenced on the SS Bernice? Aboard ship there are patronising and disparaging comments about Indians, and Major Daley remarks “he is a Sahib after all”, pointing out that the Doctor is one of their white ruling class.
But far from this being a society ready for regime change following the Doctor’s intervention, as some fan commentators have suggested, Inter Minor is already slowly reforming under an enlightened and liberal (by local standards) ruler. The dialogue refers to President Zarb opening up the boarders and easing restrictive laws, to the disapproval of the reactionary and xenophobic tribunal. There’s also a reference to a council, suggesting some form of parliament rather than a dictatorship.
This political background on Inter Minor merely serves to motivate Kalik and Orum into revolution against their progressive leader, which is actually only a minor plot point in aiding the Drashigs’ escape. But if all this backstory adds little to the main thrust of the plot, it greatly fleshes out the backdrop, making for a believable society against which the story can play out, helping to hold the viewer’s interest.
Effective yet economical worldbuilding like this is one of Holmes’s particular strengths. Again, we can see a point of similarity with The Caves of Androzani. The events of both occur against a backdrop of the political intrigues of well-sketched societies, with the Doctor and his companion hovering around the fringes of this activity, merely bystanders caught up in a single moment of another culture’s turmoil.
Much like the early Hartnell stories, in fact.
[This is a revised version of an article published in Panic Moon in April 2011 and subsequently anthologised in the first volume of the book series Outside In from ATB Publishing]
Image © BBC