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DVD: Dr. Who - Carnival of Monsters
BBC - 1973, 101 minutes plus many extras.
Reviewed by DJ Johnson
This 1973 4-episode adventure is a tremendously entertaining entry in the Dr. Who series that is still fascinating and enthralling, even to 21st century eyes used to being dazzled by computer generated special effects. Jon Pertwee (the third Dr. Who) and his traveling companion, Jo (Katy Manning), are on their way to Metebalas III, the famous blue planet, but they arrive instead in the cargo hold of the SS Bernice, a ship that disappeared mysteriously during an Indian Ocean crossing in 1926. That's odd enough, because we all know the good Doctor is a fine TARDIS pilot (though he points out quite emphatically that he does not "drive the TARDIS, he programs it), but things get even stranger when it is discovered that not only is there a long-extinct dinosaur attacking the ship, but the same few minutes are being replayed over and over again. It's up to the Doctor and Jo to find their way out of the ship and toward the answers.
Meanwhile, in what appears for the longest time to be a completely unrelated story - though we know better - a pair of carnival entertainers have arrived on the planet Inter Minor, where the inhabitants are odd, stuffy, grey-faced humanoids and their mutant servants. The entertainers have brought a strange machine called a miniscope. This is their bread and butter. They charge people to look into the scope at the wide variety of life forms inside the machine, miniaturized by a compression field and held in a strange limbo.
As you can easily guess, the two stories are very much one, and what develops is a feast of plot twists, adventure and exciting visuals as the Doctor and Jo make their way through the strangest of landscapes, unaware they are racing against time due to the devious political ambitions of one of our grey-faced friends, who happens to be the brother of Inter Minor's President. So many things that could go wrong and only one hope for survival. Will they make it? You know the answer to that, as well, but that's never the point when watching Dr. Who. It's all about the journey.
Dr. Who fans are once again being treated very well by the BBC, as this DVD is loaded with extras. The most interesting, as usual, is the commentary, this time done by Katy Manning (Jo) and producer/director Barry Letts. I've noticed in the commentaries of all the Dr. Who DVDs I've reviewed so far that most of the actors haven't seen the episodes since they were first shown, and it's fun to hear their surprised reactions to things that happen on screen. Katy Manning practically screams during one moment, having forgotten that something sudden and drastic happened to her character. It seems as if Letts might have seen it more recently, as he often interrupts his own comments and says "Oh, let's listen to this right here..." right at the moment of a crucial line that he'll then have a great story about. Through Letts we also learn that all the great, surreal camera angles aboard the SS Bernice were designed because the ship was supposed to be out in the middle of the Indian Ocean but was, in fact, being towed down a river to be busted up for scrap. If he filmed straight shots the river banks would have shown. The resulting images (deck-to-sky or bridge-to-deck) added to the off-kilter atmosphere of the show. This is one of many interesting revelations made by Letts in the commentary. My only complaint is that either Manning's microphone is turned way down or they shared one and she was too far away, so you have to crank the volume to hear her clearly.
As for other features, the Who's Who gallery is always interesting, as it gives text information on each of the key players in the series. On these older ones it's also a little sad because it makes you realize about... I dunno, maybe three cast members are still among the living. There's also text info, which puts captions on the screen during the show, full of information about what's happening on the screen, some important, some extremely trivial, though minutia is hot stuff to the ultra-Whovian. There are also film clips of the various monsters tearing through walls, but as these are just test clips we can easily see that the walls are just paper and we have a clear view of the puppeteer's arm up the monster's backside. This is definitely fun stuff. They've included a few extended scenes, along with one deleted scene, and a shortened ending scene that really doesn't need to be in the special features section as the only change is a change of about 5 inconsequential seconds. As this was 1973, Blue Screen technology wasn't commonplace, so the producers were psyched about that, and there's a clip demonstrating it. I do wish the "Behind The Scenes" feature had been longer, because it was so interesting while it was running, but alas, it ended after just a few minutes. The photo gallery is also short, as is the TARDIS No. 2 Cam, but then again, when you stack up all the features and four episodes of Dr. Who on one DVD, you realize they have actually packed the hell out of this disc. Me, I'm a greedy bastard. Sometimes I have to tell myself "enough, already. Say thank you." Thank you. Dr. Who fans should be a very thankful bunch by now.
© 2003 - DJ Johnson