Doctor Who: 8 Jon Pertwee Serials You Need To Revisit In January

2. Carnival Of Monsters (1973)

There€™s one thing to celebrate about this story right off the bat - it€™s a Robert Holmes script! Yay! That should make up for our not being able to talk about The Three Doctors, right? This is another one of those stories that also has a surprisingly large fanbase, despite the fact that, unlike Peladon, the closest thing it has to the return of a major monster is a brief cameo by a Cyberman on a screen. That being said, as its name might imply, Carnival of Monsters is pure popcorn fun involving a carny, a showgirl and a bunch of animals in cages - some of whom are human. As with many Holmes scripts, this one deconstructs the very nature of our entertainments, showing how our enjoyment of carnivals and circuses is problematic at best when you think about how living beings are used for it. It€™s the same sort of argument he was attempting to make about our being carnivores in The Two Doctors but it€™s a lot more successful this time round. The late Barry Letts could hardly let an interview go by without mentioning how successful and impressive the Drashigs were and it turns out he was absolutely right. They€™re quite obviously puppets, but damn, are they scary puppets. The only thing to make them more frightening would€™ve been to design them as gigantic grinning clowns. And on top of it all, fans get Ian Marter a couple of years early! What could be better than that?