Carnival of Monsters is the second story of season 10 of Doctor Who, first broadcast in 1973. It stars Jon Pertwee as the Doctor and Katy Manning as Jo Grant. It was written by Robert Holmes.
It starts with a spaceship landing...
...out of which come two mannys, Vorg and Shirna. They meet the grey aliens that live on this planet, one of whom is busy pewpewpewing another.
After an establishing shot of a ship at sea, we hear and then see the TARDIS materialise. The Doctor and Jo come out, but they don't do anything else yet because it's back to Vorg and Shirna. They take off their dull grey spacesuits to reveal colourful costumes underneath. This seems to confuse the grey aliens. Vorg starts their "pitch," which I think means giving the aliens (and us) the exposition about what is going on:
"Roll up and see the monster show! A carnival of monsters,"
Clang!
"all living in their natural habitat, wild in this little box of mine. A miracle of intragalactic technology! Roll up! Roll up!"
They have a machine that isn't functioning properly, with a red warning light flashing to get their attention. This has obvious parallels with the TARDIS, which hasn't taken the Doctor and Jo to "Metebelis Three" like the Doctor intended. Jo gets scared by some chickens and then finds a crate marked "Singapore" which gives them the clues they're not where they thought they were. The Doctor is convinced they're not on Earth, despite all evidence to the contrary - such as the manny they see up on board the ship - which leads to Jo asking
"Don't you ever admit that you're wrong?"
They sneak about the ship avoiding the mannys on board, one of whom is Harry Sullivan, two seasons before he would join UNIT and end up as the Doctor's companion. The Doctor and Jo are stuck hiding behind part of the set so they don't get noticed by Major Daly, who is there reading a book until he decides to have some sleeps. Jo shows the Doctor a magazine that has references to "London" and "1926" to try to convince him this is Earth after all.
There is a commotion from outside the room they're in, because a dinosaur has just invaded (a season too early) and is frightening the mannys on the ship - except for Harry, who is too stupid to be scared, he just wants to shoot it. No wonder he'll turn out to be a good fit for UNIT. The Doctor and Jo get caught trying to sneak away, and Harry concludes they're "stowaways."
A short scene with the grey aliens begins to make their characters a bit clearer. Some of them, the ones with speaking parts, are "the official species" who are racist towards the "Functionaries." One of them says
"They've no sense of responsibility. Give them a hygiene chamber and they store fossil fuel in it."
which is Robert Holmes once again being a bit more clever with his writing than he needs to be. The point is that the officials are in charge of the planet, while the Functionaries do all the W-word, like an allegory for cats and mannys. Therefore we are obviously expected to sympathise with the officials, which is made even clearer by having them played by actors such as Peter "Packer" Halliday and Michael "Davros" Wisher, while as for the Functionaries, well...
Harry is taking the Doctor and Jo to put them in prison when the Doctor sees a metal thingy on the floor, but Harry can't see it even when he looks right at it, which is a mystery. When they're locked in together, the Doctor tells Jo "that metal is unknown on Earth" so it is clear he is beginning to piece together the clues about what is going on. Seeing the name of the ship, he begins to let Jo, and us, in on it too.
Doctor: "Well, in its time, the SS Bernice was as famous a sea mystery as the Mary Celeste."Jo: "Why? What happened?"Doctor: "Nobody really knows. A freak tidal wave was the popular explanation, although the Indian Ocean was as flat as a millpond on that night."Jo: "You mean she sank?"Doctor: "No. She vanished, Jo."
There's more layers of mystery to come as Jo notices the clock has gone backwards, and the Doctor points out it is "broad daylight outside" when "it should be pitch dark."
Escaping easily from the room thanks to Jo (who's getting dangerously genre-savvy these days) having brought skeleton keys in anticipation of this eventuality, they find the mannys are repeating their dialogue from their first appearance earlier, down to Major Daly having sleeps. The Doctor knows that the dinosaur will also appear at the same point in this cycle, so he and Jo use this to cover their sneaking a bit better this time, and they manage to get back to the TARDIS.
The Doctor goes inside for a "magnetic core extractor" but runs back out when he hears Jo scream. This is because Jo has seen a giant manny's paw coming towards them, and it picks up the TARDIS.
This is so surprising that it is the cliffhanger moment. This whole episode is a masterclass from Robert Holmes in establishing a mystery for the viewer, promising to resolve it over the course of the remainder of the story.
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