Carnival of Monsters

"Miniscope", "Carnival of John Majors", "Zoology"

"The One with the Chick from Citizen Smith" (USA), "The Three Germans" (France) 

Doctor Who gets sucked on board a boat. Any port in a storm…

*** - The story isn't as exciting as Barry Letts discussing camera angles on the DVD but it comes quite close.

"I don't care what you've heard, none of us have had sex with Edwina Currie" (cut from episode 2)

"These Tellurian pants come from outside our solar system and are a possible carrier of contagion"

Jon Pertwee loved being back abroad ship and requested the story be stretched to six episodes. Barry Letts refused this request as Terrance Dicks spent the whole shoot “spewing like a pukey Vesuvius”.

The BBC Audience Research Panel considered this story to be “generous” but added a cautious note that it was “bordering on the repressive.”

Top TV Critic Terry Marmalade called this story “in the best traditions of emulsioned social satire” and gave it three jars out of five.

One episode of this story features the Delaware theme tune. This piece, composed by accident, was described as “putrid” by Keff McCulloch who has devoted his life to composing awful music and, as such, is considered an expert.

Ian Marter appeared in this story and would go on to play a much more significant role in Doctor Who history when he wrote Harry Sullivan’s War.

The Sandwich Sundial campaigned for this story to be the next Pope arguing “It pisses on dogma and that’s what the church needs in the 1970s”

...is that you don't have to work in my office for the same things to happen over and over again.

Si Hunt

"I remember when the "home video cassette" of this story was released and Mr Letts was doing a promotional session at the Bendaton branch of V-i-r-g-i-n Records. I was, naturally, appalled at the changes made for the cassette release and resolved to tell Mr Letts in person. I waited in the queue for some fifteen minutes, during which time I saw him autograph four video cassettes, nine copies of the novel of "Paradise of Death" and two female chests. Eventually I reached the head of the queue and put my concerns to Mr Letts. "Don't be pathetically stupid" I said wittily. "This mutant release is a crime against nature - such recordings should accurately preserve the transmitted footage and not some warped and twisted abomination containing a subnormal mixture of broadcast material and special footage which previously had remained the exclusive preserve of sensible higher caste persons like myself. Do you have an explanation for this shocking behaviour which is, if I may say so, every bit as disgusting as the things that went on in Nazi Germany?" He was visibly moved by my arguments and said he would speak to his solicitors about the points I had raised. I assumed he meant he would attempt to get an injunction against the BBC and have the tape withdrawn (which would make the two hundred copies I had bought even more valuable, a consideration which didn't enter my head until afterwards, naturally). He then attempted to take the video cassette I was holding and write his name on it. "Don't be pathetically stupid" I said quickly, "don't you think you have done enough damage to Story PPP without distorting the cover with your scrawl?" At this point he was overcome and it was felt necessary to disperse the crowd and allow medical personnel to attend to him. Security bundled me out of the building and I assume they did the same to everyone else though they must've been bundled out of a different door as I didn't see any of them emerge."

"K9's Leash" - an American publication - listed the Miniscope as one of the "Top Ten Reasons to Visit Buxton" after some kind of mix-up involving a video cassette and a leaflet for the Micrarium. Meanwhile, tempers were flaring as Rod Nodes and Rob Firkham debated whether Carnival of Monsters could be held responsible for the birth of reality television. The letters page of the "Shada Evening Post" nearly melted under the strain. Nodes won after Firkham got a girlfriend and stopped writing.