Original air dates January and February of 1973. Four parts, nothing momentus recorded.
Grey-skinned aliens monitor two humans getting off the cargo shuttle, derisively. They don’t like the alien arrivals. The humans set up the “Carnival of Monsters” a display in a box they’ve brought with them. It has a systems error.
Jo and the Doctor appear on what appears to be an ordinary Earth cargo ship with British passengers. April of 1926 says the newspaper. They’re soon caught and assumed to be stowaways.
The travellers arrive, and are denied a visa because amusement is illegal. They protest with a message from someone famous that they’re wanted there. (it’s a cassette tape, clearly)
Back on the ship, the Doctor and Jo figure out people are repeating a pattern, and that the ship is a missing one. They get to the TARDIS just as a giant hand picks it up and takes it away. Credits roll.
The hand belongs to one of the humans with the machine, who pulls the TARDIS out as a bit of bric-a-brac. The aliens distract him and it returns to full size. The aliens are terrified.
The Doctor and Jo are chased around the ship by the trapped people, not remembering they’re trapped, or that they’ve done this before.
The boring grey aliens want to destroy the machine and all the alien samples as unlicensed imports. The boring grey aliens are paranoid as all get out.
Jo and the Doctor make it to a different container. One full of carnivores. Giant hand puppets with teeth! Then the credits roll.
The sonic screwdriver makes some explosions to drive away the monsters. Oh, it lit up the swamp gas.
They escaped back to the works between containers. The monsters follow them.
They get back to the British ship, in search of rope. Monsters follow them. The ship defends itself, with explosives. The machine is damaged.
The Doctor manages to escape the machine. The assistant screams and the credits roll.
The Doctor expands back to his normal size and takes charge.
There’s a subpolt with revolution among the grey aliens, but I’m ignoring it.
Life support starts to fail in the environments. People on the ship keel over of heat exhaustion.
The showman shoots the invading monsters, then flips Phase 2 switch, and sends everyone home. The miniscope is destroyed.
The Doctor and Jo make for the TARDIS as the showman pulls the shell game on the guard.
Tags: doctorwho