The Faceless Ones - Episode 2

The first of four episodes to be audio only resumes from the cliffhanger of seeing some strange head is wonderfully described by Frazer Hines and pulsating veins but sadly for anyone who has seen that cliffhanger would know that its not really the case. We also get to return to the Polly not recognising the Doctor and Jamie thing. Apparently despite having a very posh British accent she claims to be from Zurich and has a English governance to explain this fact. Something that I commented on is how one of the things about this story is how it deals with the idea of travel. Back in 1967 the idea of flying was still a relatively new concept to people so in the same ways as the James Bond films were partly a success because of the idea of going somewhere that hadn’t been seen before, the idea of flying somewhere or spending time in a building that most people hadn’t seen would have been a good enough thing to use to keep the story current. Polly’s personality change is similar to here first story where she was possessed by WOTAN. It seems like a nice bookend to her character.

A familiar voice/face appears in this episode. Bernard Kay has previously appeared in the William Hartnell stories ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ and ‘The Crausade’. For his third story he is instantly recognisable and he gives a great performance in this episode. This episode also features the first appearance of Pauline Collins who was suppose to be a companion after this story but wouldn’t stay and didn’t appear until the 2006 story ‘Tooth and Claw’ as Queen Victoria. Her performance is just as good as Kay’s and I like how for the first time in quite a while we have a feisty female character. There’s a scene where Sam Briggs (Pauline Collins) chats to Polly and it’s a nice contrast in style and performance.

I like the moment when its revealed that Polly has been duplicated and the real Polly is in a box in the Chamelion Tours hanger and the one that Sam has been chatting to is the copy. Ben is the one that discovers this and this will be the last thing that he does. Polly has disappeared from the office in the terminal so it seems that this is where they leave for four episodes. It is a rather abrupt moment that it happens but its still rather well done so in this instance I am rather conflicted about what I feel about the whole Polly and Ben leaving situation.

Like the previous episode, the final scene and ultimate cliffhanger are rather well done. This time it’s the Doctor who gets the cliffhanger as he is being frozen and its something that will look better when we get to the DVD of the third episode tomorrow. Despite this being on CD, I still enjoyed this story and thought that after all the running around that took place in the previous episode, that it was nice that we got to the meat and potatoes of the story and it seems like it has settled down and with the addition of Kay and Collins that this was going to be a good story. Sadly this would be the last full episode that Anneke Wills and Michael Craze would appear in as their final appearance was a pre-filmed scene. I will comment more on their contribution to the story but for this episode it was another strong episode.