The Faceless Ones - Episode 6

The final part of this story needs to tie up the loose ends in a satisfactory way. It’s always important in any piece of drama but in a six part adventure like this, it becomes even more important. I must admit that with the knowledge this is the final story for Ben and Polly, my attention drifted away from the main plot. It’s a shame really as I think that from what I did grasp from the audio, it seemed to be an attempt to return the taken youngsters yet ensure that the chameleon lifeforms aren’t hurt or killed. That aspect of the story is finished off in a perfectly fine way.

Anneke Wills and Michael Craze appear at the very end of the episode to film their departure scene. At least they got a departure scene unlike Jackie Lane who disappeared and then we got a throwaway line from Polly in episode four. It does seem a bit of a waste really considering that they are the last links to the Hartnell era and you think considering that they were there for the first appearances of the Cybermen and the first regeneration they deserve a finer send off. Once Ben and Polly realise that they are back on the same day that they left in ‘The War Machines’ they decide to stay. It does feel like its been wrapped  up in a nice neat bow. If only their departure had been better handled.

The goodbye scene between Sam and Jamie was really sad and it makes the decision for her not to continue with the TARDIS even sadder. I think that as I have liked the chemistry between these two it was always going to be a sad moment when Pauline Collins departed but that didn’t make it any easier when the moment came. Collins is a great actress and her performances over the past five episodes have been wonderful and a credit to the show.

The best thing about this episode is the unexpected ending to the episode. The Doctor and Jamie discover that the TARDIS has been stolen and this leads us into the final story of the season. As an episode I must say that it didn’t have the impact that I thought it would have. The problems with six part episodes were evident here but at least they tried to keep things going by shifting the focus of the story and the setting. The episode did what it needed to do and also gave the viewer in 1967 a reason to watch next week because no sooner have we said goodbye the Anneke Wills and Michael Craze than we say hello to Debroah Watling.

The Faceless Ones - Episode 5

The previous episode was the first time that any enthusiasm was starting to wane a bit. Something that I hadn’t mentioned until now was the narration of Frazer Hines. I am a huge fan of Hines’ narration/performance in the Companion Chronicle stories he does for Big Finish and he won the Best Companion award in 2010. Hines manages to make the most inane dialogue seem fantastic or at the very least perfectly fine.  The episode starts off quite well and dispels any worry that I had that there would be a downward trend in my enjoyment. There is a nice scene where they mention the Director and it is then followed by a speech of how stupid humans are. Quite why they want to be dealing with a race that are intellectually inferior to themselves.

The explanation to why they are taking the humans and it involves the fact that their race is dying and they have lost their identity so they are taking the humans to take their form. On the face of it the plan seems quite fine. You can understand why they would want to take the humans and normally its not for reasons of invasion or conquest but for mere survival. I don’t know whether this was the intention of David Ellis and Malcolm Hulke to make us sympathise with the aliens but knowing that Hulke had a tendency to put political themes into his stories it seems plausible that this was probably what Hulke was intending.

Despite my feelings concerning how Michael Craze and Anneke Wills have been treated I must admit that I haven’t really missed them. The story has been moving along at such a good speed and I have enjoyed the characters and their performances so much that on the occasional mentions of their names reminds me that they are part of the show. The cliffhanger is somewhat of a disappointment as the previous ones have been so good. I think that it would have been better on DVD but I’m not going to go on about that particular gripe. What I will say is that episode five is better than four (even despite the ending). I think that the story moving away from the airport has helped breathe some new life into it and even though we occasionally go back to the control room, the focus of the story seems to be elsewhere and that can only be a good thing.

The Faceless Ones - Episode 4

The fourth episode resumes from the moment where we finally get to see something of what the Chameleon Tours people do. In the early stages of this episode we get to see why Sam Briggs would have been a good companion as acts like a companion and she fits in well with the Doctor and Jamie in a way that Ben and Polly couldn’t.  Speaking of Ben and Polly, it’s the second episode where they don’t appear but they aren’t mentioned by both the Doctor and Jamie in an attempt to show that the producers haven’t forgotten about them.

A ‘new’ character is introduced into this story in the form of Nurse Pinto played very well by Madalena Nicol. I think that the Nurse was a good character and her ability to get in the way of the Doctor’s investigation is a fun moment in the story. Another funny moment is when Jamie gets onto the plane but discovers that his 18^th century body can’t cope with 20^th Century air travel and the moment when runs to the toilet to be sick.

After getting a bit more information about the Chameleon Tours plane at the end of the previous episode. We finally get a bit more here when the airplane flies up and turns into a spaceship. This makes their threat that more impressive because up until now it seemed like a group of aliens that have been left on Earth for some reason. At least now we know that there is a grander plan. Sad that its taken until this stage for something substantial to be revealed.

It’s the first time that I feel that its lacked any of the fast paced action from the previous episodes. It’s not a terrible episode but compared to the previous three episodes it seems like a bit of a let down. The thing that this episode has compared to other audio-only episodes that I have listened to recently (and that’s a high number) is that the supporting characters along with Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines help keep my interest in the story and there is still some stuff that needs to be revealed so as we approach the final two episodes it seems that this story will still be as good as I think that it is.  

The Faceless Ones - Episode 3

The final episode of this story to exist on DVD and we get to see the wonderful cliffhanger where the Doctor is frozen.  I like this first scene as it means that the Doctor can be creative and show that despite not being in control of the situation that he is smarter than the people from Chameleon Tours.  The best thing about this episode is that we get to see Bernard Kay and Pauline Collins in the flesh so to speak.  Both of them are instantly likeable as they are used to help the Doctor and Jamie in their story.  Kay’s character is used to help the Doctor convince the Commandant. Kay is one of those people that is instantly likeable no matter what character he plays (except for his role in The Crusaders).  

The moment that the Commandant believes or is willing to be less suspicious of the Doctor is a welcoming moment because it allows the story to move on. The Doctor becomes a target for the Chaemleon Tours people. Their real race name hasn’t been revealed which on one hand adds to their mystery but it would be good if we knew. We finally get to see what they actually do on these plans and when it does happen then it’s a great moment because there is a shot of a cabin full of people then after a shocked look on Kay’s face we see an empty cabin. It’s not the great reveal that we had been hoping for but at least its something that makes these bad people seem bad for a reason instead of just talking about the bad things they do.

Something that I have noticed in this episode is that there are some weird shots which don’t make sense. It involves close ups of various people with a high pitch noise. Not quite sure what the point of this is and it seems that it serves no real purpose. A even more noticeable example of this is when Blade and Crossland are in the cockpit and there is a close-up of Blade and then of Crossland and then back to Blade.

This episode did a good job of progressing and its using its six episode run well. We get to know a bit more about the villains of the story and it feels like some of the supporting characters have settled down and matured and I refer to the Commandant in that instance. At the half way mark the story has maintained my interest and it feels like the evolution of the show from the Hartnell era to the Troughton era has been completed and the second half of the story should be just as good.

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.                                                                 

The Faceless Ones - Episode 1

The Faceless Ones is the final story to feature Anneke Wills and Michael Craze. It’s the first to be written by Maclolm Hulke who would write several Doctor Who stories and also Target novels. It’s also the first six part adventure since Troughton’s first adventure and I’ve gotten use to the four part adventures because they are narratively better. This story takes place in ‘modern’ London although its suppose to take place at the same time as ‘The War Machines’ which would imply that there are two Doctors in the same period of time.

The flying Beastie is a fun line from Jamie as it’s the first time that he’s ever seen a plane as they are about two hundred years in his future. Even though it must have been in London, its never specifically revealed which airport this all happens at but lets assume in just a generic airport. When the Doctor tells the others to scatter its only Ben that runs in the opposite direction to the others and it looks like he’s about to be captured by the police officer but somehow manages to escape. The main villains are a group of people who work in the Chameleon hanger at the airport and instantly there is something strange about them. It gets stranger when we see the hand of someone or something. We don’t get to see them due to some rather ingenious camera angles, the best thing we get is the back of its head which concludes the episode.

It takes less that four minutes for things to go a bit wrong as Polly witnesses some get murdered whilst hiding. She manages to escape and thus starts a process of the Doctor and Jamie trying to convince the Commandant that there has been a murder in the hanger. Most of the episode consists of everyone running all over the airport. It’s quite surprising that even in 1966/67 that there wouldn’t have been police swarming over that airport. I liked the Commandant from the very beginning and thought he had the same sort of toughness that Hobson and General Cutler had. He didn’t have time to deal with any of the nonsense that the Doctor has.

The departures of Ben and Polly are put into motion. Sadly their departure is somewhat badly handled and it isn’t helped by the fact they get they kidnapped by the Chameleon tour people. By the end of the episode, Ben has gone and Polly has been brainwashed so she does back the Doctor and Jamie’s story when they try to explain things to the commandant. It’s clear that the friendship between the Doctor and Jamie has taken hold because theres' a bit where the Doctor and Jamie walk away from a hanger and they are followed by Polly and when she gets taken the Doctor and Jamie just carry on walking and they don’t mention the fact she’s gone until their next scene.

This is a good opening episode. The modern day setting helps create an authentic feel to it and makes it feel more real. This is one of those stories that I have always enjoyed in the past and the first episode backs up that fact. Sadly this story is remembered for the poor way that Ben and Polly are used but there are other things to like in this story and they are all to come over the next five episodes.