Day 159: The Faceless Ones Episode 3

This story concerns itself with aeroplanes, and finds new and terrifying ways to deal with these 'flying beasties' as Jamie calls them in Episode 1. The basic mystery at the heart of this story is that people have been disappearing and the thing that connects all of them is that they have all disappeared after flying on a Chameleon Tours flight. The story is mainly about trying to figure out this mystery, and the conclusion of this episode shows us the crux of it. The pilot takes an inspector into an aeroplane, filled with young people (and this story also focusses on young people as the target for the aliens. The audience for this story is clearly being put into threat, not just a random space colony). Upon entering the cockpit, the inspector finds that it is filled with futuristic equipment, and discovers to his horror that everyone within the aircraft has completely vanished, they have been abducted by an unknown force. It brings forth this idea of fear about air travel, but in a new way. Instead of the fear being focussed on crashing, instead it is focussed on the lack of contact within the aircraft. That anything could happen within it and you would be unable to let the outside world know. Doctor Who is able to find fear, but it's also able to fight it as well

Day 158: The Faceless Ones Episode 2

First Prize in the greatest facial expressions caught on film

And the runner up

Halfway through this episode, I was busy planning what I was going to write about it. Something about Ben and Polly, perhaps, or the dominance of aeroplane travel. But then the most extraordinary thing happened. To explain: This episode is no longer present in the BBC archives, and I am currently watching a reconstruction of it, using images taken by a man named John Cura. Cura's job was to point a camera at a television screen and record images of various television dramas, then give them to the production offices to use as guides for what stories they've covered, and how they turned out, as well as mementos of the work that they did. These photos must capture the key events in the story, as well as give a general feel for the tone of the drama. And in this case, Cura took some photos of some truly great faces pulled by the cast. And this isn't like these days, where people can get something to go mildly viral (still sounds like an infection to me, perhaps that explains why my readership is going down) by having a lucky moment where they capture a celebrity pulling a face thanks to pushing the pause button at exactly the right moment. Here, there's no pause button, instead Cura just happened to capture the tone of the story perfectly, showing us that this story is not one that is deadly serious, it allows the characters to have a bit of fun. This isn't necessarily something that is captured through scripts or audio recordings, instead this one man has managed to do his job perfectly, and so I'm going to thank John Cura for giving me some excellent moments thanks to your wonderful telesnaps.

Day 157: The Faceless Ones Episode 1

It's a repetition of themes in this episode, as we reach the conclusion and find that Polly does not recognise the Doctor or Jamie, much like Ben had been brainwashed by the Macra in the previous story. But it's subtly different to what has come before, in ways that are able to differentiate it from previous stories. For a start, The Macra Terror had this as the main plot point, whereas this story puts it aside as a curio, a clue as to what might be happening. This is because there are more things occurring in this story, and unlike the previous story which was about exploring a society, here clues and curiosities are placed before the viewer, such as mysterious guns and an odd importance on postcards. One of the parts of Doctor Who that is good is that there is no set formula to write to (at least not at this particular moment) and so this means that different writing styles can be left to flourish, so we can enjoy this new adventure by David Ellis and Malcolm Hulke

Day 156: The Macra Terror Episode 4

About a week ago, I made some comments about Jamie, and how it was difficult for writers to cope with him as this meant that there were now two young male protagonists, meaning that the TARDIS has become rather crowded. But here, roles are found for both Ben and Jamie, and their roles can be defined more easily. Jamie forms the action hero, being courageous and sticking up for himself in moments of peril. He is the one to whom many of the action sequences in this story occur, and he is able to go along with them well. Ben, on the other hand, is able to be influenced by the evil Macra and brainwashed by them to do their will. This means that the more familiar character is put into a position that the audience is unfamiliar with them keeping, and so the audience is able to realise the power of the Macra, given that they can take something that is familiar and make it unfamiliar, something that couldn't be done with Jamie or any other supporting character, as then we wouldn't feel the connection that we do with Ben. But this also means that Jamie is able to become a more trusted figure, which means that he has finally settled into the role of companion to the Doctor, and so we can now look forward to many more adventures with the Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie, together in the TARDIS.

Day 155: The Macra Terror Episode 3

As has probably been previously mentioned, Gerry Davis and Innes Lloyd came into the series with an aim to make it more 'serious' and less frivolous, a task at which they have achieved varying success. This is partially down to their choice of writers, most prominently Ian Stuart Black, who has been able to provide simple science fiction thrillers that are able to be unlike anything else we've seen before in the series. Previously, science fiction was defined by the monsters, or perhaps the stories that were told in this location. Black starts with an idea, and then builds the story around the dissection of this idea. The Savages, for instance, takes the idea of transferring a life force and explores what this means for class systems, and is able to build in a parable about colonialism. Similarly, The Macra Terror takes the idea of a society where everybody is brainwashed into being happy, and then he explores what this idea means. He takes it to extremes, seeing how far the brainwashing will go, sees how it would work and why it would happen. He builds a society, then has the Doctor enter and explore the world. It's thoroughly entertaining to watch, because it differentiates these stories from generic science fiction, such as that seen in The Underwater Menace, and provides a thoroughly entertaining story as well.

Day 154: The Macra Terror Episode 2

Much like several stories that we've encountered before, The Macra Terror is not too big on showing the monsters for the first couple of episodes. This breaks Doctor Who away from other series of the same genre, because it encourages storytelling over effects. In doing so, it means that this story is able to actually have a purpose, and do things with how it is told, rather than just be reduced to cheap scares in some B-Movie style generic action adventure. There's a brief interview with the director Gordon Flemyng, where he is asked about why he took on his latest film, an adaptation of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, and he responded by saying that, whilst he enjoyed 'message' films, he preferred to make 'entertainment' films. It's an interesting division to make, because it draws to attention the fact that Doctor Who can straddle the line between entertainment and message, due to having monsters, but also having decent stories to tell as well. This is yet another example of why Doctor Who is different from other series on television, it's not afraid to hide its monsters if it's got a bigger story to tell.

Day 153: The Macra Terror Episode 1

This episode has the most disturbing opening to any episode we've seen so far. We begin with a man in terror, breathing heavily as we have a close-up on his eyes. But then, we cut away to a bunch of majorettes dancing around and playing jolly music. The rest of the story continues in the same vein, being relentlessly happy and grinning to the point of terror with their ever-present happiness. But, there's a hidden danger somewhere, hidden darkness. There's a Big Brother style presence behind everything, telling them that work is the thing that will keep them happy, and forcefully making them cheerful, ignoring the handful of people who claim that something is wrong, and sending them away. It's like Nineteen Eighty-Four on happy pills, continually telling people to be happy, and ignoring the hidden aspects of the world. This story feels relentlessly disturbing because of all of this, and it makes it all the more interesting, because it's been able to set a scene around a mystery, and through not mentioning it, it comes to the foreground more, and so this unique way of storytelling means that the series once again is able to do something that is unlike anything else on television.

Until The Prisoner premieres 6 months later, showing that Doctor Who is also a wonderful trend setter.