Day 162: The Faceless Ones Episode 6

Gerry Davis. He'll script edit the show for a couple more episodes, but seeing as he'll leave halfway through the next story, I thought it best that a general round up of his time on the show be posted at the end of his last full story for Doctor Who. And, like any other script editor, he has certainly left his mark on the series, making it more modern, removing the outdated historical genre (no matter how good it could be when placed in the right hands) and perhaps most importantly, introducing proper science fiction elements to the series. To say that it was a generic space adventure series before he came along is perhaps doing the previous eras a bit of a disservice, but there is no denying that when Davis came onto the series, the science fiction elements became that little bit more fascinating. No longer are adventures just about monsters, instead they take science fiction ideas and use them, with occasional additions of monsters. Take this story, for instance. At first glance, it is your basic Invasion of the Body Snatchers pastiche until you begin to notice the ideas bubbling under the surface. An alien race which has lost their identities thanks to a large explosion on their homeworld, and so they have to assume the identities of humans that they've captured. It's an idea at the centre of the story, and this idea is what drives it, people being steadily replaced by an alien menace who just want this to survive. Also The Moonbase, which is about gravity controlling the Earth's weather, or The Macra Terror which is about mind control of a colony, these are all science fiction ideas that Davis has brought on board. And whilst we might praise Doctor Who for being silly, it can also be wonderfully serious, and this is something that Davis brought us, so we thank him for the work that he did, bringing some hard science fiction to the world of Doctor Who.

Day 161: The Faceless Ones Episode 5

So who do we get to replace Ben and Polly? The answer appears to be obvious, throughout this story we have made the acquaintance of a lovely young girl called Sam Briggs. She's feisty, as she's not afraid to fight Jamie if it comes to it. She also plays off Troughton well, being a spunky young sidekick to his older uncle, however she will not be a companion. It's interesting to note this, as it's the polar opposite of how Jamie was introduced. There, he was a minor character in a story that was inexplicably added to the TARDIS crew, but here we have a major character who is so obviously being built up to be the next companion, and yet the actress hasn't already been hired to be the next companion. It means that the character comes across as odd, feeling like something more was meant for her that never fully materialised.

Day 160: The Faceless Ones Episode 4

Ben and Polly don't appear in this episode. Nor did they appear in the previous episode, or will they appear in the next. They'll make a farewell appearance in the last episode, but I've got plans for that, and indeed tomorrow's episode (I know, this idiot has plans! Honestly, I'm as surprised as you are) so let's see why Ben and Polly have to go. The reasons may not be too apparent at first, they are incredibly likeable characters, Polly is certainly one of the better female leads that we've had and Ben brings forth some good stuff as well, even if his role as young male lead has been usurped by Jamie. However, they have been in the role for a year now, and so the characters are beginning to become a bit stale, and so the time has come for them to leave.

But lets just realise how important these characters were. They were truly modern, representing the height of the swinging 60's. Polly was remarkably well rounded, being able to be frightened, but also she was also incredibly sparky and developed an instant rapport with Patrick Troughton. Ben also shared this rapport with the Doctor, but he perhaps slipped into the role of young male lead a little too well, lacking the spark that Steven and Ian brought by being able to fight against the Doctor, although he did achieve this wonderfully in The Macra Terror. But the major thing that these two characters brought was the modern world. Doctor Who was no longer a stuffy old kids show with monsters, it was groovy, and ready to fully embrace the 1960's.

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