The Chameleons in their true form...
The Faceless Ones is another partially complete story from Season Four. Like The Moonbase and The Underwater Menace, two episodes exist in their entirety. This provides a strong feel for the story's visual element, showing off the Gatwick Airport locations in the surviving episodes (One and Three).
Serious applause should be given to the Restoration Team, by the way, for their efforts on Episode Three. The existing print of Episode Three is scratchy and jumpy from damage over time. For the DVD release, a combination of clean-up, digital sampling, and zooms to undamaged portions of frames allows the episode to play without a visible skip or jump. Some of the zoomed-in shots jump out, I'll admit - but given the state of the print, the improvement is nothing short of remarkable.
The story was fully animated for release in 2020, coming on the heels of the highly acclaimed animated release of The Macra Terror. The animation is very much in the same style, respecting the original episodes without feeling utterly bound to attempt to recreate them as they would have looked; a disintegration effect in the final two episodes, for example, is almost certainly more effective than its live action counterpart would have been. Less effective are a couple of physical scuffles, however, with a fight scene in Episode SIx showing that even though the animations have greatly improved, budget and schedule remain limited.
The DVD release's bonus disc includes the existing episodes and a still reconstruction of the missing ones. As with the unofficial Loose Cannon reconstruction that preceded it, the story is easy to follow for the most part, with clear still frames showing off the well-designed sets. However, the static images do not play well during action scenes. The DVD release has an option to play the reconstruction with the narration Frazer Hines recorded for the audio release, which helps - but given that the animation is a generally good one, the reconstruction is little more than a welcome curio.
The BBC Audio release is up to the usual strong standards of that range, with Hines' narration blended effectively with a clean soundtrack. Track listings make the missing episodes easy to find, which makes it nearly seamless to go from the existing episodes to the audio ones quickly. Again, though, given the strength of the animation, this is mainly an alternative for those who need something to listen to on a long drive.
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