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| The Doctor and his companions at Gatwick Airport. |
6 episodes. Approx. 143 minutes. Written by: David Ellis & Malcolm Hulke. Directed by: Gerry Mill. Produced by: Innes Lloyd.
THE PLOT
When the TARDIS materializes in the middle of a runway at Gatwick Airport, the Doctor, Jamie, Ben, and Polly are forced to scatter to evade security. Polly takes refuge in the hangar of Chameleon Tours - and promptly witnesses the murder of a police detective by one of the Chameleon workers!
She finds the Doctor, who immediately sees that the man was killed not by a bullet, but by electrocution. The gun was "a ray gun," as Jamie calls it, something that should not exist on Earth. But by the time he is able to find the airport commandant (Colin Gordon) and persuade the man to investigate, the body has vanished - along with Polly!
With Ben disappearing soon after and the airport police hunting for them, the Doctor and Jamie find themselves with no allies save for one young girl (Pauline Collins) as they try to discover what has happened to their friends, and uncover the secret of Chameleon Tours!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: When trying to find someone in authority to report the murder to, he runs afoul of an immigration officer who refuses to listen to a word he or Jamie say until they can produce passports. After a minute or so of this, an exasperated Doctor snaps: "We neither of us have a passport," before attempting (unsuccessfully) to move around the man. He does develop a friendlier working relationship with the Commandant, a good man whose mindset simply won't allow him to accept the increasingly outlandish things the Doctor tells him, and the Doctor/Commandant relationship seems almost like a prototype for the Doctor/Brigadier relationship of later seasons.
Jamie: Previous stories had largely been submitted before Jamie became a companion, and either moved him to the sidelines or gave him some of Ben's and Polly's lines in order to deal with his addition. This story moves Ben and Polly out of the main action, leaving Jamie as the Doctor's primary companion. This allows their interplay to develop beyond what had been seen before. Jamie is very protective of the Doctor, insisting that it's his job to look out for him. He is, however, quite ready to deflate the Doctor's more egotistical pronouncements. When the Doctor asks if Jamie's ever known him to be wrong, the Scotsman doesn't hesitate a second before responding with a an amusingly vehement, "Aye."
Samantha: Sam (Pauline Collins) is the sister of one of Chameleon Tours' missing customers, and she becomes a companion in all but name for this story. She would have become a full-time companion, had Pauline Collins not turned down the offer. A good thing, in my opinion. Collins is a fine actress, of course, but Sam is a character who would have quickly worn out her welcome. Her headstrong nature and her insistence on referring to Jamie as "kid" leave me picturing a Liverpool-accented Peppermint Patty. As a one-shot guest character, she's acceptable, but I'm just as happy that her journey ends here.
Ben/Polly: Though I quite like the story, its treatment of Ben and Polly is dreadful. Both are out of the story by Episode Two, only to return for a tacked-on scene at the end. Polly at least gets to affect the plot by witnessing the killing of the detective. Ben doesn't even get that much, spending his brief part of the story so sidelined that it feels as if he's been removed even before he actually is. As companion exits go, this would have to rank among series' worst, vying with the likes of Dodo's offscreen exit and Leela's marriage to a man she had barely spoken to.
THOUGHTS
Prior to its 2020 animated release, The Faceless Ones was more or less a "forgotten" story among the missing episodes. It's not generally considered one of Troughton's best, nor is it ranked as a misfire. Its reputation has historically tended to be somewhere in the middle, leaving it among the least-discussed stories of Troughton's run.
I actually quite like the story. The Gatwick airport setting is well-used, and the location footage and well-created studio sets in the existing episodes show a strong sense of recognizable reality. This realism, both in the sets and depiction of the airport hierarchy, makes the otherworldly elements far more effective than might have been the case. The Episode Three cliffhanger is particularly eerie.
Also helping the story to succeed is the first-class guest cast. In addition to Pauline Collins, we get Bernard Kay and Wanda Ventham, both making solid impressions in supporting roles. The wonderful Colin Gordon lends credibility and humor in his role as the airport Commandant. His scenes opposite Troughton are a joy, the Commandant's increasingly weary interactions with the Doctor managing to be funny without ever undercutting the character's basic competence.
Finally, Donald Pickering is excellent as Blade, Chameleon Tours' chief pilot. Of Pickering's several Who appearances, I think this one is my favorite. Even in Episode One, before we know anything about the story's direction, we can recognize something "off" about him. He is always calm, unfailingly polite, and absolutely chilling... and maybe a bit arch, but in a way that works for the story.
Unfortunately, as is the case with many 6-part stories, the narrative ends up feeling a bit stretched. Episodes Three and Four are particularly guilty of padding the running time, featuring multiple attempts by the Chameleons to kill the Doctor. All of these come from the "Dr. Evil" school of assassination. My personal favorite has the Doctor, Jamie, and Sam all immobilized while a laser light inches toward them. Naturally, the Chameleons leave them unobserved to allow them to escape this very gradual trap. Given that their involvement in the story begins with Polly witnessing a Chameleon gunning someone down, surely it would be easier to simply shoot them?
Things pick up for the final two episodes, as the pieces of the Chameleon plan are put together and the Doctor faces them down on their "home turf." The climax is genuinely tense, cutting between the Doctor's confrontation with the Chameleons, the Commandant's attempts to play for time, and a search that is the key to stopping the aliens. It's well done, and the resolution is rather well-handled too.
With a strong start and a strong end, it's easy to forgive the sag in the middle. That padded center and the poor treatment of Ben and Polly keep me from rating this higher - but with good use of locations, very good acting, and some extremely memorable individual moments, I still tend to consider this to be rather good.
Overall Rating: 7/10.
The Faceless Ones Missing Episode Notes
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