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| 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.
Serious applause should be given to the Restoration Team for their efforts on Episode Three. The existing print 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 more smoothly. Some of the zoomed-in shots jump out, I'll admit - but compared to the episode's prior state, the improvement is nothing short of remarkable.
The story was fully animated in the wake of the highly acclaimed release of The Macra Terror. The animation is in the same style, respecting the original episodes without being too bound to a full recreation. 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. A fight scene in Episode Six shows that even though the animations have improved, budget and schedule remain limited, and certain actions just don't end up convincing. These moments are few in number, though, and the release is overall another good one.
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, the story is easy to follow for the most part, with clear still frames showing off the well-designed sets. However, the static images can't carry action scenes, and the final episode greatly suffers as a result. The DVD release has an option to play the reconstruction with the narration Frazer Hines recorded for the BBC audio release, which helps - but given that the animation is a generally good one, I'd personally regard the reconstruction as an intereesting 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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