The Faceless Ones

Dear Gary--

"Things are not always what they seem," and in The Faceless Ones we are drawn nicely in to the mysterious happenings at Gatwick Airport where, as the Doctor advises, "You don't want to believe everything you see." Despite being 6 episodes long, with 5 of the 6 being available only in reconstructed form, The Faceless Ones holds one's interest throughout; it is a tale well told.

First Polly (whose hair has suddenly grown back from the super short sleek do she was sporting in The Macra Terror) witnesses a murder, but when the airport authorities are notified the body disappears. Next we learn that the young passengers of a charter service have been disappearing; and there are several airport personnel who aren't quite themselves. Then Polly disappears only to reappear with a new identity and no memory of the Doctor. And this is only the beginning.

The faceless ones of our title turn out to be extremely egotistical aliens ("We are the most intelligent race in the universe") who have lost their own identities and have devised a way to take over the form of a human body despite their seeming contempt for mankind ("These earth minds cannot stretch that far"; "The truth is beyond their intelligence").

It does seem as if the aliens are right about the intelligence of humans. 50,000 young people are required and plane loads of them have been taken for some time with no one seeming to notice. The young people they are stealing are not too bright either. They are all asked to write out a postcard to their loved ones stating they have arrived safely at their final destination when they haven't even boarded their flight yet. Not one of them questions this. Then there are the airport authorities who don't seem to notice any of the alien activity going on under their noses and don't bat an eye when the Doctor and Polly inform them of a murdered body on the premises.

But you can't kidnap 50,000 young people without someone taking notice. Two investigators do show up, although one gets himself murdered and the other gets taken over by an alien; and one lone relative of a missing person begins to question her brother's disappearance. It is a delight to see Pauline Collins taking an early turn at Doctor Who as Sam the sister (she would later go on to make an excellent Queen Victoria during David Tennant's run). I understand she was offered a recurring role as the Doctor's new companion but she turned it down. What a shame. Polly and Ben are being phased out as companions during this story and Pauline Collins would have made a welcome addition to the cast. She and Jamie strike up a really nice little relationship; poor Jamie has to settle for a sweet good-bye kiss when all is said and done.

But there is quite a lot of action before all is said and done.  Jamie and Sam get acquainted while investigating the goings on at Chameleon Tours and keeping an eye on the strangely altered Polly who has taken up duties at the Chameleon kiosk. The Doctor meantime gains the trust of the airport authorities and works to uncover the sinister plot of the aliens who have been using the infirmary to take over the bodies of airport personnel. And still we’re just beginning.

Once it is established that Chameleon Tours has been whisking planes full of young passengers off to an alien satellite to be miniaturized and taken back to an alien planet for body transference, Jamie steals Sam’s plane ticket and goes himself as a passenger on the next flight (in one of his ‘flying beasties’); and the Doctor pretends to be a Chameleon who has taken over the Doctor’s body and makes his own way to the alien satellite. At the same time the airport authorities are frantically searching to find the ‘originals’ of the humans that have been copied to use as leverage against the aliens (when the ‘original’ is removed from the alien apparatus its alien counterpart is destroyed).

Once the originals are discovered the Doctor instigates an uprising amongst our faceless aliens. The Director and his inner circle have taken care to keep their originals safe on board the satellite. When the ‘unimportant’ faceless ones realize their originals have been left behind and they are now at the mercy of the humans, they side with the Doctor as their only hope. The leaders are destroyed, the miniaturized humans are normalized and the originals safely restored.

The cooperative Chameleons are given a reprieve by the Doctor. So long as they leave Earth alone, he will allow them to return to their own planet unharmed where, the Doctor speculates, their scientists “will be able to find some way out of their dilemma .” And he adds, “I may be able to . . . ah . . . give them one or two ideas of my own.”

Back at the airport things are settling back into a routine: "Flap over; let's get back to normal as quickly as we can." And Ben and Polly are reluctant to leave this normal world they now find themselves in.  Learning that they are back in their own time--July 20, 1966, back to when it all started for them--they realize they have the opportunity to return to a life with "no monsters or Cybermen." Ben reluctantly tells the Doctor they will stay if he needs them, but as Polly says, "the thing is, it . . . it tis our world."

"You're lucky," the Doctor tells them, "I never got back to mine. All right then, off you go.” And so the Doctor says goodbye to two more companions. At least he has Jamie, who can’t wait to get away from this ‘uncivilized’ world of 1966. First, the Doctor informs Jamie, they have to find the TARDIS which has disappeared.

So the adventures continue.

Until next time, Gary . . .