The Art of... The Faceless Ones

In early 1979 Malcolm Hulke was negotiating to novelise this story, which he had co-written with David Ellis. Sadly, Hulke died soon after, having just completed Doctor Who and the War Games - another story which he had co-written. Ellis had died the year before.

In 1986, when it came time to novelise The Faceless Ones, Terrance Dicks wished to take it on as Hulke had been a very good friend of his and had helped him get into television writing in the first place. The paperback version was issued in 1987.

The cover art is by Tony Masero and he used a Vickers VC-10 as reference for the image, which comes from the very opening scene of the story. It was this make of aircraft which featured in the film footage taken by director Gerry Mill at Gatwick.

The reference photo used for the TARDIS was a 1980's one, so it differs from the version seen on TV in 1967.

The book was voted joint fourth favourite of the year by readers of DWM - or ninth, as they mistakenly listed it twice.

The soundtrack followed in 2002, with the usual photomontage cover. Images of companions Ben and Polly derive from publicity shots from The War Machines, and the Jamie image looks like it's from The Evil of the Daleks. Highlighting the fact that Polly gets duplicated will feature in other artwork - even though we never see any overtly Chameleon version of her on screen. The central image of Troughton derives from the mere handful of publicity pictures captured during the Gatwick filming, which all depict him and Jamie hiding under an aircraft.

There is an alternative version of this cover with a red band along the bottom instead of green.

The narrator is Frazer Hines.

As well as never having glowing eyes, Chameleon Polly certainly never looked like a refugee from that V series (where the lizard aliens sometimes had half their false faces torn off).

This was the main image for the cover for the DVD / Blu-ray release of the animated version of the story, which arrived in 2020.

Troughton looks more like Salamander than the Doctor, as it would appear they adapted an image from The Enemy of the World.

The animators took the opportunity to reimagine the Chameleons, but once again really simplified the artwork by ignoring a number of costume changes which take place through the story.

The steelbook opted to go for a retro airline style look, resembling more a travel poster. Presumably the greenish back cover is supposed to represent the Chameleon home world.

The audiobook reading of the novel uses the same Tony Masero artwork, and was released in May 2019, with the larger, squarer format allowing us to see the whole aircraft. As you can see, the reader is Anneke Wills.

And finally, long before the animated release came along, the movie database site moviedb used a rather nice photomontage image to illustrate the story, using similar imagery to some of the above. It's the only artwork which uses the only known photograph of the actual Chameleon from the series.

Inspirations: Into the Dalek

Into the Dalek is the second story to have as a major inspiration the 1966 sci-fi movie Fantastic Voyage. Back in Season 15 we saw the Doctor and Leela miniaturised (or clones of them at least) and injected into the real Doctor's body. This time, the Doctor and companion are miniaturised and injected into one of his deadliest foes.

In each instance - in the series as well as in the movie - it's all done for medical reasons.

As a Doctor Who story, the idea of the Doctor being shrunk and injected into a Dalek originated during the Matt Smith era - but not as a TV episode.

It was actually considered as a scenario for one of the computer games - The Adventure Games.

There were five of these, released between June and December 2010, and the first of them was a Dalek adventure ("City of the Daleks") written by Phil Ford - so it's no coincidence that he is the co-writer of this story. Presumably the idea was left on the back-burner for possible later development by Ford and Steven Moffat - one of those "too good to use here" ideas.

(Coincidentally, this is the first co-written story since The Waters of Mars - Phil Ford again).

Having the new Doctor meet the Daleks so soon into their tenure was thought by more than one critic as another sign that Moffat lacked confidence that the public would take to an older incarnation - following the telephone call from Eleven to Clara in the last episode.

The episode opens with the Doctor questioning if he is "a good man", which is a running theme through Capaldi's first series. He is trying to work out what sort of Doctor he is, after the revelations of the War Doctor and his new lease of life courtesy of the Time Lords.

He asks Clara, but the best person to really tell him is one of his oldest enemies, which is why we get the set up of the Doctor confronting one of the Daleks face to face.

This Dalek, nicknamed "Rusty" as it's battle-scarred, just happens to hate its own kind, so the Doctor needs to find out why - hence the whole shrinking / injection thing.

Before he gets to the mutant itself, the inside of the Dalek has lots of dangers - mainly in the form of "antibodies" - exactly like we saw in both Fantastic Voyage and The Invisible Enemy.

Along the way the issue of what Daleks eat - if they eat at all - is covered. This has been one of those things which fans with no life have sometimes discussed.

Problem is we don't really get an answer. If it's just people who have been miniaturised and injected into them being killed by antibodies then they can't feed very often.

But the confrontation with the mutant is the key to the episode. The Doctor wants to know if he's a good man, and he's confronted by a seemingly good Dalek - but we learn that it isn't really that good (it's been poisoned by leaking radiation, and believes it's on the side of right as it has seen the Doctor crusade against it's own kind). It's all about comparing him to it. Which of them is really, genuinely, the good person?

The 2005 episode Dalek obviously comes into play, as once again the Doctor is told by one of the creatures that he is just like it in a lot of ways.

There are other similarities in the way the Doctor is presented with a captured Dalek and has to argue / reason with it and is told an inconvenient truth that they aren't all that far apart.

We also see the Dalek free itself and go on a rampage, though here it kills other Daleks as well as humans.

We actually see a clip from Dalek during the confrontation, as well as the climax to Journey's End (where the meta-crisis Doctor appears to commit genocide against the Daleks).

The Doctor also refers to his very first encounter with them on Skaro in The Daleks.

Apparently an initial draft saw Rusty self destruct after being captured by the other Daleks, wiping them out along with their spaceship. It was decided to reprieve him for possible re-use later - which is exactly what happened.

The other thing which runs through this first Capaldi season is his dislike of the military - ramped up from the more minor irritation he expresses in earlier incarnations, usually with UNIT in its pre-Kate Stewart version.

Here he saves soldier Journey Blue and seemingly gets on okay with her - only for him to refuse point blank to consider her for a companion-type role come the conclusion.

The anti-military thing is set up because Clara now has a boyfriend who used to be a soldier - another story arc for the season.

We again see the mysterious woman in Edwardian dress, welcoming a fatality of the story into some sort of afterlife.

Next time: never meet your heroes?

Episode 159 - The Faceless Ones (3)

Synopsis:

Trapped in a secret room within the Chameleon Tours hangar, the Doctor is overcome by jets of freezing gas...

He manages to block one vent with his handkerchief, but another jet causes him to collapse. Believing him unconscious, Spencer approaches - only for the Doctor to stun him with his own pen-like freezing weapon.

Blade arrives soon after and is angered by Spencer's incompetence. He orders him to personally kill the Doctor whilst he is away on their next flight.

Detective Inspector Crossland has been talking to Jamie and Samantha and has come to believe their story - specially about his missing colleague, Gascoigne - Jamie recognising a photograph as the dead man seen in the Chameleon hangar. Crossland decides to approach the Commandant and get him to take their claims seriously.

Samantha, however, decides instead to take a look at the hangar and talks Jamie into accompanying her.

The Doctor has also gone to see the Commandant, who is about to have him arrested when Crossland arrives and appears to corroborate some of his claims.

The Doctor goes on to state what he believes to be happening here - the mass abductions of young Earth people by an alien power, with Chameleon Tours simply acting as a front for their operations. He points out how two of his own young friends - Ben and Polly - have now also vanished.

He is aware that the aliens are copying people, as he had seen Meadows in Air Traffic Control just before seeing him again in a comatose state at the hangar. To prove alien involvement he decides to demonstrate Spencer's freezing pen - asking Meadows to assist.

A cup of coffee is turned to ice, and a panicked Meadows rushes from the room.

Samantha and Jamie have found lots of pre-filled and stamped postcards, which they take to the Commandant, Crossland and the Doctor as proof that the missing passengers, like her brother Brian, may never have made it to their holiday destinations.

It is clear that packages of cards are sent to the foreign destinations to be posted back to the UK.

The Doctor asks for 12 hours in which to explore the airport unhindered, to which the Commandant agrees, whilst Crossland decides to approach the airline direct.

Spencer and Meadows meet to plan the destruction of the Doctor. Meadows is given a small button-like device and sent back to Air Traffic Control, an item which he must slip unnoticed to their target.

The Doctor speaks with Jean Rock about the airline and learns that they operate only a small number of aircraft and service European holiday destinations only. He is also informed by Air Traffic Controller Heslington that the radar will only track aircraft for a limited range after take-off.

Meadows returns and presses the button device onto the Doctor's back.

He and Jamie then go to take another look at the hidden room at the hangar.

Crossland speaks to Spencer at the airline kiosk and he contacts Blade to let him know that a policeman wants to speak to him. The captain agrees that he should be allowed to come over to their aircraft.

There, the Inspector sees the 'plane fill with young people, eagerly looking forward to their trip.

He meets Blade and Ann Davidson in the cockpit area, and is surprised to see that the aircraft has controls unlike any he has ever seen before.

The Doctor and Jamie are being observed by Spencer, and when they are seen to discover a link with the airport medical centre, he activates the button device remotely. The Doctor collapses, though Jamie is able to quickly remove it.

Crossland finds himself being taken captive on the 'plane as it takes off. Blade activates a set of controls then switches on a TV monitor showing the cabin.

The Inspector is shocked to see that all of the seats are now empty. The passengers have disappeared...

Data:

Written by Malcolm Hulke & David Ellis

Recorded: Saturday 15th April 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 22nd April 1967

Ratings: 7.9 million / AI 53

Designer: Geoffrey Kirkland

Director: Gerry Mill

Additional cast: Brian Wilsher (Heslington)

Critique:

As previously mentioned, The Faceless Ones was originally going to be a four part story, until Innes Lloyd requested longer stories as a budget-saving measure. This episode count would become the predominant one until the end of the Pertwee era. Future script editors would bemoan this move as it was always felt that many stories simply couldn't sustain this running time. 

The Faceless Ones certainly suffers from a lot of padding in its first half - which is also the section which has the least science fiction elements. It's pretty much more of a techno-thriller up to the end of this episode. We've hardly glimpsed the Chameleons so far.

The Doctor has so far made three attempts to get the Commandant to listen to him, and we're beginning to lose count of the number of times he and his companions have been back and forth to the Chameleon hangar to investigate it.

The arrivals of Crossland and Samantha do move things along, however, as they are more proactive characters determined to get things done.

Initial drafts of this episode saw the Doctor attacked by Spencer wielding an oxyacetylene torch. Ben and Mary Dawson found the real Polly hidden at the hangar whilst her duplicate worked at the airline kiosk. Jamie spent most of the episode being chased around the airport by Jenkins, who had already been duplicated at this stage.

The biggest change to the next draft was obviously the removal of Ben and Polly from the action all together.

The Doctor ripped off his shirtsleeves to plug the vents in the hidden room. The button-like device was to be a fake button activated by body heat, which inserted a deadly needle into its victim.

During the run up to Episode Three Sandra Reid returned as costume designer. She had fallen ill towards the end of The Moonbase and been replaced by her predecessor Daphne Dare, who had worked on the majority of Hartnell stories.

Some of the model work for the serial was remounted during the week of rehearsals, the reasons for which we will look at next time.

Lloyd also set out some ground rules for those wishing to work on the programme. Some of this involved budgets, such as the average episode costs being set at £2570. Captions were to be standardised. There should be a maximum of 5 recording breaks, with two fades to black to allow for overseas broadcasters inserting adverts - one after the opening reprise and one at the mid-point of the episode. The last 20 seconds of each episode should be telerecorded to use as the reprise for the next instalment. 

This generally happened anyway if a director wished to avoid rehiring an actor or re-erecting a set that wouldn't be needed for the rest of the studio recording. At other times, the closing scenes were simply restaged by the actors - noticeable when you watch episodes back to back on DVD etc.

Episode Three began with a telerecording of the end of the previous instalment, over which the opening captions were shown. It utilised none of the pre-filming material from Gatwick, but did make use of a fair amount of library footage to illustrate Blade's aircraft landing and taking off, and Heslington's radar.

Mill actually arranged for six recording breaks, so clearly hadn't yet seen Lloyd's new guidance.

When the Doctor sees the medical centre on a monitor at the hangar, it is a static photograph he is looking at, taken the week before as the set wasn't required this week. A BBC photographer was also asked to take images of the aircraft cabin set with its seats both full and empty, to be used as captions for the following episode. One of Mill's recording breaks was to have the 14 young extras exit the cabin set at the end of the episode. 

It was decided to record parts of the episode out of sequence - all of the scenes set on the 'plane being left to the end of the evening. This was still a very rare occurrence for the programme.

In the summer of 1985 rumours were circulating at a DWAS convention that The Faceless Ones (3) still existed. It had been bought by film collector Gordon Hendry two years previously, along with The Evil of the Daleks (2), at a car boot sale.

By 1987 Ian Levine had negotiated with Hendry to have both episodes returned to the BBC archives.

The Faceless Ones (3) was in the worst state of repair, with four noticeable cuts to the recording. Subsequent commercial releases have used brief scenes from elsewhere in the episode to plug the gaps.

Trivia:

• After the huge drop last week, the series regains its audience - bouncing back by 1.5 million. The appreciation figure also rises by 3 points.
• A survey for this episode by TAM found it to be the fourth most watched children's show of the week, with some 4.15 households watching.
• This is the shortest of the six episodes, at 23' 10". Episode Two was the longest at 25' 22". Four of the six episodes are under 24 minutes long.
• Two days before this episode went into studio, it was decided that Doctor Who might be brought to a close after its fifth season. A series named Bonaventure was proposed by Shaun Sutton, and a pilot requested, but nothing ever came of this.
• Despite having already recorded her final scenes, Anneke Wills was still closely associated with the series when she was invited to be a guest on Juke Box Jury on the evening of this episode's broadcast - though the episode was taped and not shown until the following Saturday.

The Well - a review

Last week's Lux was always going to be a hard act to follow, but The Well - clips from which featured prominently in the season trailers - looked like it might be the one to build on the progress being made so far.

Dark and moody alien planet with a scientific base, and a big metal hatch on the floor - all reminiscent of The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit. We also saw space troopers, responding to the disappearance of the crew of the base - which brought to mind Aliens.

Did it end up anything like either of these? Did it build on on the success of Lux?

I'm please to say that it's a big yes to both of those.

I spotted the connection to a certain David Tennant story straight away - from the trailers and DWM preview articles to be honest. It was pretty obvious that the sole survivor of the mining base was going to be possessed in some way, and not as innocent as they first appeared. When you're the sole survivor, surrounded by corpses, it's fairly standard practice that you're prime suspect. 

That Aliss is deaf also gave away the reason why she might not have been affected like her colleagues, until she was the only person left. There was a definite Midnight vibe on top of the Aliens / Satan Pit feel.

What I didn't suspect was - spoiler ahead - that this would be a direct sequel to the Series 4 story.

This planet is Midnight, and the villain of the piece is the unseen entity which invaded the Crusader 50 vehicle.

This was another obvious Aliens reference, as the first sequel saw Ripley return to the planet where the Xenomorph originated, but many years later when it now has a colony base set up on it - and the newcomers have fallen foul of the earlier menace.

The Doctor and Belinda find themselves on a spaceship where they're immediately jettisoned into space to land on the planet along with a squad of troopers. They're challenged as soon as they land - but you do have to ask why this didn't happen straight away on the spaceship.

The situation is resolved with the psychic paper. We then have a wonderfully atmospheric build-up as the Doctor, Belinda and the troopers investigate - finding dead bodies (half of them shot, the other half with all their bones broken) and spotting that all the mirrors are broken.

At the centre of it all is Aliss, a deaf cook who only wants to get home to her daughter. They do give away that she's not all that she seems as we get a suspicious look on her face at one point. The emotion gets laid on a bit thick with her scenes with the Doctor, but they're setting her up as a sympathetic character who has no control over what happens to her.

It's pretty obvious that the Doctor is going to save her, and we will later see the commander of the troopers, Shaya, sacrifice herself to defeat the entity. Or so we thought...

The entity has a totally different MO this time. It still seeks to get off the planet, but no longer possesses people or spreads its influence through copying them, as we saw in Midnight. Now it simply hides behind its victim's back. If they turn their back on someone that person is killed by psychokinetic energy - which is at least something from the original outing, as we saw it rip the front off of the Crusader 50.

This is why we have two different types of death amongst the crew - the ones with the broken bones got behind the host, whilst the others were the hosts, and they were shot by others in an attempt to stop it - except the entity then jumps to the killer.

This change of MO might be explained by this being some 400,000 years after the Doctor's previous visit, so it has evolved. Thankfully they resisted letting us see what the entity looks like - just don't watch the accompanying Unleashed...

One other minor complaint I had about the scripting: Midnight has been extensively mined, denuded of all its diamonds. Surely that must have meant lots of opportunities for the entity to escape before now?

Midnight was one of those stand-alone episodes which you really thought could never be revisited, and it was a huge gamble to attempt it. It would have been a mistake to copy it too closely - small group trapped in a claustrophobic space etc., so going down the Aliens route works.

In fact, there is now scope for a further encounter - thanks to a final twist in the tale. This closing sequence also featured yet another appearance by Mrs Flood. She's beginning to be used like Susan Twist, which I think is a mistake. It was fine when she was some odd lady on the margins of the action, but now she's turning up as seemingly different characters in different time zones, so it's just looking like Susan Twist all over again.

A familiar Britney Spears track features once more, which was heard prominently in The End of the World. I'm assuming this is deliberate and is a nod to the fact that the Earth is apparently destroyed on May 24th 2025, come the penultimate episode of this series. Several times in this episode the troopers, and Aliss, claim never to have heard of the planet or the human race.

It's another very good episode, so can they maintain the improved quality as we approach the mid-point of the series? Will they be lucky and pull it off on the day? Sorry...

Next week's looks like being a Doctor-lite story. He and Belinda are in it, but it's more of a Ruby Sunday / UNIT story from what we can gather.

The original you might say...

Remembering William Hartnell today.

It was on the 23rd of April 1975 that William Hartnell passed away in hospital after a long illness - one which had caused him to relinquish the role which made him famous and which brought him great joy as well as upset.

The joy was in securing a role which finally took him away from tough guy parts, like gangsters and army sergeants, and brought him a whole new generation of younger fans. The upset was in seeing his new happy family being diminished year on year as fellow cast and crew members decided to move on and leave the show, becoming a revolving door of supporting actors and behind the scenes personnel. The loss of Verity Lambert as producer hit him particularly hard, and he never really settled with any of her replacements.

This coincided with the onset of the illness - arteriosclerosis - which was eventually to take his life, 50 years ago today, at the age of only 67.

A perfectionist in everything he did, the difficulties in learning lines caused him great distress, which he often took out on other people. This, and some of his socio-political views, made him a controversial figure as a man.

Hartnell never played the First Doctor. All that regeneration business was three years in the future when he took on the role of the Doctor. And that's all he ever was - simply the Doctor. The original you can say.

Without him none of the next 61 years of the series would ever have happened. We have a lot to thank him for, which nascent fandom wasn't really able to do in his own lifetime. My life would certainly have been a lot different without the series he helped forge.

Having just moved house, I've inherited a fancy big TV, and started watching the series again in its entirety from An Unearthly Child onwards. I have just reached The Reign of Terror, which includes some marvellous stuff from Hartnell, such as the TARDIS scene in the opening episode and the roadworks gang sequence in the second - both allowing him to exercise his comedic talents (it should be recalled that, as Billy Hartnell, he featured in many humorous British 'quickies' before becoming typecast as tough guys).

I shall certainly be watching more tonight, and remembering William Hartnell - the Doctor.

What's Wrong With... Planet of Fire

 

A production problem: the opening Earth scenes are set on Lanzarote - and the planet Sarn scenes are filmed on Lanzarote. It is so obvious that they are at the same location. The opening section should have been filmed somewhere in the Home Counties, so that the Sarn scenes made more of a visual impact once the TARDIS moved there. With the previous two trips abroad, City of Death was set wholly in Paris, with only a few studio-bound prehistoric sets and Florentine interiors, whilst Arc of Infinity juxtaposed studio-bound Gallifrey with Amsterdam.

Peter Grimwade was not invited to the Lanzarote shoot, or its recce, thanks to JNT falling out with him. (He felt slighted that he wasn't invited to a meal which Grimwade arranged as a thank you to the crew who had prepped the cancelled Season 20 Dalek story which he was due to direct). 

Grimwade said that he could have better matched his scripts to the locations had he been able to experience them. As it is, he made use instead of his Greek holidays, though a lot of that local colour didn't make it into the finished story.

JNT had also fallen out of love with Anthony Ainley, and for a while this really was going to be the Master's swan song - in this incarnation at least.

He and Saward thought seriously for a time about having the Master confirm his blood connection with the Doctor, but decided to drop it in the end - thankfully.

Turlough's history seems odd. Why should he be sent off to live on Earth whilst his brother gets to stay on the planet on which they crashed? Why not send both to other worlds? What exactly was so bad about his past that Turlough kept it secret from the Doctor? There's nothing shameful about being a political prisoner, especially when he must have been very young at the time of his exile. Indeed, he could have got the Doctor to help him, if Trion is under some sort of oppressive regime. (Maybe his family were actually the dictators, ousted in a popular uprising).

After rescuing Peri, why does Turlough bring her into the TARDIS? Why not simply carry her to the beach and summon help, so she is dealt with in a conventional manner - rather than have her wake up in a bigger-on-the inside space-time machine, where she might want to ask an awful lot of questions?

Where has Kamelion been all this time? He came aboard the TARDIS in The King's Demons, and hasn't even been referred to since. Surely Saward could have dropped the odd line in to explain where he was and what he was doing or, as I previously suggested, have him take on a humanoid form and have an actor in to play him for a story or two.

Kamelion reacts when he senses the psychic shock of the Master's mishap with his Tissue Compression Eliminator, so takes the TARDIS to Sarn - but there's all this business with the Trion artefact which doesn't quite fit with the rest of the narrative.

What was a Trion beacon doing on a Roman or Greek ship in the first place? Have they been using the Earth as a depository for exiles for centuries? The script introduces elements then (in)conveniently forgets all about them.

How exactly did the mini-Master manage to build a whole control room if all of his equipment is of gigantic proportions in relation to his diminished status? Was the whole room shrunk around him? (If so, why no doors?). Bit of luck that it just happens to house the device which enables him to control Kamelion.

How did he come to end up on Sarn? Because of his accident, or was he going there anyway? Bit of a coincidence if he was.

If the numismaton gas is on record in the TARDIS databank, then surely the Master must have known about it himself long before this. Surely it would have been a lot simpler coming to Sarn, instead of his convoluted schemes on Gallifrey and Traken.

And once the flame begins to turn into a conventional one - i.e. a wee bit burn-y - why not simply jump out? He stands there blabbing when he ought to be saving himself. 

The Doctor's a bit too brutal in this story as well - far too readily accepting that Kamelion is irredeemable, and then doing nothing as his old enemy is seemingly burnt to a crisp. And they call Davison the bland Doctor...

Finally, Peri is on Sarn purely by accident, and the Doctor has hardly had any interaction with her throughout the story, so what makes him think she is companion material? 

Episode 158: The Faceless Ones (2)

Synopsis:

Captain Blade and his colleague Spencer have escorted a mysterious figure, its identity hidden, into the airport medical centre. It is humanoid in form but lacks any facial features. 

Lying on a couch behind a screen is a man named Meadows, who works in Air Traffic Control. He is unconscious.

At Passport Control, the woman who looks exactly like Polly - even wearing the same outfit - argues that she is named Michelle, and has come to England from Switzerland for work.

The Commandant sends a message for Superintendent Reynolds to come and, when the Doctor realises that it is to arrest him rather than to investigate the murder they have reported, he and Jamie decide to flee.

In the medical centre, Nurse Pinto attaches electronic devices to the heads of the alien being and Meadows, who now lie side by side. Slowly, the faceless alien begins to alter in appearance to resemble Meadows. After a few moments, there is an exact duplicate of the air traffic controller beside the original. Pinto and Blade test the duplicate with biographical questions, and it is clear that the process transfers memories as well as likeness. The process is controlled by a special armband.

The Doctor and Jamie are in the airport's main concourse, hiding behind newspapers, as they discuss what to do next. They are thinking of returning to the Chameleon Tours hangar to investigate further, when they spot "Michelle" working at an airline desk nearby. This proves to be that of Chameleon Tours. They try to talk to her again but she insists on not knowing them. However, she lets slip that she knows the man they saw killed was shot, despite them only saying he had been killed.

The desk is being monitored on CCTV by Blade from an area behind the kiosk. He realises that "Michelle" may prove a liability so he has her withdrawn and replaced with one of their air hostesses named Ann Davidson. Michelle will be leaving on their next flight.

The Doctor and Jamie are reunited with Ben, and seek refuge in a photobooth to plan their next steps.

In the control area of the airport, the Commandant is introduced by his secretary, Jean, to Detective Inspector Crossland of Scotland Yard. He has come to investigate the disappearance of his colleague Inspector Gascoigne - the man whose murder Polly had earlier witnessed. He explains that they had come here to investigate Chameleon Tours.

The Doctor decides to try speaking with the Commandant again, and suggests Ben have a look around the hangar. Jamie should keep an eye on the airline kiosk.

Michelle is being confronted by a young woman named Samantha Briggs. She has come down from Liverpool to demand information about her missing brother - last seen embarking on one of Chameleon's cheap youth tours to Europe.

Jamie observes this discussion and approaches Samantha, telling her that he knows someone who might be able to help her.

The Doctor's attempts to get the Commandant to listen to him fall on deaf ears, so he creates a diversion in order to flee once more.

Ben is exploring the Chameleon hangar when he finds a large crate. Opening it he is shocked to find Polly, in a catatonic state.

The Doctor is examining the Chameleon kiosk when he spots the CCTV system, and witnesses Ben being captured by Spencer at the hangar - shot with a pen-like device which causes him to freeze. He hurries off to try to save him. 

Crossland is interviewing various airport staff, and learns from Jenkins at Immigration about the strange pair who are currently been searched for.

Sam and Jamie see Ann encourage the young passengers who are about to embark to pre-sign their postcards, to save time later. The only proof her brother made it to Rome was a postcard they received, and now Sam realises that this doesn't mean he wrote it there.

She and Jamie are then confronted by Crossland.

The Doctor is looking round the hangar when he also finds a comatose figure in a crate - the real Meadows. He is lured into the back office and finds himself trapped there. Small panels open in the walls and a freezing gas emerges.

The Doctor collapses...

Data:

Written by Malcolm Hulke & David Ellis

Recorded: Saturday 8th April 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5.50pm, Saturday 15th April 1967

Ratings: 6.4 million / AI 50

Designer: Geoffrey Kirkland

Director: Gerry Mill

Additional cast: Pauline Collins (Samantha Briggs), Bernard Kay (Crossland), Madalena Nicol (Nurse Pinto), Gilly Fraser (Ann Davidson)

Critique:

Innes Lloyd had decided on a shake-up to the regular cast, and Michael Craze and Anneke Wills were contracted only for two further four-part stories following The Macra Terror. When The Faceless Ones was extended to six episodes, this meant that the pair would need to be written out after the second episode of the following story. As we saw with Jackie Lane's Dodo in The War Machines, this could be narratively clumsy and unsatisfying. Whilst he wasn't terribly happy with them, he was aware that they were popular with the viewers.

It was therefore decided to have their characters written out at the end of this story, rather than extend any contracts. It was then planned that Ben and Polly would actually disappear from the narrative after this second episode - to be seen for the final time in a sequence which could be pre-filmed on location.

Malcolm Hulke and David Ellis already had a young female character appear from their second episode - Mary Dawson - who is searching for her missing brother.

Gerry Davis asked the writers to develop this character with a view to them becoming the next female companion.

Mary Dawson would become Cleopatra "Cleo" Briggs, before settling on Samantha "Sam" Briggs.

Liverpudlian actress Pauline Collins was given the role, and Lloyd would bend over backwards to try to convince her to stay on as a regular - but Collins simply wasn't interested in any long-running role on television at this time.

Prior to its expansion to six episodes, this instalment would have see Crossland being trapped on the aircraft as its cliffhanger. This would be moved to the end of the third episode. Draft versions of this episode also saw the Doctor and Ben almost being crushed by a falling aircraft engine in the hangar, and the cliffhanger would have been the discovery of the comatose Polly in a crate.

Nurse Pinto was named O'Brien.

Friday 10th March 1967 saw Gilly Fraser being filmed at Gatwick Airport, approaching the desk which would feature as the Chameleon Tours one in studio. Frazer Hines was also present that day, taken out of rehearsals for the second instalment of The Macra Terror. He was filmed wandering around the airport concourse.

Saturday 8th April proved to be the last studio day for Craze and Wills. Technically, Wills had played Polly for the final time the week before, as she was called upon to play the duplicate "Michelle" character throughout this episode, other than the brief shot of her frozen in the crate.

Joining the guest cast was Bernard Kay, making his third appearance in the series. Back in 1964 he had played resistance fighter Tyler in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, returning the following year to play Saladin in The Crusade.

Episode 2 of The Faceless Ones is significant in that it is the first to use the new arrangement of the theme music. This was the work of Delia Derbyshire, who remastered her original August 1963 version, naming it "Signature Tune No.2". The opening rush of white noise was removed, whilst tonal rises - "wind bubbles" - were added underneath the main theme.

It was felt that this fitted better with the new title sequence which had been introduced at the start of the preceding story.

Barry Dupres played the Chameleon in the medical centre, the duplication process being very simply achieved by mixing camera images of George Selway playing Meadows with Dupres' lumpen alien.

The airline kiosk set was a small one, built within a larger set which included the Chameleon control room.

White smoke was used to simulate the freezing gas.

With a lot of toing and froing this week, there were seven recording breaks planned. This first was needed to swap Selway from one couch to the other to show the end of the duplication process. Two breaks were used for setting up then dismantling the small kiosk set, whilst others were used for camera moves. The last was needed for the cliffhanger, as Troughton had to have icy make-up effects added to his face.

Craze and Wills were unhappy with the way their work on the series came to an end. Troughton had especially benefited from Wills' advice about shaping his character in the early days, and he was sorry to see them go. Even Hines, who had initially failed to hit it off with them, was saddened by their departure.

We'll return to this come Episode 6.

Once again, we have little moments of humour amongst the menace. The distinctively dressed Doctor and Jamie are being hunted through the airport, yet get away with it for a while by concealing themselves behind broadsheet newspapers. In the animated version of this episode, it's a Mill Hill local newspaper - the district of London which was home to Patrick Troughton. Jamie holds his paper upside down.

Later, we see the pair joined by Ben and they take refuge in one of those photobooths which people used for passport pictures. At one point a lady goes to use it, and we see the trio pretend to use it - posing with cheesy grins (other than the confused Jamie).

In the Commandant's office, the Doctor creates a diversion by threatening to throw a bomb - which proves to be a rubber ball.

This episode sees the first proper look at a Chameleon, though it's only the sedentary one in the duplication process sequence at the start. The science-fiction elements don't really kick in until the second half of the serial, so this is still very much a modern thriller in an exotic setting - something akin to an episode of The Avengers which, of course, had see episodes written by Malcolm Hulke.

Lloyd had been very happy with the realisation of the new aliens, yet they hardly feature at all throughout the whole story, the villains for the most part being represented by their human duplicates.

Trivia:

• The ratings see a sizeable drop this week - down more than 1.5 million on the previous week. The appreciation figure remains stable, and will even rise significantly over the next few episodes.
• Pauline Collins would eventually return to the series in 2006 when she portrayed Queen Victoria in Tooth and Claw. A portrait of her as Victoria also featured in Empress of Mars.
• Innes Lloyd had been resistant to Collins playing Sam Briggs with her natural Scouse accent. It was Gerry Mill who insisted she use it to differentiate her from the usual younger female companions.
• Gilly Fraser was at this time married to Peter Purves, who had featured in the series as companion Steven Taylor.
• Madalena Nicol was a Brazilian actress, who spent only a decade or so working in England. She had previously acted on stage in France, and would return to her homeland at the end of the '60's. In the late 1970's she was teaching drama in Texas.
• Prior to becoming an actress Nicol had been a singer. She performed at the White House for Franklin D Roosevelt.
• The vents from which the freezing gas issues are obviously sink plugholes.

Lux - a review

There's a fan theory which has been doing the rounds recently, that all is not quite as straightforward as it seems with recent stories. The idea is that some god-like entity has been playing with the Doctor and he's actually trapped in something akin to the Truman Show. I believe this arose from Mrs Flood's breaking of the fourth wall. She isn't, says the theory. 

She's actually talking to whoever is observing the Doctor, rather than we, the TV audience.

I bring this up now as I just spotted something similar in the preview clip they showed for Lux at the beginning of the week. The Doctors says "Cut!", then wonders who he is asking to do this. 

This may tie in with some of the episode titles later in the series, such as The Reality War.

But enough speculation, what of Lux itself?

Well, once again this isn't exactly original at first glance. Cartoon characters coming to life, or other fictional characters stepping out of the screen into the real world, has been done many times before - as has our heroes being transformed into cartoon form (such as when the Winchester brothers had an encounter with Scooby Doo and his gang in a later Supernatural episode.

The Winchesters also met fans of their's, who had been reading of their adventures rather than watching them on screen).

The initial setup is reminiscent of the Torchwood instalment Out of the Rain, in which figures emerge from celluloid and attack people. In that instance, the Ghostmaker stole his victims' lifeforce, whereas here the villain of the piece traps them in celluloid. He is the 'Lux' of the title, who proves to be another of the ancient pantheon - the God of Light, who is related to the Toymaker and Maestro. He finds form thanks to moonlight reflecting off a teaspoon into the light from a cinema projector, a cartoon of Mr Ring-a-Ding being shown at the time - leaving him in this two-dimensional form.

It transpires that the bigeneration has left the Doctor with a reservoir of artron energy, and Lux plans to tap this to give him proper corporeality so he can exit the cinema into the outside world and consume some of the incandecence of that lovely new atomic energy.

The action takes place in a well-realised art deco Florida setting of 1952. There is much talk of the racial segregation of the time, especially significant for this particular TARDIS pairing.

This was obviously an important element of Rosa, but the companion worrying about the social mores of a historical period goes right back to Martha Jones. It's discussed here, since this is the companion's first trip into the past, but isn't relevant to the plot.

Spotting a chain locking a door at 4am might not be the most obvious thing which might lead the Doctor to investigate something. I would have said that the cinema being lit up at 4am was far more suspicious.

The Doctor and Belinda hear about some cinemagoers who went missing 3 months previously from the venue, and meet the mother of one victim. Finding out that the sole survivor, Reg the projectionist, is inside provides the impetus for our heroes to break in.

A minor quibble: at one point the mum mentions her son loving "the pictures". This sounded really odd, and I'm sure it's because an American is far more likely to talk about going to the movies, rather than to the pictures. Feel free to let me know if I'm mistaken.

It's once the Doctor and Belinda have met Lux that the story takes a series of bizarre turns. First they are turned into cartoon versions of themselves, and find they are trapped on celluloid. The phrase "a well rounded individual" takes on a whole new meaning as they try to find a way to escape. This involves playing with the visual language of film, as they try to manipulate the film frames. Then, things go really weird as they break out of a TV screen and are faced with... Doctor Who fans.

With Cyberman and Meep t-shirts, fezes and overlong stripy scarves, they represent the younger end of the nerdy fan spectrum. Last time RTD represented fandom in a story, he came in for a bit of stick. Here, they are presented more sympathetically. The Doctor discovers that he's a fictional character, in a TV show, but - of course - it turns out to be a fiction within a fiction. If there is some Truman Show thing going on, it's not being revealed this early. Interestingly, there's a post modern, post credits sequence (actually mid credit) in which the fans realise that they aren't fiction - which might imply that the Doctor is the subject if a TV show after all...

The resolution wasn't anticlimactic in any way. The Doctor's being drained, and both Belinda and Reg step up to save him and defeat Lux. Rather than the God of Light being destroyed, he actually gets what he wants and transcends to a cosmic plane.

Poor Reg dies, but he's okay about this as he hopes to be reunited with his deceased wife. The missing folk are brought back. It's just one of the more emotional sections of the episode, the other big one being the sequence with the fans. Warning: the Doctor cries yet again, but this time it feels justified.

As the Doctor and Belinda depart, Mrs Flood turns up. This is the first time we've seen her away from a contemporary setting, and she doesn't talk to the screen for a change.

Overall, a most enjoyable episode with striking imagery and some bizarre twists and turns. Performances are great across the board - special mention to Alan Cumming for voicing Mr Ring-a-Ding / Lux. Linus Roache (son of Corries William Roache) is the tragic Reg, and Lucy Thackeray is the missing Tommy Lee's mother, a sympathetic character who refuses to give up hope and who clearly has no time for the race laws. It's quite a shock when she appears to have betrayed the Doctor and called the cops on him, but it's one of those fictions within fictions.

This series is managing to shape up nicely so far. Next week's episode looks well impressive (no pun intended).

Inspirations: Deep Breath

Deep Breath's principal role is to introduce a new Doctor. Peter Capaldi's Twelft Doctor had actually been glimpsed earlier - when his "attack eyebrows" were seen as the various Doctors saved Gallifrey from the Daleks. We had also seen the actor in the series prior to this, as he was the second person to have been cast as Doctor despite appearing in another role - Colin Baker as Commander Maxil being the first.

Fans have often speculated about the latter, whilst JNT and Eric Saward simply glossed over the fact that the actor was being recast as the Sixth Doctor.

Fandom theories ranged from Time Lords only having a limited number of faces to call upon when regenerating, to the trauma of being shot by Maxil somehow influencing the Doctor's next regeneration.

Steven Moffat decides to make a thing of the fact that the new Doctor looks like the Pompeiian marble merchant Caecilius - and its related to that fan trauma theory.

The Doctor's encounter with the Roman pater familias has left an impression, which finally comes to the fore here.

As Pompeii fell, Donna Noble talked him into setting aside his "fixed moments in time" stance by saving someone - Caecilius' and his family.

The new Doctor comes into being not sure of who or what he is, in terms of purpose and morality, and this face will remind him of the sort of man he ought to be - as we'll see confirmed in a later episode.

Capaldi opts to use his native Glaswegian accent as the Doctor, and this is also made part of the new Doctor's make-up. He doesn't just sound Scottish, he sometimes acts Scottish.

Moffat shows some concern about casting the first older Doctor in the role, after Eccleston, Tennant and Smith. Younger fans who had only ever watched the revived series might have problems relating to an older person (Capaldi being the same age as Hartnell when he played a grandfatherly figure).

To help new fans accept him, Moffat does a couple of things. The first is to have the Eleventh Doctor call up Clara from her past to ask her to accept his new persona. This scene explains her noticing the TARDIS phone dangling off the hook in The Time of the Doctor.

This will prove to be darker Doctor than previous incarnations - basically it will be the Sixth Doctor, but done properly. (The Sixth Doctor was blamed for some violent stuff - but nothing as bad as "murdering" his opponent).

Clara's difficulty accepting the new Doctor is there to mirror the viewer's, and hopefully  - like her - they will decide to give him a chance.

The other thing Moffat does is use elements from the series' recent past, to show that this is a continuation of the same programme they were watching when Matt Smith was Doctor.

We have the Doctor and Clara reunited with the Paternoster Gang, partly because he has some fighting planned but mainly because they are familiar and popular figures.

Then we have the Half-Face Man and his kin. These are robots who use human (and other animal) body parts to achieve a particular goal - just as the Clockwork Droids did on the SS Madame de Pompadour in The Girl in the Fireplace. And guess what - these are robot cousins from a sister ship - the SS Marie Antoinette. The Clockwork Droids simply wanted to repair their ship, whilst the Half-Face Man wants his kin to become human.

The way that he goes about obtaining body parts, in this Victorian setting, naturally reminds us of Jack the Ripper, who removed body parts from his victims.

It should also be noted that the TARDIS is given only a cosmetic make-over, to make it a warmer, lived-in space. It hasn't blown up this time and necessitated a drastic redesign.

The TARDIS did crash following the regeneration, but was eaten by a T-Rex instead of blowing up. The dinosaur's inclusion is pretty much there of the visual imagery and provide a startling opening to the story. Its apparent spontaneous combustion is a nod to Charles Dickens. The character Krook in Bleak House perishes by this means.

At the episode's end, we have a strange little coda. The Half-Face Man arrives in what appears to be heaven, suggesting that he did finally achieve his desire to be human. The woman who greets him will prove to be key to this year's story arc, as will this domain.

Next time: the Doctor and Clara take a fantastic voyage into the heart (and soul) of one of his oldest foes...

My next DWAS event...

Just booked my next DWAS event - a return to Riverside Studios at the end of May for an afternoon spent in the company of four of the 1960's companions, as you can see from the poster.

I'm very glad I didn't hang about as the event sold out within four hours of tickets going on sale. These events usually take a few weeks to sell out, so I suspect the calibre of the guest list has made all the difference.

The four episodes being shown alongside the Q&A panels are The Daleks (3), Galaxy 4 (3), The Faceless Ones (1) and The Dominators (2).

Jean Marsh (1934 - 2025)

Sadly it has been reported today that Jean Marsh has passed away at the age of 90. She made three memorable appearances in Doctor Who, one of her characters being regarded as a companion.

Her first role was as Princess Joanna, sister of King Richard the Lionheart in The Crusade.

This was followed the next year with her best known role in the series - Space Special Security agent Sara Kingdom. 

Despite being confined to a single story - The Daleks' Masterplan - Sara is regarded by most fans as a companion, as well as being classed as such in official publications.

She would go on to gain a reputation for portraying witch-like characters (in films like Return to Oz and Willow) and Doctor Who offered a similar role for her last appearance in the show - Queen Morgaine in 1989's Battlefield.

Marsh was also at one point married to Third Doctor Jon Pertwee.

Beyond Doctor Who, she is best remembered for co-creating the popular Edwardian drama Upstairs, Downstairs, in which she also featured as maid Rose.

RIP.

Episode 157: The Faceless Ones (1)

Synopsis:

The TARDIS materialises in the middle of the runway at Gatwick Airport, south of London, causing an aircraft to abort its landing. As the Doctor and his companions emerge they are spotted by a policeman and forced to split up and run for cover.

The Airport Commandant is notified of the incident and initially assumes that someone is playing tricks. he orders the Police Box removed.

The Doctor is reunited with Jamie, whilst Polly hides inside one of the hangars belonging to an airline - Chameleon Tours. There, she witnesses a murder - the shooting of a man by one of the airline staff.

She flees. The killer, Spencer, has seen her and he tries to shoot her but is interrupted by a passing policeman. He returns to the hangar and reports the incident to a colleague, Captain Blade.

Outside she finds the Doctor and her friends and tells them of what she saw. They all go to the hangar where the Doctor examines the corpse, and he realises that the weapon used must have been of some advanced technology. They are unaware that they are being observed by Spencer and Blade - from a small control room hidden in an adjoining office.

Blade is concerned at the Doctor's knowledge. The dead man is a detective named Gascoigne.

The Doctor decides that they should notify the authorities but, as they walk towards the main airport building, Spencer abducts Polly and takes her back to the hangar.

Whilst Ben wanders around the airport, the Doctor and Jamie attempt to pass through Passport Control, which is being manned by staff member Jenkins. He refuses to give them access as they don't have passports to show. He summons the Commandant, and they tell him of the murder. The official refuses to believe them.

They insist he comes with them to the hangar to see for himself, but find the body gone and Blade denying having seen anything. After they have gone, he and Spencer prepare to assist a figure who has been concealed in a special cabinet, unable to cope with the atmosphere.

Back at the immigration desk, the Doctor and Jamie see Polly walk through along with passengers from a newly landed flight. However, she claims to be a woman named Michelle Lueppi from Switzerland, and has never met the Doctor or Jamie.

Spencer and Blade bring the mysterious figure into the airport, hiding him under a heavy coat and hat. He is taken to the medical centre. 

The figure is not human...

Data:

Written by Malcolm Hulke & David Ellis

Recorded: Saturday 1st April 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 8th April 1967

Ratings: 8.0 million / AI 51

Designer: Geoffrey Kirkland

Director: Gerry Mill

Guest Cast: Colin Gordon (Commandant), Donald Pickering (Captain Blade), Victor Winding (Spencer), George Selway (Meadows), Wanda Ventham (Jean Rook), Christopher Tranchell (Jenkins), Peter Whitaker (Gascoigne)

Critique:

Malcolm Hulke's involvement with Doctor Who went right back to the beginning, when he had been approached by original story editor David Whitaker to submit ideas for the series' first year. The one selected - generally known as "The Hidden Planet" - was scheduled as the third story, following two contributions from Anthony Coburn. This would have seen the TARDIS appear to land back in the England of 1963, only for the time-travellers to discover that it was really a mirror-Earth on the far side of the Sun, ruled by a woman who looked just like Barbara, and where everything was backwards or inverted.

Various issues arose and the story was held back for rewrites, and it remained in limbo until finally written off.

Hulke was an established screen writer, having written early episodes for The Avengers amongst other things. He had often collaborated with other writers like Eric Paice and so, when he met David Ellis at a writers' awards function at London's Dorchester Hotel in the spring of 1966, the pair discussed possible collaborations. One of these was for Doctor Who, an idea known as "The Big Store".

This involved aliens infiltrating a big London department store, some of whom disguised themselves as mannequins. There were two groups of aliens, some identified by letters and others by numbers. The letters were crude, faceless beings called Chameleons.

The idea was accepted, but Hulke and Ellis were asked to rethink the location for their story.

This was the era of Harold Wilson's "white heat of technology", and story editor Gerry Davis and producer Innes Lloyd wanted the series to reflect modern concepts. The package holiday was still novel at this time, and people did not regularly visit airports, so they were exotic locations for many.

Lloyd and Davis had been trying to bring the series into contemporary times ever since The War Machines, and it would later transpire that this story is actually set during the exact same timeframe as that earlier adventure.

Another change requested was to expand the four part story to six episodes. Lloyd had decided to reintroduce these as a budget-saving measure - reducing costs for costumes, sets and props.

The producer was also looking to make changes in the line-up of the regular cast. It had been decided that Ben and Polly would be written out during the subsequent story, and this was brought forward so that it would take place at the end of the Hulke / Ellis story. We'll look at this further when we get to Episode 6.

As "Doctor Who and the Chameleons" developed, a few changes were made. The airline was originally to have been called Pied Piper Tours, and Blade was named Quinn. The setting was London Airport - now Heathrow - rather than Gatwick.

The first episode cliffhanger would have been Ben and Jamie meeting Polly and she claiming not to recognise them.

The writers were very careful to minimise the number of times the real and alien versions of any character were in the same place at the same time throughout their six scripts.

As the story was approaching production, the team was joined by Peter Bryant as Associate Story Editor. He had co-starred in The Grove Family as the eldest son, before leaving acting to go behind the scenes, being employed by BBC radio as both script editor and producer. Keen to move over to television, he asked if there were any vacancies. Lloyd was, at this point, keen to move on from Doctor Who, and Bryant was seen as a potential replacement for him.

It was decided that he would shadow Lloyd for a couple of stories, beginning with The Faceless Ones as "The Chameleons" was now titled.

The director chosen to helm the story was Gerry Mill, who had been a production assistant on The Massacre, where he would have met Chris Tranchell. The designer, Geoffrey Kirkland, had previously worked on The Highlanders.

Production got underway at Gatwick on Friday 10th March 1967, with filming around the exterior of the complex. Further location filming took place the following Monday, Tuesday and Friday.

Scenes for the opening episode included the arrival of the TARDIS and the time-travellers hiding amongst grounded aircraft and moving around the hangar and workshop areas. Indoor material covered Blade and Spencer escorting the Chameleon through the terminal building. Victor Winding was present, as he was also filmed stalking and then abducting Polly, but Donald Pickering was absent. As Blade was only to be seen in long shot, he was doubled by extra Terence Denville, obscured by coat and pilot's cap. Of the regular cast, only Frazer Hines had been needed the first day, for filming on the second episode. Hines had been released from rehearsals on The Macra Terror. The others were present on Monday 13th March, when they were given a guided tour of Air Traffic Control, and again on Friday 17th.

The freezing gun prop used by Spencer was dropped and broke. It was returned to Shawcraft Models for repair, and took three days to be collected, fixed and returned. This was just one of several issues with the props company, which we'll look at in a later episode once their model work comes into play.

BBC photographers were present on the final day of filming, taking images of Troughton and Hines hiding beneath an aircraft. Other than a portrait shot of a Chameleon, these would be the only photographs depicting the story.

Joining the cast for rehearsals at St Helen's Church were Colin Gordon and Donald Pickering. Gordon was well known for many comedic roles in British film and television, generally playing pompous and stuffy authority figures.

Recording on Saturday 1st April ran between 8.30 - 9.45pm.

There was an early recording break to allow for the visual effect of Gascoigne being shot (a bright light shone on him with an electrical crackle overlaid) and to allow the actor to change into a scorched version of his costume and have make-up applied.

Silent 35mm library footage was used to depict passengers disembarking and aircraft - Vickers VC-10's - as well as airport buildings, including a rotating radar dish. The opening credits were shown over this footage, whilst the closing credits ran over a shot of the back of the head and shoulders of one of the Chameleons, keeping their true appearance hidden until later in the story.

The two main sets were the Chameleon hangar and the Commandant's control area. This included a large illuminated map.

The office, off the main Chameleon hangar space, had two TV monitors which could show live feeds from different cameras and allow Blade and Spencer to communicate or observe intruders.

Mill dispensed with specially composed music, relying instead on Brian Hodgson's radiophonic sounds. A piece of library music - Nigerian Drums - was used for chase sequences.

Appropriate background sound effects of aircraft taking off and landing were piped into studio.

The Chameleon was an extra, wearing a tunic and tabard and with a bald, veined, latex mask. This was then covered with vaseline to make it glisten.

During the week between recording and broadcast the production team was informed that there would be a fifth season, but a request to move back to Riverside Studios was turned down.

Trivia:

• The ratings get off to a healthy start, consistent with the previous story's figures.
• Around the time he was working on this story, Hulke also wrote the pilot script for a Dr Who radio series. A 23 minute pilot was recorded, starring Peter Cushing, but it never made it to series and the pilot is now lost.
• David Ellis had been trying to write for Doctor Who in his own right. One idea was set on an ocean liner, and another involved a mysterious clock. Gerry Davis rejected both.
• Donald Pickering and Wanda Ventham would be reunited in 1987 when they both appeared as Lakertyans in Time and the Rani. He had previously played the corrupt Prosecutor, Eyesen, in The Keys of Marinus, whilst she would also go on to play Thea Ransome in Image of the Fendahl.
• Christopher Tranchell had previously featured as Roger Colbert in The Massacre, and would return to the series as Commander Andred in The Invasion of Time.
• Geoffrey Kirkland would go on to gain an Oscar nomination for The Right Stuff, and win BAFTAs for Children of Men and Bugsy Malone.
• Radio Times provided its usual piece for the opening instalment on the Thursday before broadcast, using one of the very few publicity photographs taken for the serial:

The Robot Revolution - Review

Spoilers ahead, so don't read until after you've seen the episode...

The second series of the second RTD era gets underway with an episode that is far from original.

Like previous RTD openers, The Robot Revolution is a fairly lightweight story, designed to introduce a new companion as well as provide a run-around adventure with a bit of action. Unlike previous openers, this one does have a bigger death count, as we see a few humanoid rebels getting disintegrated.

There's also a cat that gets zapped. which might upset the kiddies.

Long term fans of the series (and its spin-offs) will have spotted quite a few elements from previous episodes.

Like Martha Jones, Belinda Chandra is a nurse, and we get the montage of her her at work just as we saw with Martha. Also similar to Martha is the fact that Belinda is related to someone whom the Doctor has met before, and is a blood relative.

The Doctor is intrigued by this connection and wants to investigate what this connection is - just as he had with Clara and Donna.

The titular robots look very similar to ones we've seen in the series before - in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, The Husbands of River Song and the SJA story The Empty Planet - big bulky things with no heads. They do have faces - but these are just like the screens we saw on the Emojibots in Smile.

That SJA story also comes to mind when we consider that this involved robots arriving on Earth to seize the ruler of their planet.

The villain of the piece looks like the Metalkind from another SJA story - Sky.

It looks like this story is going to be yet another one of those well-meaning AI's gets confused over some seemingly trivial thing and causes harm - in this case the fact that Belinda's ex-boyfriend bought her a Star Certificate, naming a star after her.

Luckily it does go beyond this by giving the robots a specific reason for their actions. That is the ex-boyfriend, who we initially think is just a throwaway character from Belinda's past. 

What happens is that there's a time fracture and she has blamed him on her predicament and suggested the robots abduct him instead, because he bought her the star cert. They actually do this, but he ends up on the planet orbiting the star at a much earlier date and so sets up the whole Robotaucracy in the first place.

Turns out Belinda jilted him as he's a control freak and a prime example of misogynistic toxic masculinity - because, let's face it, all Doctor Who writers these days have to shoehorn some sort of message into their episodes. This week it's Incels, but Adolescence this isn't.

The problem with messaging in this sort of adventure series is that it comes across as trivialised or marginalised within the context of the story. If you want to dramatise a serious subject then dedicate a proper piece of writing to it - look at the media buzz generated by the aforementioned Adolescence, or dramas like Mr Bates v the Post Office, which has influenced government.

Of the cast, the rebels are only barely sketched-in characters and there appears to be less than ten of them.

Varada Sethu gives a great performance, and promises to be quite a strong companion. She's a far better actor than Gatwa who, to date, only plays characters based on his own personality. I know a few fans who bemoaned the number of times the Doctor burst into tears in the last series, and he barely gets half way through the opener when he's at it again. Problem is, we've only had about three lines of dialogue from the person responsible for triggering these waterworks, so we have had zero opportunity to invest in her emotionally. 

As far as any season-long story arc goes, we're back in Terra Cognita, as we've seen a lot of it before. There's a significant date when the world / universe is going to end - which just happens to be the date of the scheduled final episode of the season and, as mentioned, the Doctor knows of some, as yet unexplained, connection with the new companion. Someone has told him to seek her out, but we don't know who this is, other than it's a he. The TARDIS "bouncing off" a particular destination was first introduced in the Moffat era, as do fractures (cracks) in time, which I'm sure will prove to be significant.

Mrs Flood is living next door to a companion - again - and is breaking the fourth wall - again.

Overall, it's a good episode for Sethu, so-so for Gatwa and - if this isn't damning with faint praise - a whole lot better than some of the offerings we got last year. Visually impressive, though the planet does look a bit Star Wars Prequel-ish. (There's a little Star Warsy robot as well). In the accompanying Unleashed instalment, RTD mentions wanting a 1950's vibe in the design, as can be seen in the robot gun and some set designs and especially the rocket, which resembles an old tinplate toy. There's a cartoonish look to the scenes in the robot palace.

Question 1: Why doesn't the Doctor try going back to 23rd May then hanging around a day? He stuck about a hotel for a year the last time.

Question 2: How did Belinda know that the Police Box is called a TARDIS?

Next time we are in the actual 1950's, as Lux sees the Doctor visit Miami where a cartoon character comes to life...