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...
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)
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.
- 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:
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