The Faceless Ones [3.8]

Landing on a runway at Gatwick airport, the TARDIS crew leap into action, dodging planes and being pursued by airport police. They soon discover that the airport is the base of operations for a sinister alien group running a budget airline. Young people on package holidays are disappearing on an industrial scale (though, for some reason, almost nobody seems to be noticing).

When Ben and Polly also vanish, the Doctor and Jamie spring into action. Their bumbling attempts at investigating infuriate the airport commandant, landing them in no end of bureaucratic trouble. Eventually, however, they get the establishment on side, and bring the aliens to justice.

The Majesty

I love the setting of Gatwick airport, and, as always, I have a particular love for 'contemporary' stories which have now matured like old cheeses and become more entertaining than before. I love the old cars and the information desks and the old telephones and the clothing styles. We also have some great characters in the Commandant, Inspector Gascoigne and Samantha, with her punchy Liverpudlian accent.

I enjoy the way that Jamie is being put forward as the 'heartthrob' of the show. Last time we had a couple of girls fawning over him in the spa. Now we have Samantha popping up as a girlfriend. He will have decidedly romantic relationships with Victoria and Zoe moving forward. You have to wonder if the teenage girls of the era had as much of a crush on him as the producers seemed to think!

The Misery

Ben and Polly disappear in mysterious circumstances, and then do not reappear until the very end, where they pop back for a single scene and then run off home. It works in terms of the story that they are kidnapped, but the fact that we don't see their doppelgängers again is a lost opportunity. And the fact that they leave when they do is also poor. After all, the next story (Evil of the Daleks) takes place in the same time period, at least for the first episode. So we have the bizarre situation where the Doctor and Jamie are wandering London looking for the TARDIS while Ben and Polly are still at large in the city but not helping because they have “left”. It doesn't ring true at all, and is clearly done for production reasons.

The final resolution hinges on the fact that the aliens leave their own doubles behind on Earth. This is supposedly in a place so secret that nobody will ever find it, but turns out to be in a van in the carpark. This is surely the dumbest possible move that the aliens could make. Were they really so tight for space on their getaway plane that they couldn't dump a few bodies in the hold or even in the overhead lockers? Given that they know they will die as soon as the bodies are interfered with, it displays an incomprehensible level of stupidity to just leave them in a carpark.

Also, six episodes is too long a time in which to tell this story. Four episodes would have been far tighter.

Magical Moments

• The opening scene, with planes flying in and the crew being chased by motorbikes is fantastic. It is possibly one of the best sequences in the whole story, so it's great that it happens right at the beginning and draws you in.
• The airport attendant reports a dead body in the hanger, then makes one of these typically dumb 'office' comments: “It's going to be one of those days, isn't it.”
• The sequence where the Doctor and Jamie are confronted by fake Polly, with a new name, matching passport, and no memory of them, is great – suspenseful, intriguing and more than a little chilling.
• The ending of episode one is also very good – a suffocating body with bits falling off it is very creepy, and the sudden sympathy and concern the villains are showing is very thought-provoking. Who are these people and how are we to feel about them?
• In episode four, the plane – which up till now had appeared perfectly normal – suddenly turns on its end and flies vertically upwards for over a hundred miles. No explanation, but who needs one? - It's the aliens!
• The discovery of thousands of miniature human bodies kept in drawers like butterflies in a museum is both unexpected and a brilliant image.
• In my reconstruction, Samantha boxes a security guard to the floor in episode six, completely knocking him out. Who he was remains a mystery in my mind, but it was pretty impressive to see a lightweight girl pummel a massive bruiser to the ground with nothing but her fists...

In Summary

The Faceless Ones is a story I have quite a fondness for, though I know it's not particularly justified. The story is a bit threadbare – the plot is basically a few holes tied together – but the setting and the premise are both highly original and go a long way to overcome the failings. For me the big problem is the way Ben and Polly are both written out of the story early on. It's similar to what happened with Dodo in “The War Machines”. But the difference is that Dodo was a terrible companion and irritated me at every moment. Ben and Polly are great companions and I miss them as soon as they are gone. I wouldn't have minded that they had to leave here, though it's a bit premature. But I do feel annoyed that they got such a terrible send off. That all said, this is still a fun story. Such a shame it is (mostly) missing.

Overall: 3.8