Doctor Who Retro Review: Serial 036—The Faceless Ones
By T. Scott Edwards
My biggest difficulty in this mammoth task–that of re-watching, and
then blogging, each and every Doctor Who serial
in order, including the missing serials–is not that which I had expected. It is
not one of recon-fatigue, but a simple lack of time. Of course, I have a real
job, in the real world. This real job, teaching English and Drama in a Private
School, is a time-consuming one, using up almost every waking moment of my
time. As such, during term-time, I lose evenings, weekends and even some of my
holiday time to lesson planning, rehearsals, marking and choreography. As such,
come term-time, the entire project has to come to a screeching halt. The
problem with this, though, is that my notes for the latest blog–Patrick
Troughton's The Faceless Ones, for
those keeping count–were written at the end of the October half term, but never
made it onto the computer. As such, page after page of blurred notes with
bullet-point, throw-away phrases mean almost nothing to me. Still, this entry
will try to make sense of that nonsense. Wish me luck.
The principle issue that most fans have
with this serial is simply that it is not completely available in visual form;
the entire thing exists in an audio format, but with only two existing episodes–indeed,
the two least interesting episodes, judging by what we know from the
soundtracks–it is difficult to judge how successful it is. Likewise, in a
series of short and snappy serials like The
Underwater Menace and The Macra
Terror, it seems a little sluggish at times. Running at 6 episodes,
compared with the majority of the season running at 4, it seems like there is
almost not enough storyline to fill the time. Of course, we know that this is
an issue of necessity; The Underwater
Menace went notoriously over-budget, and so The Faceless Ones, which is surprisingly restrained by early Doctor Who standards, makes full use instead
of the opportunity to use location filming, and so we end up with lots of
running around on tarmac and inside the main terminal buildings. Costumes are
naturalistic, due to the time setting, which means that few costumes and props
need creating for this serial, minimising the cost here. But despite the slower
pace, this isn't a bad serial at all. Indeed, it's an interesting premise
handled admirably.
Episode 1 opens with the stunning and
iconic scene with yon "flying beastie!" looming up over our intrepid
travellers, as Hines' Jamie McCrimmon, out of his own time, is faced by the
magic of the aircraft. The use of genuine footage, as opposed to stock footage,
is wonderful, although the cross editing does leave a little to be desired–there
is evidently no threat to the TARDIS, and whilst Jamie's terror is
understandable, the fear in the rest of the crew is less clear. The excellence
of Jamie's character, though, lies in these little moments which refer back to
his history. The Doctor has never had a companion from Earth's history before,
with the exception of Katarina, who joined the crew in the last five minutes of
The Myth Makers and proceeded to
wander around aimlessly as though she were tripping on acid, before dying
during the very next serial. As such, what Jamie allows is for the audience to
understand the events through the eyes of the companion. Unlike with
contemporary companions, for whom the audience previously was able to see the
events and understand them, Jamie allows the show to return somewhat to its
educational remit; his lack of understanding of even the most basic things
allows us to appreciate the wonder behind them.
Labels: Doctor Who, Patrick Troughton, reviews, T. Scott Edwards