Doctor Who (TV Series) The Faceless Ones: Episode 2 (1967) User Reviews

Hello Samantha Briggs.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 2 November 2015]

The Doctor is further discredited when Polly claims she is Misha, a Swiss girl and no idea who the Doctor is. The Chameleon process is unveiled, a complex series of procedures sees one of them transform into Meadows. The Chameleon Meadows resumes his duties at the Airport, with the original hidden away. Polly, now working as a kiosk attendant for Chameleon tours is approached by Samantha Briggs, a sassy young girl in search of her brother Brian, a victim of a Chameleon Tours flight. Polly is sent away as she's drawn too much attention to herself, Ben unwittingly stumbles upon the real Polly, who is hidden away in a packing case, soon after his discovery the Chameleons deal with him and freeze him. The Police turn up to investigate the disappearance of Inspector Gascgoine and Samantha meets up with Jamie, who offers to help. The Doctor had witnessed Jamie's attack and sets off in search of him, inside the hanger he hears a voice crying out for help, but he's fallen into a trap.

The concept of the Chameleons is a clever one, I wonder if when the Zygons were later created there was a hint of influence, there are lots of similarities.

I would have loved to see the scene of Samantha challenging Polly about her brother. What a total shame she didn't become a permanent companion, Pauline Collins was awesome in this, but then again maybe she wouldn't have had the superb career. Great that she would return as Queen Victoria in Tooth and Claw.

I really like the Faceless ones, it's such a good continuation, really well acted and character driven. Only criticism would be the brutal sidelining of Polly, she seems like a spare part in this episode, Samantha is such a good character, she's full of spark. 8/10

Faceless, perhaps not faultless but certainly not fruitless - this is really good.

[A_Kind_Of_CineMagic · 10/10 · 28 August 2014]

Review for all 6 episodes:

This adventure sadly at present cannot be seen in all its glory due to BBC wiping of tapes leading to these being some of the 'lost' classics. Reconstructions available using what is left (all the sound of every Doctor Who episode survive thank goodness, added to still photographs and surviving portions of film) still provide thoroughly impressive sci-fi entertainment.

The adventure involves an alien race stealing humans from 1966 Gatwick Airport in order to use their bodies to replace their own damaged forms.

The contemporary Earth setting was still hardly used at this stage so this was a forerunner of the numerous Quatermass type, 'Earth under attack in the present day' stories which were to follow. It is a great prototype as it has good thrills, action, good intelligent alien threat, great relevance to viewers fears of alien attack on their own world with sufficient realism. The writing by Malcolm Hulke (the first of his great writing contributions) and David Ellis, acting by the whole cast and direction from Gerry Mill are all of high quality and the characters are good.

The lovely extra companion for this adventure, Samantha played by future film star Pauline Collins, works well. It is sad though that Polly (Anneke Wills) and Ben (Michael Craze) are sidelined in their last adventure. Polly had not quite maintained her feisty early form and had been turned into more of a 'screamer' but she was still a good companion and Ben was a great, tough companion throughout his time.

This story is very strong all round with aliens which are well realised and cleverly characterised. The only substantial flaw is two snippets of dialogue in episode 5 regarding how many people are missing. A captured villain reveals 50,000 young people are to be taken which is highly unbelievable without it being very noticeable to many relatives. We could imagine this plan, which would bring about huge attention, is in the early stages except he then compounds his comment by saying it is too late to save the 50,000 young people. I suppose if the events we see are part of a worldwide operation it is remotely possible a rapid set of disappearances are only starting to come to light but this revelation is hard to accept. As a result I mark that otherwise superb episode down to 7/10 but the rest of the adventure is brilliant.

My Ratings: Episodes 1, 2, 3, 4 & 6 - 10/10, Episode 5 - 7/10

Overall: 9.5/10