The Faceless Ones episode 6 discussion:
P: Someone stole the TARDIS?
E: Oh dear.
P: That’s a new one.
K: Not it isn’t.
H: Nice cliffhanger, huh?
E: Oh yeah.
P: Well, it was a welcome relief given what just happened to two of the companions. We weren’t stuck in a typical cliffhanger.
K: We usually don’t get cliffhangers at the end of stories.
H: We used to. In the first season that’s pretty much what happened.
K: But my point is that it doesn’t happen every story.
H: No.
R: Jet engine drum circle! Dum dedadum de dadum de dadum.
K: I was thinking it was more like the Tiki Room attacks.
R: And then gone as soon as it appeared.
E: One of the still images is giving me nightmare fuel because it’s one of the girls being grabbed, and it’s really blurry and creepy looking.
H: It’s interesting that they didn’t have any more telesnaps of the fight. Because it lasted what, a minute or two? You’d think they’d have one or two more.
E: Yeah.
P: I thought through the plot of how they were leaving the planet and how they were leaving the dopplergangers behind. And how basically everybody but the Director was going to die as soon as they were out of range. And I was thinking that the Director knew this.
H: They had a little bit of hand waving explanation for it, which hasn’t been mentioned in any previous episode.
R: Blah blah draining life force yadda.
H: Exactly.
R: And that’s about the level of detail they got, too.
P: Well, sometimes less is more.
K: I feel like we missed a lot in this one because of the recon. Long lengths of time with no sound, images, or even subtitles to describe what was happening. I feel like we missed something, but I have no idea what.
H: Okay. Huh. I just didn’t get that from it. There was the fight scene that we missed. And then everytime that they had the plane sound they used the stock footage. But it didn’t feel to me that we missed any scenes or actions.
K: I don’t mean plot. Just felt less busy because there were so many empty bits.
H: Like when the cops were looking for the originals?
K: Yeah.
H: They kinda had stock telesnaps for that, where they used the same ones over and over again.
<brief discussion about this>
H: So, July 20th, 1966. The single busiest day for the Doctor in the entire history of the series. The entire story of the Faceless Ones and all the events on the last day of the War Machines take place in or near London, all on the same day.
R: So, paradox much?
H: Well, no one ever ran into themselves.
R: That’s true.
H: This is just kind of famous in Doctor Who nerd circles as the single busiest day in Doctor Who.
P: It is some special day, like someone’s birthday?
H: No, they just wanted to get Ben and Polly back on the same day they left, as if no time had passed.
P: Okay.
H: Which actually says that technically speaking, for people watching the transmission, this story took place in the past.
R: Dun dun dun! Or did they!?
K: Yeah, I’m pretty sure they did.
R: Or is it?
K: Now you’re just being silly.
R: Or am I?
K: Why are you making me type this?
R: I’m not making you type this… Or am I?
<laughter>
A: It was weird having Ben and Polly leave after not having seen them for several episodes. I didn’t like.
K: I actually wondered if it was filmed on the same day of filming that we last saw them in episode 2 or 3.
H: I believe you’re correct. I’m pretty sure that was part of the location shoot. They didn’t need to pay Michael Crays for any of the other episodes and they only needed to pay Anneke Wills for one more. It’s a lot like what happened to Dodo.
A: I did really enjoy that they got put back on the same day that they left. I thought that was fun.
R: It was interesting, this was sort of Jamie’s first real full on Jamie story in a lot of ways.
H: It was the first one he was front and center for, really.
R: The first one he got to be heroic in, really.
P: And romantic.
K: I agree with the romantic, but not the heroic. He kind of heroic in Macra Terror.
R: Okay, that’s true. I’ll give you that one.
P: I liked the set interior of the spaceship. I thought they did a good job of adopting a style that you didn’t see anywhere else. Also when the Doctor and nurse Pinto were captured, even though we had seen it before, I thought that the scene really had a lot of impact.
M: She’s a real human bean, isn’t she?
P: Who?
M: Nurse Pinto.
<budumdum>
H: And how ’bout that awesome sound scape they had for the spaceship, so you immediately knew where you were.
E: Yes.
H: And that was especially important for how we ended up having to watch the story.
R: Which is part of the reason why the jet engine drum circle was so friggen distracting. Appropriate music <repeats> … NOT appropriate music.
A: I think if we had seen them running it would have been less jarring.
H: Also, again, it’s fight scene, it’s 1967, the Avengers are on television. It’s what you do.
R: Drum circles.
H: Yes. It’s absolutely of it’s time.
R: What I found jarring about it was that there was no intro or outro to it. It just suddenly started and just as suddenly stopped.
K: There was a jet engine during the stop.
R: But my point is that it didn’t feel like soundtrack. It sounded like a musical overlay.
H: It was the style of the time. That’s really all I have to say about that.
R: I loved the Doctor’s line about “you seem to have lost some things in the translation.”
H: I said it last week, I’ll say it again this week – it’s weird to hear Frazer’s real voice.
R: But it did make for some cute comedy.
H: Alright, how about some behind the scenes stuff. So, this is the final episode script edited by Gerry Davis and produced by Innes Lloyd, the guys who essentially created the second Doctor. And Gerry Davis co-created the Cybermen. The next story will see Peter Bryant taking over as the producer, and a very familiar name will, I believe, be popping up for the first time as assistant script editor.
K: Douglas Adams?
H: <eyeroll> Some guy named Terrance Dicks. You might have heard of him.
K: He’s on the cover of a bunch of Doctor Who books. That’s all I remember.
H: Fair enough. So, are we at final thoughts?
P: Small group this week.
E: I thought was a pretty good conclusion. I’m not one for long goodbyes. So it might have been just me that it felt like it dragged out at the end. I was pleasantly surprised by the ending. By that I didn’t expect that sort of ending, but I was still pretty satisfied with it, and how the Doctor wrapped up the situation. It seemed very him, and that’s cool.
H: Out of interest, how did you expect it to end?
E: I don’t know. I was expecting a bigger climax. For me there really wasn’t a huge climax. The double bluff – that was kind of amusing for me. “We know where they are. Actually we don’t. Now we do!”
R: The reaction from the other guy “You realize we probably just screwed him over, don’t you?”
A: I liked it.
P: I liked the ending, although I don’t necessarily trust the aliens complete this restoring of the passengers. I guess they could fit them all in the airplane, take them all back down, and then pop them out. But I just wanted to see the completion first. On the other hand, you can’t exactly hire 50,000 extras. Or feed them. Or provide them with bathroom facilities.
K: I agree that they could have shown a few people getting off a plane. But Crossland staying on the ship to make sure they aliens returned everyone.
H: Additionally the Commandant was keeping the originals until everyone came back. Admittedly, that was only at Gatwick, and not the other airports around Europe where people were kidnapped.
P: I have open questions that I think will be answered by the next episode, that basically revolve around who knows the Doctor is the Doctor besides our companions. And I guess the next episode is leading into that if the TARDIS was purposely stolen.
H: Do you want me to give you a small spoiler?
P: Sure.
H: <whispers> The next story is called “Evil of the Daleks.”
E: NO!!!
K: The Daleks totally know about the Doctor and would totally steal the TARDIS, given the opportunity.
H: We’ll see what happens over the next several weeks.
P: Okay, I spoiled. I think in general I liked this story. To me it exposed a lot of the feel of the modern day of the 60’s that me, as a modern person, is not aware of.
K: The 60’s was the era of most of our parents.
R: “We will hide the bodies where they will never be noticed. Because no one will ever notice 25 apparent corpses in locked cars in the parking lot.”
K: I was originally thinking they were in the trunks… but no.
H: I think a car in an airport parking lot is a fine place to hide things. Because, let’s be honest here, there are always cars in airport parking lots, always. And no one at this point checks them.
M: But somebody is going to park next to some of these cars and will be like “call the police!”
R: Yeah, these people weren’t just lying there if they were snoozing. They all had that look of terror, that nurse Ratchet face. Grrrrr!
H: Nice call back.
R: I sure as hell would have noticed. And yeah, the other thing that I thought before they came out with that “mumble mumble life force mumble mumble” business, was that a parking lot is not a good “forever” place to stash anything. Because eventually someone is going to look at that and say “that’s a ’57 Chevy. I don’t think anyone owns it!”
M: With 8 inches of dust on it.
R: Exactly. So yeah, once again, aliens, not very good planners.
M: I think it works that the aliens were all about the airport. Makes sense to me. I think you can justify it that way.
H: I think the story is very clear that the aliens are overconfident in their own abilities….
K: Smartest race there is indeed!
H: Exactly. I think that it’s pretty consistent that the alien’s plans were sketch at best.
R: So yeah, I hope if I ever get kidnapped by aliens they are that level of incompetent.
K: I like Patrick Troughton, but I think this recon was a bit disappointing at times, animated planes aside. And I think the story went on an episode or two too long. This episode felt a bit odd to me as the resolution seemed to hit fast, but I get why since they needed basically extra time to say bye to Ben and Polly.
H: One of the things I like about this story is actually the ending, where the Doctor no only makes peace and a deal with the aliens, but offers to help them.
K: Although we don’t get to see the help on screen.
H: He just says that he might give them a few ideas. For some reason that’s always struck me as feeling fresh and new and very Doctor-y. And I’ve always liked that. Another thing I’ve always liked about this story, which we haven’t talked about yet this week, is Samantha.
<general agreement>
H: It’s a shame that Pauline Collins decided she didn’t want to be tied down to a series, because they offered it to her. No offense to any companion that might be coming.
K: Might be?
H: You want me to avoid spoilers.
K: Okay, fine. Sorry.
H: No offense, but I think Samantha would have made a fantastic companion, especially given her rapport with Jamie.
E: Yes!
H: Although the fact that she wasn’t going to be a companion might have let them take her relationship with Jamie further than they otherwise would have.
A: I know it was 1966, but I just cringed at the end when the Doctor said “Ben, you can go out and become and Admiral. And Polly, you can go off and… look after Ben.”
H: Again, infamous. Although you’ll notice that they also had Polly saying “I will”
R: If the Doctor had put more of a hitch between the two it would have been more affirming. “And Polly, you can go and keep Ben from screwing up his life.”
K: They were referenced in the Sarah Jane Adventures as “continuing the cause.”
H: The end of this story did make me a bit sad, when Ben said “maybe we’ll see you again someday.” With all the talk about maybe companions showing up again in the 50th anniversary, it’s just a little sad that we know that we won’t see Ben, because Michael Craze died, really young.
<sad>
H: But let’s celebrate Michael and Anneke’s performances here. Bye Pop-Eye and Eye-Candy, we’ll miss you.
—
