The Faceless Ones episode 4 discussion:
Sp: “So Chameleon, you expect me to talk?”
All: “No dear Doctor, I expect you to die!”
Sp: I’ve got nothing. That was my final thought.
R: I’m glad I wasn’t the only one thinking that.
Sp: Alright, I was lying. The reconstruction did a fantastic job conveying physical humor. The stills that they happened to get this one for fainting people and unnoticed people – brilliant.
H: Not to mention the excellent reuse of footage. Like the doors opening and closing and things like that.
Sp: The speed up footage of monitor watching. That was a good one too. And the kissing! That wasn’t footage, but that was great stills.
H: Go Jamie!
Sp: Ninja Jamie!
H: Get some Liverpudlian something.
P: I think he was aiming a little higher than the liver.
K: <twitch>
R: Yeah. Sadly girlfriend there wasn’t just begging for death, she was groveling for death.
K: She didn’t die.
H: In the fine Doctor Who companion tradition.
K: She isn’t a companion.
H: Well, for this story. And who knows.
K: I… I know.
H: Shh!
R: “Why don’t you just step through this doorway where we’ve almost killed you six times.”
H: Wrong room. She was almost killed in the hanger, not the Chameleon offices. But she should still have been concerned about running into the bad guy.
R: “Yes, almost killed in the hanger. In broad daylight!” In a secluded locked cargo hanger.
H: No one said she was bright. Just spunky.
K: But apparently she’s a good kisser.
R: I guess warehouses count as broad daylight in Liverpool. Samantha’s not the only person who was taking her “derp” pills today. Specifically, when Jenkins says “I can deal with them.”
K: Andred!
R: Whatever. Spenser’s reaction is “No, we will deal with them. But we will let them come to us.”
H: What the hell have they been doing?
R: Exactly! So the chameleons cunning plan is… to wait. Some more.
Sp: Well, that seems to be what the Commandant does, and he gets results.
K: Okay… so when Jenkins wakes up, they say to him, “What is you name?” Andred. “Where are from?” Galifrey. “What is your job?” Chief of Security on Galifrey. I couldn’t help it.
R: What is your job? Running after the Doctor and saying “but… but… but?”
H: And being a convenient love interest for Leela to leave at the end of the story.
Sp: Welcome to Doctor Who, where even the in-jokes have time travel.
R: Spoilers!
Sp: Like that!
H: You know, when we started this we didn’t allow any discussion of future episodes, did we.
K: Well, I’m not talking about future TARDIS Project episodes.
H: Not unless we want to be here until 2050. Anyway. So, the Faceless Ones?
Sp: So the Faceless Ones are losing some of their menace.
K: They had menace?
H: Yes, they did.
Sp: Yeah, the more elaborate their plots are, and they more they don’t just kill their enemies when they see them.
P: Yeah, what’s the point of having a really cool ray gun if you just stun them and leave them to die on their own.
H: I think I’ve pointed out earlier, they really seem to not be good at killing people, almost as if they’re not use to that kind of thing.
P: Yeah. They’re using them for food or something, I don’t know.
H: I’m gonna step in and just say I thought the soundtrack was really effective this week. In the medical center when the Doctor was examining the medical instruments. The music was suitably weird.
Sp: Like when the door opened and closed so the Doctor could reveal a plot point to the audience.
K: I reminded me of Young Frankenstein.
R: “Put the candle back!”
H: I liked that it was specifically behind the Doctor’s back. It’s a gag that they use a lot during the 33 season course of the series.
<we’re currently in the middle of season 33, aka reboot season 7.>
H: Maa…
R: I was very amused with the closet full of nurse Ratchet. People freeze with this look on their face like they just smelled something dirty.
H: You’re talking about angry Polly?
R: But nurse Ratchet had the same thing.
H: It’s nurse Pinto, actually.
P: Does she explode when they bump her in the rear?
H: No.
P: So I think the recon here is probably one of the better ones. A lot of love was put into this episode.
H: It’s also one of the most recent ones officially released. They’ve done several since, but they’ve only released one more since this one, which is the next story.
K: So are we going to have gaps where there’s no recons?
H: They’re available on You Tube, just not on video.
K: Okay.
P: Obviously the sounds been really well worked. And they’ve added CG where it was appropriate. And they’ve even put in a little still animation.
H: With the moving light?
P: Yeah.
H: Let’s talk about some of the CG for a minute. In the rest of the story, essentially, one of the things that got a lot of kudos was the model work. And specifically the plane with the retracting wings and the way it hovered into the space ship, as we saw at the end. There’s quite a bit of documentation about it, and it’s really nice that they were able to use CG to recreate it, probably pretty accurately.
P: I can remember seeing for the first time 2001: A Space Odyssey. Which was powerful because it was so great for it’s day. And I can see that, after what you’ve told me, I imagine they had the same experience.
Sp: I can’t think the model work was that good.
H: It probably look pretty awesome on a 625 line TV.
P: But I can’t imagine them having seen that before. It doesn’t matter how good it was done, it’s just the concept of that.
H: I guess it’s worth noting that this is still the first present day alien invasion story of the series.
K: Actually we still don’t know that the aliens are invading. Right now they’re just kidnapping.
H: The Doctor believes that they are.
Sc: It’s an invasion. We don’t know if it’s an outright planetary conquest.
K: He speaks.
Sp: Quality over quantity. As opposed to me. Blah blah blah blah!! <snickering>
H: Alright. I think we’re moving to final thoughts.
Sc: I liked it. I think we’re pretty much in a mode now where the Doctor Who style has been set. So I don’t have so much to say about these stories because they are now Doctor Who stories. The tropes are in place.
H: I think that’s a fair point.
P: I have a point. I do believe that Samantha is needlessly putting herself in danger to advance the plot.
H: Welcome to Doctor Who companion-hood.
K: But she’s not a companion!
H: Shh! Go on.
P: She’s going to be a companion?
K: No.
H: We’ll find out. Ketina!
P: I digress. My point is that, as dangerous as they know these people are, they continue to defy the Doctor’s orders of just observe, and literally put themselves into harms way. Specifically taking the airplane to find out where it’s going.
K: Where were Ben and Polly this week?
H: Good question!
Sp: Ba ba bwow.
H: Well, Polly is in a box…
Sp: Ba ba bwow…
H: As we saw. And Ben has disappeared.
Sp: Ba ba bwow? It’s hard to make that sexy.
P: Are the actors taking a week off?
K: That’s what I was wondering?
H: They weren’t required for this episode.
P: So, let’s see. The chase plane radios on the common frequency on the tower, on the same frequency that the plane it’s chasing was using.
H: Actually, it’s not clear if it was a public or military frequency.
P: Well, that’s what I thought when I saw it. Also, to me the 3D model jet does not scale correctly to the original aircraft, but I guess I can forgive them for that.
H: Anything else?
P: I enjoyed the scene with the nurse about getting out and getting in again. Where the Doctor is portraying himself as a doctor. It was nice the humor with Ann when she was faking being sick. It’s interesting see the way employers would treat employees differently then they would today.
K: I would get the nurse if one of my employees passed out. And I would yell at them for not eating lunch too. <shakes finger… which I really didn’t do because I’m typing but you get the point.>
Sp: The Commesaire is fair, but merciful.
H: Commandant!
R: “The Cylons walk among us. They look just like us. But they have… no plan.”
H: I would say we don’t know what their plan is yet.
Sp: I would say their plan pivots on reducing people in a plane, and not being able to count how many people they should have reduced. Typically office worker. You process enough people, you’re bound to miss one or two of them somewhere. You’re bound to miss one going to the loo. And invasion of bored, white collar workers.
H: Spoo caught something that is not clear to viewers yet. All it took for Spoo to catch that was that the flight attendant was picking up small objects on the seats.
All: Whoa!
R: It was a pretty decent episode. More comedy in this one overall. And I do think the bad guys plan is rather lame…
H: I don’t think we know what it is yet.
R: Yeah, that’s why I think it’s kinda lame.
H: Or builds more suspense for what is going on? I guess that’s in the eye of the viewer.
R: I dunno. So far the plot seems to be mostly “I tagged you” “No you didn’t” “Yes I did” “No you didn’t!” I think I’d prefer it if there was a little bit more of unraveling what they’re up to, rather than just how they’re doing it.
Sp: Oh, Ronelyn, don’t think in Earth terms. These are aliens. They’re not trying to kill. They’re not trying to invade. They’re from the planet Xerox. Xerox does not destroy. They simply copy.
H: There are still two more episodes in this story.
K: So hopefully next week we’ll actually start to find out what’s going on. Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler – I would actually love it if Samantha became a companion.
Sp: “I would love it if Samantha was actually a Chameleon all along. It would be her way of observing us and keeping Jamie out of trouble. It would also be how Jamie could teach her how to love. And the best part could be, we could call her Sameleon.”
P: Jamie did not completely lose it by getting on an airplane? Why?
R: “I’m sick and tired of these motherf-ing Scots on these motherf-ing planes!”
H: He’s actually finally gotten used to the flying things. It did do his stomach in though.
P: Just three episodes ago he stepped out the TARDIS, saw a plane and ran!
Sp: We’ve all grown up so much since then.
K: I thought he went to the bathroom to throw up the drink that shrunk them and hide.
H: They hadn’t gotten the drinks yet.
Sp: Just air sickness.
K: I seriously thought Jamie was being clever.
Sp: No, no no!
H: It’s Jamie!
K: But he was clever about stealing the ticket.
Sp: That was his allotted clever for the day.
P: I think he just wanted to kiss her.
H: I will defer my final thought of the day so we can end this. I liked it. Da da!
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