Doctor Who: The Faceless Ones

The second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and companions Jamie (Frazer Hines), Ben (Michael Craze) and Polly (Anneke Wills) materialise on a runway at Gatwick Airport and promptly become embroiled in a complex alien plot involving doppelgangers who are kidnapping young Earthlings to help resurrect their dying race. The story-line, which involves the classic trope of 'alien duplicate infiltrators', is a bit far-fetched to begin with and takes a bizarre (and IMO unnecessary) swerve in the fifth episode when it's revealed how the kidnap victims are to be transported to the Chameleons' home world (an idea possibly lifted from the previous year's Italian space-opera 'Wild, Wild Planet'). The 'special effects' (such as the alien space station and the Chameleons' convertible jet) are interesting (but as this is an animated recreation, it is difficult to imagine what original was like (in the recreation of 'Galaxy 4', the animated images are more 'impressive' than are the surviving originals)). Troughton is in fine form playing the sometimes supercilious Time Lord although some of the scenes of him trying convince skeptical airport administrations go on a bit long, and Jamie, who for a 18th century highlander seems to adapt to a 1966 British airport pretty quickly, is as entertaining as always. This serial was the last for Ben and Polly, who were serviceable, but not particularly memorable, companions, and, as the TARDIS (having been towed off the runway) is missing, sets up the next series (the excellent 'The Evil of the Daleks') which introduces a new companion: Victoria Waterfield). Like all of the animated recreations, 'The Faceless Ones' provides fans with an opportunity to see at least an avatar of one of the 'lost' adventures from early in the venerable show's tenure and thus is a welcome addition to the Whovian archives. Watched on Tubi, which only had a colour version, I have watched others and find the B/W recreations to look a little more 'authentic'.

The Faceless Ones unexpectedly (for me at least) have a widely different animation style to The Macra Terror and I'm unfortunately not a big fan of the change.. However the audio quality and sound mixing is amazing as it should be. I am growing on Patrick Troughton even if he's animated here.

Regardless, I feel that the story works perfectly for late 1960s Doctor Who and gives some genuinely interesting and scary monsters and setting. Gatwick Airport and child kidnapping is sure to scare younger viewers.

My only major issue with this serial is that the story is stretched out over six episodes. It just sometimes feels like it should have been shorter.

I was very excited by the release of this one, it's a cracking story.

The story itself is great, a six part story of intrigue and mystery, The Doctor joined by his trio of young companions, a script where each companion was given something to do, nobody just there to make up the numbers.

The animation looks very nice, again the option of colour of black and white, out of nostalgia I prefer black and white. You get an idea of how a Sixties episode looks on Blu Ray, pretty good.

Some nice Easter eggs, including a wanted poster of The Master.

This release has given me hope for others to come, complicated stories that will require some tough animation. Fury from the Deep next, my all time favourite.

I wouldn't say it's an ultimate classic, but it's well worth a watch, I thoroughly enjoyed it, 8/10.

It sounded to me as if this an old radio play with new animations added. Based on the voice actor biographies, this must be the case. It's a classic Dr Who story given a new life.

The animations are relatively simplistic, but the originality of the story and the voice acting make it enjoyable.