N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
The Faceless Ones certainly doesn’t hang around to get started: within the first few minutes there’s been a murder and Polly’s been kidnapped!
“Oh yes, there’s something strange going on here.”
The Doctor,
The Faceless Ones: Episode 2
Despite having seen the surviving episodes a couple of times, listened to the soundtrack at least once and even read the Target novelisation (which sadly is not something I can say for many of the serials), I could remember precious little about the The Faceless Ones – yet another in the case of blind spot amnesia I’ve had stretching back to The Keys of Marinus.
This seems unfair really. True, it’s a little overlong and the Chameleons’ scheme, whilst not hare-brained, does at the very least strain credulity. But the first half (perhaps due to its having the two surviving episodes to view) is genuinely creepy and the featureless raw-state Chameleons are a gruesome sight.
“You don’t want to believe everything you see, Jamie.”
The Doctor,
The Faceless Ones: Episode 2
Added to that, original Liver Bird Pauline Collins is excellent – it’s a pity she couldn’t be persuaded to stay on – and with Ben and Polly not figuring in much of the proceedings, Jamie gets lots to do, including allowing Frazer Hines to follow Michael Craze’s precedent by losing his accent.
Indeed, it’s the absence of Ben and Polly that is the story’s major disappointment. They go missing in Episode 2 and don’t return until the end of Episode 6. Whilst their brief, final scene with the Doctor and Jamie is touching, I don’t feel they really get the send-off they deserve.
Polly has definitely been more than someone who makes the tea and screams (although admittedly she has had to do both) and although I’ve half-expected Ben, with his Carnebetian wardrobe, to shout out ‘How’s your bird’s lumbago?’ at any given moment, he and Polly have been excellent companions.
Like Ian and Barbara before them, you can’t think of one without the other and whilst I believe the option was there for Anneke Wills to stay on for another year, having joined the TARDIS crew at the same time, somehow it seems right that Polly and Ben leave together.
