By Jessica Holmes

Another month of Doctor Who, and this time we’ve got the first half of a rather good little mystery thriller. This is part one of The Faceless Ones, by David Ellis and Malcolm Hulke.

EPISODE ONE

Materialising on the runway of Gatwick Airport in modern-day London, it’s not long before the Doctor and company get themselves into trouble. For once, it’s not bug-eyed space monsters that pose the immediate threat– it’s the coppers! The group split up and hide, and that’s when things take a turn for the deadly. In the hangar for a company called Chameleon Tours (this will later prove to be quite fitting) Polly witnesses the murder of a policeman by an airline pilot!

She flees to tell the Doctor and Jamie what she’s seen.  Meanwhile the killer, Spencer (Victor Winding) confers with an accomplice, Captain Blade (Donald Pickering). Upon investigating the body, the Doctor discovers that the man was electrocuted, inferring that the murder weapon, and therefore the murderer, was not from our world. There’s something very dodgy going on at this airport, that’s for sure.

On their way to report the crime, the Doctor and Jamie prove to be extremely observant (not) when they fail to notice Blade kidnapping Polly from right behind them. When they eventually realise she’s missing, they don’t search long enough to find her. A bit blase, don’t you think? There’s a murderer on the loose! It does annoy me a bit when characters have to leave their brains behind to allow the plot to progress.

Giving up, they try to report the killing to the airport authorities, but they can’t even get inside the terminal from where they are without a passport. That’s bureaucracy for you. However, airport security would very much like to talk to them about the police box that just turned up on the runway. Priorities!

I don't think I've ever seen someone look so infuriatingly smug.

And what of Ben? Honestly, not much. He’s just sort of lagging behind everyone else, none the wiser as to what’s going on. We'll ignore him until he does something interesting.

Following a lengthy interrogation, the Doctor manages to persuade the airport Commandant (Colin Gordon) to come and see the dead body for himself. By the time they reach the hangar however it seems that Blade and Spencer have cleaned up after themselves.

After they’re gone, the pilots bring someone out of the hangar. Whoever they are, they don’t seem very well, and it looks like they’ve got quite a painful skin condition.

In case you’re wondering, it’s not Polly. No, she’s just arrived at the gate, fresh off the plane from Zurich. And her name’s Michelle now. And she’s Swiss.

Oh, and she hasn’t the faintest idea who the Doctor is.

Meanwhile the pilots bring their afflicted friend to the airport medical bay…and it doesn’t look like the poor fellow has a skin condition, after all.

Whatever he is… he’s not human. Generally speaking, humans have faces.

The first episode kicks off a rather intriguing little mystery. By the end I still had no idea what was going on, but I was enjoying the ride all the same.

I suddenly have a craving for pizza.

EPISODE TWO

Now that they look like total liars, the Doctor and Jamie make a run for it when the Commandant calls the police.

While they’re on the run from the law, the pilots and a nurse attend to the faceless alien. They’ve apparently also kidnapped a gentleman from the airport staff, Meadows (George Selway), and have him tied down to a bed. They need him. Rather, they need his face. The nurse attaches a bunch of equipment to the pair of them, and the alien transforms, becoming a perfect copy of Meadows—even sharing his memories. The effect is similar to the one used to transform Hartnell into Troughton, though without the flash of light to mask the transition.

This is why I make exfoliation a regular part of my skincare routine.

Ben catches up to the Doctor and Jamie as the Doctor begins to wonder if Polly is really Polly. ‘Michelle’ as she now calls herself is working for Chameleon Tours. She adamantly denies remembering anything about the hangar, or anyone being killed there. However, the Doctor hadn’t even mentioned the murder. She knows more than she’s letting on.

The men confer, and the Doctor decides to try again to get the Commandant to listen to him, while Ben investigates the hangar and Jamie keeps an eye on Polly. I wouldn’t send a friend of mine to poke around a murder scene with the killer still at large, but what do I know?

Samantha's a smart lass, but she has dreadful taste in hats.

While Jamie’s hanging around the airport terminal being generally stunned by the modern world, a young woman comes to the Chameleon Tours desk. The woman, Samantha (Pauline Collins) is worried about her brother, who went on a Chameleon Tours holiday and never came back. Overhearing this, Jamie offers to help her.

Ben finds the real Polly inside a packing case, apparently catatonic. He immediately calls the commandant on a conveniently located telephone, hoping to be able to contact the Doctor.

Unfortunately the Doctor has already left the Commandant’s office, after the Commandant called the police on him. Who’d have ever seen that coming?

He meets back up with Jamie, and finds that ‘Polly’ left a short time ago. Inside her office, they find a monitor connected to a camera in the hangar, showing Ben—and someone sneaking up behind him. Unable to alert Ben to the danger, the Doctor can only watch as some sort of device freezes him.

Rushing to the hangar, the Doctor finds no sign of Ben, but he does find the strange weapon. There’s no sign of Polly, either. See, this is why you don’t send people to investigate crime scenes alone.

He finds the real Meadows, but before he can let him out of the crate, a voice calls from the other room, pleading for help. The Doctor naturally rushes in, only for the doors and windows to seal shut. The air vents begin to belch some sort of freezing gas…

The plot thickens, and things are getting a bit clearer– and more sinister. I’m starting to really like this story. It’s not over-reliant on flashy sets or effects, mostly playing out like a mystery. This episode also introduces Inspector Crossland (Bernard Kay, who has popped up in a few serials thus far), who has come looking for his murdered colleague. He doesn’t have much to do yet. Well, other than walk around and ask for information the audience already knows, but I’m sure he’ll become more important later.

EPISODE THREE

The Doctor pretends to collapse, tricking Spencer into emerging from a hidden room to check on him, at which point the Doctor zaps him with the freezing device and makes good his escape. Later, Blade orders Spencer to kill the Doctor to atone for his incompetence.

The Doctor meets back up with Jamie, who has made the acquaintance of the Inspector, who is very interested in what the Doctor has to say. The pair return to the Commandant, and the Doctor lays out his theory of what’s going on: Chameleon Tours is a front for a kidnapping operation, and people are being abducted and replaced by doppelgangers from another world. To be fair, I wouldn’t believe him, either.

However, the Doctor now has the freezing device, which he tries to use on the fake-Meadows in air traffic control. The impostor runs for it, but not before the Doctor succeeds in turning his teacup to ice. Now nobody can deny that this weapon isn't like any we have on Earth.

Samantha and Jamie, meanwhile, have been told to stay put. As you might expect,  they disobey the moment the Doctor turns his back. Samantha talks Jamie into snooping around the hangar with her, and they soon find a stack of pre-written and stamped postcards, realising that Chameleon Tours are forging postcards from their passengers to disguise the fact that they’ve vanished into the ether.

The pair bring this evidence to the Commandant, who finally agrees to allow the Doctor free rein to investigate the matter.

Meanwhile, fake-Meadows reports to Spencer that the Doctor is suspicious of him. Spencer provides him with a device to smuggle onto the Doctor’s person, which will take care of him once and for all. For some reason, the Doctor doesn’t recognise him when he returns to the office. Maybe he’s bad with faces. After all, he never noticed that the Inspector is a dead-ringer for a mediaeval Sultan and a future rebel. Fake-Meadows has no trouble sticking the device to the Doctor’s back, like a more deadly version of a ‘kick-me’ note.

Oblivious to the danger, the Doctor and Jamie return to the hangar and begin to search for the hidden room Spencer emerged from earlier.

The Inspector boards the Chameleon Tours aeroplane in order to talk to Captain Blade, following him into the cockpit, where Blade holds him at gunpoint. There also seems to be a lack of the expected equipment within the cockpit, hinting that this aeroplane is not quite what it seems.

The Doctor and Jamie find monitors in the hidden room showing the medical bay. They're about to investigate when Spencer remotely activates the device on the Doctor’s back, causing him to collapse in severe pain.

And on the aeroplane, the situation only gets worse. Once the plane reaches cruising altitude, Blade shows the Inspector the secret of Chameleon Tours; the passengers have all vanished!

Final Thoughts

So far, this is shaping up to be a good story! The twists and turns are building nicely, without throwing too many at the viewer at once.

I like Samantha, and I’m wondering if the writers are lining her up to join the crew of the TARDIS. She’s got a smart head on her shoulders and a bucketload of determination, to boot. The regional dialect (she's from Liverpool, though her accent is quite mild) is a bonus in my book, too. I believe I've mentioned that I appreciate it when the BBC doesn't force all its actors to speak in RP.

Of course, if she joins the crew it might start getting crowded. I wonder if there might be a departure on the cards soon? It would make sense, as we’re back in Ben and Polly’s time, and they have been travelling with the Doctor for a little while now. Oh, but I like Ben and Polly! Perhaps I’m wrong—maybe they’ll stick around for a little while yet. This could be a red herring. We’ll just have to wait and see!