Doctor Who review: The Faceless Ones presents three takes on a lost classic

With its recent release in North America, we look at the new animated version of the classic Doctor Who story The Faceless Ones. Does the animation do the story justice?

Last week, The Faceless Ones was finally released on DVD in North America. Just like last year’s animated story The Macra Terror, American and Canadian Doctor Who fans had to wait a good while longer than British fans for this release. (It was originally released back in March in the UK.) And with no release date set for Fury from the Deep‘s North American release, it looks like we’ll be waiting a while for that story, too.

Regardless, it is nice to finally see a fresh take on this story at last. No, more than that: just like The Macra Terror, The Faceless Ones offers three different takes. Along with including two discs for animation – one black and white, one color – the DVD also includes a reconstruction of the missing episodes, with images of the original episodes matched to the audio.

It’s also worth noting that, while the story has been completely animated, the two surviving episodes have also been included. Twice, in fact – first on the disc with black and white animation, then on the disc with the reconstruction. So viewers have the choice of watching it fully animated, or watch the original episodes with animation or reconstruction filling in the gaps.

The Doctor and his friends arrive at Gatwick Airport – where they immediately find something sinister going on…

Photo Credit: Animated Series Team/BBC

Animation

For my first watch of the story in full, I decided to watch it fully animated. Along with seeing how well the animation looked, I was also curious about checking out a certain easter egg in the background of one of the episodes. As someone who had listened to the surviving audio soundtrack a few times, I was pretty familiar with the story of The Faceless Ones, but I was curious to see how it would look in animated form. How well does it work at bringing this lost story to life?

Overall, rather well. While there are some slight changes in terms of style, (most notably with the design of the Chameleons,) it’s clear that the animation team has gone for a slightly more faithful approach to the story than with The Macra Terror. (Don’t get me wrong, last year’s release was a pretty fun watch, but there’s no question that the Macra moved rather more fluidly than the original puppets would’ve done.)

Story

As for the story itself, The Faceless Ones is a rather familiar one. The Second Doctor, Jamie, Ben, and Polly stumble across hints of an alien conspiracy at Gatwick Airport. People are vanishing or acting completely changed, but why? Can the Doctor find out before it’s too late?

In many ways, The Faceless Ones is a story that Doctor Who fans have seen countless variations of already. So it’s easy to forget just how unique this story was for its time. During this period of the show, there were very, very few stories set on contemporary Earth – either they were set in the planet’s history or on alien worlds. For many Sixties companions, this was a key reason why they stayed with the Doctor, due to the fact that he couldn’t control the ship properly at this point.

So The Faceless Ones is a rare example of a modern-day alien invasion story. Well, no, not an invasion, not in this case. More of an alien conspiracy story. While the methods of the Chameleons are desperate and often ruthless, you do understand their motivations. It’s not surprising that they’re not quite as black and white as the era they’re from – along with David Ellis, Malcolm Hulke is one of the key writers of this story, the latter of which was often known for writing more complex villains.

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Pace

At six episodes, the story moves at a fairly slow pace, but it doesn’t feel too padded out. The fact that so much is kept a mystery for so long actually helps, as you’re keen to find out more with each episode. It’s not the strongest story of its type, but as an early example – one before UNIT had even been introduced – it is a fascinating one, and certainly enjoyable to watch.

In terms of special features, there aren’t many on the DVD to check out. The clear highlight is a half-hour documentary on the animation itself, which is certainly worth a watch, as well as commentary on some of the episodes.

With a good story and three ways to watch it, The Faceless Ones is certainly worth checking out, especially for Classic Whovians. Here’s hoping that North American fans won’t have too long to wait for Fury from the Deep. (Although to be honest, that’s an extremely small hope.)

Have you checked out The Faceless Ones on DVD or Blu-ray? What are your thoughts on the classic Second Doctor story? Which version do you prefer: black and white or color animation, or even reconstruction? Let us know in the comments below.