The Faceless Ones v. Orphan 55
My latest unlikely pairing of Doctor Who tales old and new has been fourth season Second Doctor adventure The Faceless Ones, written by David Ellis and Malcolm Hulke, and first broadcast between 8 April and 13 May 1967, and Thirteenth Doctor eco-horror tale Orphan 55, written by Ed Hime and first broadcast on 12 January 2020.
The Faceless Ones
‘Scatter!’ That single-word command from the Doctor in the opening scene of The Faceless Ones, as a policeman spots the time travellers loitering on a Gatwick Airport runway, having narrowly escaped being flattened by a landing aircraft (the surviving audio recording of the episode, played alongside telesnap images as presented on the BBC’s blu-ray release of the story, suggests that this is the Doctor’s only word until 2 minutes and 53 seconds of the first episode, which seems relatively light on dialogue throughout; it’s more of a ‘show don’t tell’ kind of story, which is the sort of thing critics of the Thirteenth Doctor often say her stories ought to be, but when all that remains of an episode is sound and still pictures one wishes some of the Second Doctor tales had been a bit more ‘tell and don’t show’), is sufficient to mark a significant moment in Doctor Who history, as Polly and Ben – who run in one direction – and Jamie and the Doctor – who run in the other – are never really reunited in this story. Ben and Polly hardly feature, in fact, and are swiftly written out of the series at the end of The Faceless Ones’ final episode. Instead, the Doctor and Jamie are supported by Samantha Briggs, played by Pauline Collins. Although Sam doesn’t stick around either, the trio she helps to form proves to be the TARDIS team template for the rest of the Second Doctor era, with the Doctor subsequently always accompanied on his travels by one young male (Jamie) and one young female friend (first Victoria, then Zoe). It’s a more efficient line-up, large enough to spread the narrative load of the story across a number of lead character threads, and small enough not to become too crowded or complicated.
Polly and Ben’s departure seems a little rushed. Having barely appeared in the six-week-long story, viewers in 1967 were probably already getting used to life without them by the time of the final episode. However, while I can’t speak from personal experience as I wasn’t around to watch, my impression is that these were two well established and popular companions of the Doctor. They were members of the TARDIS crew for nearly a year, between June 1966 and May 1967, and featured in a couple of the show’s most significant storylines, The Tenth Planet and The Power of the Daleks, bridging the first ever on-screen regeneration of the Doctor. In that moment they were the eyes of a nation most probably bemused and agog; for the short period until the new Second Doctor won the trust of his audience, Polly and Ben were the TARDIS crew, effectively the show leads, so their eventual departure in The Faceless Ones feels a particularly poignant moment even if their decision to stay on Earth seems to be made with surprisingly little reflection.
It's a moment presented as a choice: to continue a life of incredible adventure with the Doctor, or to remain at home picking up the threads of a more normal life where it might be said that they more naturally belong. This is The Choice that has faced a few Doctor Who companions over the years – Barbara and Ian, Jo, Sarah, Harry, Tegan, Turlough (not at home but rejoining his natural path), Grace, Martha, Ryan, Graham and Dan, and I suppose most recently Donna. As Ben and Polly explained their decision to the Doctor and Jamie I found myself thinking that they must be crazy. Why on earth would anyone give up travelling in the TARDIS with the Doctor? But perhaps it’s realistic to suggest there is only so long that anyone can stay off their path of natural destiny. A fish can survive out of water for only so long. And, as reflected by Dan when he left in The Power of the Doctor, there’s a level of danger to life that very few mortals can probably handle for so long. These companions were lucky to live long enough to have The Choice; many others didn’t get it.
Ben states on-screen that the date on which the events of The Faceless Ones occur is 20 July 1966, which happens to be the same day that they first met the Doctor in The War Machines. Aside from the neatness of allowing them to continue their lives as if they had never been away, it also means that he and Polly could catch England’s final World Cup first round group game against France which would be broadcast on the telly that very evening. Considering their travels with the Doctor had started during this historic (for English people) tournament and included at least a couple of trips into the Earth’s future, it’s quite possible they would have been aware how it all ended and that this might be an especially fun time to be around. They might also benefit from putting on a bet or two.
Apparently Sam was intended to become a regular character in the series, but Pauline Collins was reluctant to commit to the role beyond this single story. It seems likely from the way she is presented in The Faceless Ones that she would have been a more self-confident character than Victoria, who joined up in the next story. She seems to be a woman with strong agency, willing to push people for answers and action, so there probably would have been a slightly different dynamic to stories had she become involved. It also sounds as though she shared a long kiss with Jamie in episode 4; without the video it’s hard to know for sure how long it lasted, but my impression was that it was something quite unusual – more grown-up – for Doctor Who at that time. The longest kiss to have been seen on-screen in the series up to this point?
It's clear in Sam’s first scene, as she dismisses the suggestion of entrusting to them the search for her missing brother, that she holds the police in disdain. As any Liverpudlian probably should. The Faceless Ones has a thematic thread of trust and mistrust in authority, notable from close to the beginning when the Doctor seems uncharacteristically keen to defer the mystery of the dead body to ‘the man in charge of this place’. ‘The sooner we find the authorities and tell it all to them, the better,’ he assures Jamie. It’s most un-Doctorlike. Perhaps he just wanted not to have to get involved. As the story continues there is a strange mix of the Doctor desperate to enlist the support of the Gatwick boss, Commandant Gordon, and the police, and showing his usual dislike of authority, establishment and bureaucracy (he tells Jamie that a passport is ‘some sort of official mumbo-jumbo’, and seems utterly unsurprised when Gordon and Detective Crossland don’t believe the story he was so keen to tell them.
Incidentally, apropos of nothing (other than that this is a blog of my very personal responses to rewatching the show), there’s a shot in episode 3 of the Doctor watching Gordon and Crossland consider his story which reminds me of a moment in the televised broadcast of Arsenal’s dramatic 1989 title-winning victory over Liverpool, as Ronnie Whelan awaits the referee and linesman’s decision over whether to allow Arsenal’s first goal – a perfectly framed scene from one of my favourite moments as a fan of anything.
The Faceless Ones is an interesting story by David Ellis and Malcolm Hulke. While the Chameleons’ plot seems a bit weird and unnecessarily complicated, it’s fairly typical telefantasy of its time, designed to excite and engage the imagination through outlandish scenarios rather than to make a huge degree of sense. The six-part story boasts some great cliffhangers; I can imagine being a kid in 1967 on the edge of my seat at the endings of parts one (first reveal of the back of the head of one of the scaly aliens), two (the Doctor succumbs to a mysterious gas piped through a secret wall grille), and three (the travellers on the aeroplane flight vanish into thin air) in particular.
The contemporary setting of the story makes it fascinating to watch from a nostalgic point of view too. Or at least it would be if more of the actual story survived. I sensed from the lack of dialogue that episode 2 in particular boasted a number of scenes showcasing the Gatwick Airport backdrop – whether these were stock footage or scenes shot for Doctor Who, I don’t know – but the telesnaps and what does survive in episodes 1 and 3 suggest that we would have seen a lot of this modern, busy airport in action, with plenty of the fashions and designs of the time on display. I would love to have seen more of the newsstand next to which Jamie and the Doctor hide behind copies of The Times in episode 2, for example, for a glimpse of what else was available to buy back then. I really like seeing film or photos of newsstands and newsagents of the past; as a child in the 1970s I always felt there was something magical about a newsagent, or a news stall such as those at railway stations, with their promise of comics and sweets and the strange mystique of more grown-up wares such as newspapers and tobacco.
Talking of the way things were, I was surprised by how strange I found it watching Blade licking postage stamps before sticking them on postcards. I’d forgotten that we actually had to lick stamps.
One other notable aspect of the story is the arrogance of the Chameleon race – or at least of the leader of this mission, ‘the Director’. Without wanting to pre-empt too much the ‘Connections’ section of this blog post, it’s interesting to watch (just prior to Orphan 55) the hubristic nature of the Director’s actions, and to learn of the environmental catastrophe he and other leaders appear to have caused on their home planet, while still he boasts of his kind’s inherent superiority over humanity. ‘We are the most intelligent race in the universe,’ he boasts. ‘The intelligence of Earth people is comparable only to that of animals on our planet.’ In fact, I doubt that the Chameleons, rather like humans, are the most intelligent species even on their own home planet.
Orphan 55
So Orphan 55 was recently voted, by readers of Doctor Who Magazine, the least favourite (aka ‘the worst’) Thirteenth Doctor story. Judging by some of the references to the story that I see online, there are more than a few people who would name it as their least favourite (aka ‘their worst’) story of the entire series, old or new. Neither is my view. It’s not great, but there are plenty of stories I would rank lower, undoubtedly in the twentieth century series and even in Thirteen’s era – The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos leaps straight to mind, but let’s see what I think about that when it comes up for a rewatch here.
The most prevalent criticism that I see of Orphan 55 must be that it is too preachy. Too ‘woke’, too ‘on the nose’ in its environmental message, especially the Doctor’s speech that ends the episode. To quote it in full:
‘Look, I know what you're thinking, but it's one possible future. It's one timeline. You want me to tell you that Earth's going to be okay? ‘Cos I can't. In your time, humanity is busy arguing over the washing-up while the house burns down. Unless people face facts and change, catastrophe is coming. But it's not decided. You know that. The future is not fixed. It depends on billions of decisions, and actions, and people stepping up. Humans. I think you forget how powerful you are. Lives change worlds. People can save planets, or wreck them. That's the choice. Be the best of humanity. Or ...’
To be critical of this, as written by Chris Chibnall or as delivered by Jodie Whitaker, is in my opinion extremely unjust. I think it’s a terrific speech, really well written and really well performed. It’s topical, it’s terrifying, it’s motivating and empowering. It’s one of the highlights of Doctor Who, from any era.
It’s also entirely within character for the Doctor; with perhaps just a few idiomatic changes, it’s easy to imagine this speech delivered by William Hartnell, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Christopher Eccleston, Peter Capaldi … in fact, all of the previous actors to have played the character. And applauded and repeated on many occasions. This is exactly the sort of thing that Doctor Who has always done well.
This is to say nothing of just how important it is, at this point in the history of humanity, for a national television programme, on a show and on a channel that has always had a remit to challenge and inform, to be highlighting our impending environmental collapse, and urging us all to do better in working against it.
So if it’s not any preachier than Doctor Who has been on several occasions in the past, and if it’s a well-written piece delivered well by Whitaker, why do people seem to hate it so much? Part of the reason, I think, could be because it is such an unpleasant truth. If the Doomsday Clock really is so close to midnight and we have, as a race, and as the Doctor says, forgotten how powerful we really are, then it’s something that people don’t like to hear, or even to think about. As long as we can still enjoy our favourite programme on a Sunday teatime, who cares about the planet becoming uninhabitable for human life?
Another reason, I suspect, is that some people don’t like taking lessons from women, especially young women.
While I can defend the speech, and the overall message of Orphan 55 (I thought one of the Doctor’s earlier comments, ‘In societies that let this happen, there's nearly always a ruling elite that gets to evacuate, and then signs off all responsibility for whatever they've left behind’, was another good one), there are other aspects of the episode that I didn’t enjoy. For want of a better term, it’s the aesthetics of the story that spoil it for me. The tonal mix is confusing; on the one hand it’s an incredibly dark and violent story, with terrifying, teeth-gnashing monsters, dark tunnels and corridors reminiscent of scenes from the movie Aliens, while on the other hand it has the bright, cheap and colourful notes of a late 1980s episode when Doctor Who had more of an underfunded children’s show vibe. Characters such as Hyph3n, Nevi and Sylas, Vilma and Benni, and the cheap surroundings purporting to be the futuristic holiday destination of Tranquility Spa, all put me in mind of woeful Season 24 stories such as Paradise Towers, Delta and the Bannermen and Dragonfire. As a whole, the story feels like a bath or a cup of tea that is neither hot nor cold – just not enough of either to really know what you’re drinking. Or sitting in.
There is a knockabout feel to the start of the episode as the Doctor, Yaz and Ryan are found cleaning up the TARDIS following the visit of some sort of space squid. That’s fun enough, and those giant tentacles are a good prop. But then Graham appears with his free holiday coupons from something called the Bandozhi Herald, and it all starts to feel a bit too silly.
Much of the story was filmed in Tenerife, which proved a strong location for those scenes set on the ‘Cursed Earth’-style, bleak landscape of the planet Orphan 55, but my guess is that the production team were hoping for warmer-looking weather for the shots around the outside of the auditorium doubling as Tranquility Spa. It looks too cold and breezy for Bradley Walsh to really convince as he acts soaking up the sun and enthusing ‘Oh, guys. This is a bit of all right, innit?’
The time travellers discover an ancient sign from the Russian underground railway station of Novosibirsk, indicating that Orphan 55 is in fact a future version of Earth. The scene is, I imagine, a knowing nod back to the Sixth Doctor and Peri’s discovery of Marble Arch underground signage on the future-Earth known as Ravalox in The Mysterious Planet. The artefact has a fairly devastating impact on Yaz and Graham, as it did on Peri in the earlier story.
Laura Fraser is good as trigger-happy resort owner Kane. I didn’t recognise her when she first appeared; the production seemed a little too budget-conscious for an actress of her standing. Kane’s daughter, Bella, played by Gia Ré, has her mind set on the destruction of Tranquility Spa – not, as I first imagined, as an eco-terrorist, but as an act of revenge against her mother. Orphan 55 appears to have a secondary theme of parents letting down their children, with Bella’s rage at Kane echoed by young Sylas’ frustration at useless dad Nevi. This fits the story’s primary theme of humanity’s destruction of the planet, and younger generations suffering the consequences of their parents’ delinquency.
Connections
Both The Faceless Ones and Orphan 55 are stories set within the tourist industry, and might fit the format of one of those ‘When Holidays Go Bad!’ TV shows (in which regular people’s phone video recordings of vacation disasters are interspersed with E-list celebrity grinbags describing precisely what we have just seen on screen). In the 1967 tale, young holidaymakers believing they are heading for the sunny cities of Europe are kidnapped by the Chameleons, who wish to use their physical identities to repopulate their race. In the 2020 adventure, visitors to the luxury Tranquility Spa destination discover it to be a ‘fakation’ resort shielded from view of the low-oxygen desert in which it is sited by a holographic dome.
Ryan, aiming to impress Bella, claims to be ‘a surgeon for pilots’. Which, in the sense of being someone who provides medical support to people in the flying industry, is I suppose a job similar to that of Nurse Pinto, head of Gatwick’s first-aid unit in The Faceless Ones. Eventually Ryan admits to working in a warehouse, one of which is also an important setting in The Faceless Ones.
Ryan and Bella’s story has some similarities to that of Jamie and Sam’s. Both couples flirt around the edges of a holiday romance which never has a chance to happen, but ends with a wistful goodbye kiss. The frustration for both pairs is illustrated by a scene in which another character (the Doctor in Orphan 55, and Crossland in The Faceless Ones) sits themselves down between the couple.
Both stories feature devices worn on the lower arm designed to keep people alive. The Chameleons wear control units on their sleeves that maintain their link to the human whose body they ‘wear’, and if the corresponding armband is removed from the human the linked Chameleon disintegrates. The survivors of the attack on Tranquility Spa each carry an Oxygen canister above their wrist to help them survive when exposed to the planet’s unbreathable atmosphere.
Ben goes missing in The Faceless Ones. Benni goes missing in Orphan 55.
Finally, while it’s not unique to these two adventures, The Faceless Ones and Orphan 55 both provide an example of one of the Doctor’s most enduring catchphrases: ‘When I say run … Run!’
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