Well! I'm onto 'The Faceless Ones' and it's a fantastic bit of story telling....so far. I'm only on episode one.

Moonbase was okay, but it felt very similar to the Tenth Planet. Still love those Cybermen though they are very menacing.

The Macra Terror, well what can I say? So wish there was footage of the Macra. But I've seen a claw so that must account for something. I like the story and the premise of them controlling the colony via 'The Controller' who everyone thinks is one of them.

I am also very much submerged in the Second Doctor now and PT, well he's my favourite Doctor at the moment. Never thought I'd say that.


That line was just so brilliant and so cheesey I had to rewind and watch it again. It was great. Still smile now thinking about it.

Was there a particular moment or story that turned it round for you?

I can't say there was a single defining moment. It was more a gradual process which started with The Power of the Daleks, progressed with The Highlanders and was sealed with his antics in The Underwater Menace.

I think it just took me a while to get to know him.

I've seen three episodes of The Faceless Ones and at the moment this is my favourite story.

Captain Blade has one of the best names for a villain.
Pauline Collins as Samantha Briggs, incidentally, was at one point intended to be the new companion replacing Ben and Polly but declined the offer of becoming a regular. She went on to become one of the most successful actresses on TV, starring in The Liver Birds and later as Sarah Moffat in Upstairs Downstairs and its spin-off, Thomas & Sarah amongst others, before breaking into films in Shirley Valentine. She has had quite a career in the almost four decades between her two Who appearances-it'd be interesting to see what, if any, difference it would have made if she'd stayed on!

Pauline Collins would have made a great companion. But we wouldn't have had those other programmes that you mention and a couple of those I loved.

I really like the character Sam Briggs and it would have been interesting to see her travel with Jamie. Not so sure about her connecting with Polly or Ben though.

there is a fair amount of hypocrisy on this forum, to be fair....

the daleks are formidable in one sense, but they have some pretty clear areas of vulnerability that have, and always will be, exploited in the stories...much like, say Dick Dastardly......

Was Dick Dastardly ever formidable? Without his canine compatriot, he'd have been nothing-and even with him, he wasn't up to much...

He was good at cheating. Well they were both good at cheating. Well actually it was more his companion who had the brains to cheat.

I love this thread. I wish I'd found it months ago.

Classic Who appreciation, a genuine warmth for B&W episodes and none of the increasingly poisonous RTD vs SM banter.

My name is Saxy and I wish Patrick Troughton was my dad.

can't argue with that...

but DD was the original moustache twirling villain...

His grandson plays Dudley in the Harry Potter films...

Welcome to the b&w thread!

I found the thread.

The Faceless Ones is a little under rated. In the terribly under represented season, it's blessed with those 2 surviving episodes. Of course episode 3 was only recovered in 1987 along with Evil of the Daleks 2 so it still feels lucky to be able to see it as I remember the news of it's find. Patrick and Frazer have their double act perfect by now - the Doctor keeps shushing Jamie and elbowing him every time he blurts something out, "it was a ray gun!"

That's the fun of new fans discovering the show and when it's watched in order you watch the characters change and develop or suddenly get written out. I try to watch the show in marathons in order as you get a real kick when the Brigadier returns for instance that you don't get if you just pick a random UNIT story one afternoon.

A friend of mine and I meet up from time to time and watch DVDs and I'm in charge of programming like the BBC1 controller. So we are working through Doctor Who (again). We have other stuff on as well. We started a run of Doctor Who back in 2000 and we're now in Torchwood season 2. By the time we got to McCoy we restarted Hartnell as well so we have two parallel streams - that has reached Pertwee's Mutants now.

I've just introduced him to Rome (the series not the city), having done shows like Danger UXB, Edward VII, The Avengers and Upstairs Downstairs. Upstairs Downstairs was like watching Doctor Who with a new fan as each episode he wouldn't know who was coming or going - there's a lot of cast changes and surprise returns which led to much speculation at the time. I'll offer him Adam Adamant Lives! after Rome.

Couldn't resist answering a post from months back...

Dalek Invasion of Earth quarry scenes were near me not far from where Bluewater now is in Kent. The actual quarry Bluewater sits in was used in Pertwee's The Mutants. The nearest location to me personally is the entrance to Space Control in Ambassadors of Death, another Pertwee tale.

Welcome saxy. B&W DW is cool.

I can understand your surrogate father request too.


I love The Faceless Ones gotta be one of my favourites, should finish it tonight. I'm surprised its underrated as I thought it would have been popular. I didn't realise one of the episodes was recovered until much later...what a find!

And the Doctor / Jamie double act is just inspired.


I love doing things in order, and I'm quite tenacious as I'll see most things through to the end. This is quite a mammoth task which is going to take a few years, but I'd like to think I will do it. Also when I do things like this it is usually totally wholeheartedly so when the episodes finish I shall start the audios over again and I also want to read the books too. I'd better forewarn my bank manager as this could turn into an expensive hobby.

Ooh i've been to Bluewater, I met a Whoonie there. Well I met two actually.

Anyway after that post I went on that location website and the nearest filming to me was Caddington in Bedfordshire where they filmed Terror of the Autons.

Oh bye bye Ben and Polly.

My second favourite companions behind Ian and Barbara. I didn't realise how much I loved them until they left.

Harry Melling? Very promising actor, I saw him at the National Theatre recently and he's changed a lot since his Harry Potter days though I believe he is due to be in the next one.

That's some acting dynasty PT has produced!

Great that this thread has been so popular in the last week, while I have been away!

I tried listening to The Underwater Menace on a long drive, at the weekend. It's rubbish, isn't it? Really livs down to its reputation. Mrs Chuff wasn't enjoying it, so we gave up. It's the only soundtrack I have ever given up on. We got halfway through part three, where there is some interminable faffing in underground corridors and loads of capture/escape stuff.

The Doctor telling Zaroff that if Z kills the Dr than Z will never know the Dr's secret ... only for the Dr to then say that he never had a secret and Z to go "hahahahahahahahaha I will forgive you because you are so amusink!" ... shockingly bad.

The Faceless Ones isn't "underrated" so much as "completely forgotten". I remember the book really caught my imagination when I was wee, and the soundtrack CD was thoroughly enjoyable. The two surviving episodes give a nice flavour of the story, but it's always hard to judge when there's so much missing. Ben and Polly get a bit of an odd send-off. I spose The Faceless Ones is the end of a period of transition for the show: lots of companions have come and gone in a short time, and some of them have got really rubbish exits.

Hartnell and Troughton are my current favourites. Such a shame there's so little Troughton remaining.

Tiggs: I'm surprised you were a bit unimpressed by the Moonbase. The scenes of Cybermen lurking in the sickbay are nicely creepy ...

There was quite a lot in The Underwater Menace that stretched the credibility of the story. Definitely one of the weaker episodes.

I quite like Ben and Polly's exit. Understated but totally believeable. They were home and same time and date as when they left. Hadn't we just won the World Cup or something. Definitely a good time to stay.

It's a shame about the lack of Troughton episodes I agree. Can't believe I'm almost at the end of the next season. It seemed only a few days ago that I started.

Ben and Polly are great companions and I wished they had stayed longer.

Bit of background info (please skip if bored!)

Innes Lloyd was the producer from Celestial Toymaker and made sweeping changes with the support of script editor Gerry Davis - first he didn't renew Peter Purves contract, then he sacked Jackie Lane and wrote her out with indecent haste. He then managed what previous producer John Wiles had failed to do and persuaded Hartnell to leave. Having brought in new up to the minute companions Ben and Polly he completed his changes with the end of the historicals. Gerry Davis developed the 'base under siege' style scripts and thus season 4 was born.

So now nearly at the end now with Faceless Ones and they have decided to keep Jamie. Sources differ whether Anneke Wills and Michael Craze wanted to stay or decided to go but they were originally contracted to appear until Evil of the Daleks episode 2 but Lloyd decided to write them out with indecent haste.

They did the location filming for Faceless Ones and episodes 1 and 2 and that was it. Their scene in episode 6 had been filmed before episode 1. So written out 2 episodes into the plot just like their predecessor Dodo.

Sam Briggs was then meant to join Jamie but Pauline Collins decided she had better things to do so plan B arrives in Evil of the Daleks...

Fascinating, I love all this background stuff. Innes Lloyd sounds quite ruthless, but he made good changes in my opinion, well except for stopping the historicals as I like them.

Shame about Anneke and Micheal. I would hope that the decision to go was theirs rather than made for them.

I won't mention how long Innes Lloyd is still producer but you may notice the change when he moves on.

Small detail, obviously the titles changed on Macra Terror but did you notice the theme music alteration from Faceless Ones episode 2 onward - they gave it a bit more sparkle and what is forever termed 'the spangles on the sound.

I didn't notice the music change, will have to pay more attention. but of course the obvious one is the face of the Doctor in the titles.

Innes Lloyd went on to be a big name producer, and his impact on DW is immediately obvious.

Having introduced Jamie, he then realised that (with scripts already written), there wasn't really enough for him to do. Ben and Polly's lines got shared around between the three of them; Jamie spend half of Moonbase unconscious; Ben and Polly then disappeared halfway through the Faceless Ones. Originally, they just wanted to get rid of Ben, as the strong-arm stuff just needed one male companion, but Anneke Wills decided she had to go att he same time.

That could never happen nowadays! All that "on the hoof" stuff really is from another time. People's contracts running our midway through a story! Just goes to show how much TV has changed. I think Jackie Lane as Dodo comes off worst of all: she has a different accent in every episode (I also listened to The Massacre at the weekend ... one of the very, very, very best DW stories, but totally forgotten because nobody will ever get to see it), and is forgotten halfway through The War Machines.

So many companions in such a short time is also part of the reason that Bill Hartnell left. He just couldn't keep on top of it. He had ten companions in the course of three years: that must have been hard work, especially as he was in poor health and was feeling the pressure of leading a series that was on air 45wks a year.

Things are a bit more straightforward from Evil of the Daleks onwards.

I felt Evil to be the most overrated story I have ever heard. On and on and on and bloody on, it never ends. Week after week of captures and escapes, some of it is so cliched that it could almost be written by Terry Nation. I would also add a very controversial point, that