Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start... 

Day 165: The Faceless Ones, Episode Two

Dear diary,

I think this might be the first time that it's really clear just why the Doctor and Jamie travel together for such a long time. They're so brilliant together! Even while they're on the run from the authorities, trying to solve a murder, and having to work out what's happened to their friend, they really seem to be enjoying the adventure. At times, 1960s Doctor Who can feel like simply heading from one terrifying ordeal to the next (just a few weeks ago, Ben and Polly had to endure fighting the Cybermen one day before heading right off to do battle with the Daleks - no time for a rest in between!), so it's lovely to see a Doctor and companion having a great time together.

It also gives us the opportunity to see them really sparking off each other, and the friendship between Troughton and Hines shows through wonderfully, too. There's plenty of fun moments here - hiding behind the newspapers is great, and Hines' narration on the soundtrack, when he explains that not only is Jamie's paper foreign, but also upside down, had me laugh out loud. Even Ben manages to get in on the fun, while the trio hold a private meeting in a photo booth. Thankfully, there's a tele snap of them pulling funny faces at the camera when they get caught huddled in the machine.

We're seeing Jamie being used to good effect as a historical character, too. It's often said (more by fans than anyone, but still) that a companion drawn from history wouldn't work in the show today, as you can't latch onto them in the same way you can a character from the present day. Here, though, it works brilliantly. We've already had Jamie's fear of the 'flying metal beasties' in yesterday's episode, and here we get a full minute of ambient airport noise, as Jamie looks around the huge concourse, trying to make sense of it all. It's perfectly simple to latch onto: if you've ever been a child, lost in a busy supermarket, confused by all the hustle and bustle around you, then you're able to sympathise with Jamie here. It takes the world of Gatwick airport (as I mused yesterday, it was already a place not many of the viewers would have been in 1967), and makes it just as alien as Vulcan, or Atlantis.

I worried, when Polly 'changed', that it may lack a bit of impact. The Macra Terror used the idea of a companion being taken over to the wrong side so well, and I feared that this would fall flat coming so soon after that one. Thankfully, though, it's been fantastic, and it's different enough in tone to the last story that it doesn't feel as rehashed as I thought it might. The crowning moment has to be when Ben opens the packing crate and finds the real Polly shut inside it, unresponsive. Yesterday, I mentioned that the Doctor and Jamie finding nothing but paper cups in the crate was a good moment, but here it gets turned on its head and used as a terrifying image. We don't often see the companions in a state like this…

There's plenty of other things in my notes for today that I could pick up on, but I think I'll stick with just one for now. The Doctor making his escape from the Commandant's office is a scene that you'd never see on Doctor Who these days, as our hero stands in the middle of an airport, holding a suspicious item, and declares 'one step nearer, and I'll blow you all to smithereens!'

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