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What is the secret of Chameleon Tours?

The Faceless Ones isn’t one of those stories that regularly pops up on people’s best loved stories from the classic era – or even from the Troughton years. Four of the six episodes are missing from the archives, and it was a late choice for novelisation back in the Target days. On a personal note, I was lucky enough to read the scripts courtesy of the late Mac Hulke – but that was over 40 years ago! I’ve seen the extant episodes when they were released on the Lost in Time DVD but it’s not really a story I’d say I knew well.

The new animation, produced and directed by AnneMarie Walsh, does a great job of recreating the serial, and giving it a degree of scope that the original series couldn’t have done. The new BBC Studios policy of animating all episodes – rather than, as before, simply the missing ones – means you can watch it in multiple different ways: as a complete animation, as a black and white animation, as a monochrome animation combined with the existing episodes, or, courtesy of Derek Handley, a recreation with telesnaps of the missing episodes (and even that comes with options). In addition to all that, there’s commentaries (that are in various places) that are worth catching – some are to picture, others are archive.

Each of the “new” animations (starting with Power of the Daleks) has improved on its predecessor, particularly in terms of movement of character’s faces. Walking remains an issue (as Frazer Hines memorably demonstrated at the serial’s launch at the BFI!) but even that is better, and there are some great moments scattered throughout. There are also some lovely little Easter eggs for fans (the police station one in episode 1 has been added to for the final version) and I don’t think anything has been removed in the way the cleaning up sequence was removed from The Macra Terror.

The highlight of the added material though has to be the Toby Hadoke-directed documentary on the making of the animation, which had me laughing out loud on more than one occasion. (Let’s just say some people would prompt an interviewee if they forget something; Hadoke has a better idea…)

Verdict: An often overlooked part of the Troughton era comes back to life. 8/10

Paul Simpson

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