The Faceless Ones

At times the erasure of Doctor Who's past seems easier to accept when it left so many footprints that we can now carefully uncover in order to re-experience what we have lost. I'm not just talking about existing episodes, although obviously these are the biggest and most valuable treasures we have when it comes to trying to guess what incomplete adventures like "The Faceless Ones" and "The Web of Fear" were like. Audios, telesnaps and publicity photographs all fill in tiny little pieces of the puzzle as well.

But what really gets me is when we have to accept that some things are almost completely lost forever. There is one photo of a Rill. ONE. It seems impossible that a successful and popular programme like Doctor Who could make and broadcast its new monster to eleven million people and nobody, bar the originator of that one precious snap, thought to take a picture of it. Wasn't there at least one viewer who thought to aim a camera at the screen? People have executed far less pointless actions in the pursuit of idle self-amusement. It's especially gutting when considering that the BBC publicity crew were using up all their film at the other end of the studio photographing Stephanie Bidmead, her blond babe mates and their miniskirts and big guns. In a story that alleges to preach the importance of not judging from appearances, the Rills have been all but erased from visual history because they didn't look as interesting as their slinky co-stars. Poor old Rills.

And there's more. Until recently, nobody anywhere had a photo of Celation from the Daleks Masterplan. There is a single existing shot of a Varga Plant (which, given it's less half-plant half-human as half-human half-sleeping bag appearance, is actually not a bad thing) and about three existing photographs from "The Myth Makers". I find this unbelievable - THREE. That this Doctor Who adventure could be carefully made and transmitted without anyone keeping any kind of visual record begars belief. Then there is "The Faceless Ones", starring possibly the biggest profile monster which until very recently nobody had ever seen. It's a doubly unfortunate twist of fate for this airport-set tale of abducted teenage holidaymakers, since the rather grisly appearance of the eponymous villains is not only the stories biggest trump card, but its key plot twist as well. Without even a single picture of a Chameleon available to decorate the pages of The Doctor Who Monster Book, the story inevitably drifted into obscurity.

And then, some graphical evidence turned up. First it was on a tiny John Cura telesnap, which didn't really show us much. Then, in early 2003 as The DWM Second Doctor Special was published and fans eagerly opened its beautifully designed pages, there it was. A whacking great crystal clear publicity still of a Chameleon. Excuse me for asking, but where did it come from? Are we not justified in wondering? The same thing has happened down the years with various rare visual Doctor Who material. The return of a missing episode is always hailed by a multitude of questions from fans wanting to know the exact story surrounding its recovery, perhaps eager for more legend-aspiring tales of Mormon Churches and New Zealand Jumble Sales. But your ordinary photograph can, it seems, pop up from nowhere without anyone asking questions, even if the little piece of the relevant adventure it gives back to us is as valuable as an actual clip. You doubt me? Watch the recently recovered (and much trumpeted) "Power of the Daleks" trailer on BBCi. Now tell me it isn't so short and devoid of motion that a couple of stills of the scene run together wouldn't give almost the same visual effect. Besides which, photographs (especially publicity stills, which have often been carefully set up and choreographed) can provide an even more evocative and beautiful representation of a lost scene than a missing clip.

But the sudden and delightful cameo by a Chamelion in the Second Doctor special is not, by far, the most suspicious re-appearance of an assumed-lost treasure. How about telesnaps for "The Crusade" Parts 2 and 4 which (hello!) turned up weeks after Episode 1 was recovered. Telesnaps for the exact adventure that had just mooted itself for a linking-footage requiring video release. Telesnaps for this particular adventure and no other. Ditto when "The Time Meddler" was first returned to the BBC. News came through that the episode had suffered cuts at the hands of foreign censors but, never mind, fan Ian Levine had loaned his complete copy so the missing sections could be returned! It's unbelievable.

The complete set of John Cura telesnaps also remains two-thirds missing, the volume recovered by DWM in the nineties being labelled at the time as number 3. The whereabouts of numbers 1 and 2 remain a mystery, at least to most of us. I wonder if someone out there has a book of Marco Polo and Daleks Masterplan telesnaps on his shelf? With missing episodes themselves, there are many valid reasons why fans are unlikely to be hoarding lost cans of film, not least because none ever turn up from this avenue. But the mine of other missing visual material is a different story. It's not only "out there somewhere", but it quite often sneaks back into the public domain at opportune moments. Keep your eyes open every time something new gets published, and you'll see what I mean...