Day 225 — August 13th 2021
The Face of Evil Parts Three and Four
The Face of Evil — Part Three
I think my favourite thing about this story continues to be the dialogue, which feels far more polished than usual. I don’t know enough about Chris Boucher’s work generally to know if this is a case of him putting in extra care and effort because this is his first script for the series, or if it’s characteristic of his writing generally. I’m pleased to think that I’ve got another two days in the company of his work, though, because on the strength of this one there’ll be plenty to look forward to. This story and The Robots of Death are tw oof only three contributions he made to Doctor Who, but he kept in the realm of BBC Science-Fiction by moving on to Blake’s 7. That’s a series I’ve tried to start in the past — the DVDs are sat on the shelf as we speak — but I’ve never gotten far into. I’m thinking of giving it another go as I make my way through the next few seasons of Who, to see how it feels in the context of the time
Anyway, this episode is filled with some great turns of phrase, including this brilliant exchange between Doctor Who and Leela;
Doctor Who: ‘The Sevateem were the survey teams and the Tesh were the technicians. You’re all human beings from this colony ship.’
Leela: ‘So what happened? Doctor, what happened?’
Doctor Who: ‘I’m rather afraid I did.’
I think I’m right in saying that the novelisation places Doctor Who’s previous visit during his brief attempt to fly away during Robot, and I’m amazed that we’ve not yet seen Big Finish do something with that idea — you could have a whole host of adventures with a slightly manic recently-regenerated Tom Baker touring the universe and accidentally causing more harm than good. The only issue I have with that placement is that the giant carving of Doctor Who here includes a hint of scarf, and I don’t think he’d donned that by the time he made his jaunt. Still, that’s hardly the worst continuity slip up in the programme’s history, and it’s easy enough to overlook…!
The other strength in this story comes in the form of the ways it presents religion. It’s interesting to me that both the Sevateem and the Tesh have their own faiths derived from the same source but which differ substantially. Crucially, both of them feel fleshed out and I can get a grasp on them immediately. And the introduction of the Tesh’s religion gives us another slightly different take on Doctor Who — to them he’s not the Evil One but a figure for good, which gives us some more beautiful dialogue when he doesn’t live up to expectations;
Doctor Who: ‘Give the order to stop that particle analyser.’
Jabel: ‘You are not the Lord of Time come again to save us!’
Doctor Who: ‘Will you give that order?’
Jabel: ‘You are not the Lord of Time!’
Doctor Who: ‘Right, then I’ll do it myself.’
As rich as the Tesh are, I have to confess that I’ve not been as taken with this episode as I was with yesterday’s pair. There’s something about the bland white corridors here which doesn’t grab me, even though they serve as a nice contrast to the dark and dense jungle outside. I think that clash is absolutely intentional, but sadly I think I’d have rather stayed outside where everything felt a bit more down to Earth.
I’ll go with a 7/10 for this one.
The Face of Evil — Part Four
I’ve spent so long talking about how brilliant the dialogue is in this story when talking about Chris Boucher’s writing that I’ve rather overlooked just how strong and defined all of the characters are. Leela is of course the perfect example, and I’ve already noted how we’ve seen her go through a range of emotions in this story, but Neeva is another great case — he’s gone from a religious fanatic in the first episode through to being the man who ‘kills’ God in this final episode, and you really feel as though you’ve been on a journey with him across the story — I can totally believe in his actions and disillusionment here.
I think it’s also indicative of the story’s take on religion in the first place, that it you peer behind the curtain or get too close to uncovering the truth behind your belief, everything falls apart. There’s a brilliant line in this episode which feels oddly profound for an episode of Doctor Who;
Tomas: ‘We’ve outgrown the old superstitions, Neeva.’
Neeva: ‘But it is there, isn’t it, Tomas. We start getting proof and we
stop believing.’
Tomas: ‘With proof, we don’t have to believe.’
It’s not just Neeva who gets some great character development across the story, though, the same is true for all the key members of the tribe. Calib goes from openly despising the leadership to taking command himself, while Tomas learns the importance of patience and waiting for the right moment to act. I’ve quoted Russell T Davies’ The Writer’s Tale on this blog before, when he talks about ‘turning’ characters to show us different facets of them, and I think this story is the perfect example of what he means.
The Tesh are, perhaps, not as developed as the members of the Sevateem, and I wonder if that’s why I’m finding them the less interesting part of the story? It doesn’t help that we’re told there are lots of them, but only ever see a few on screen at once which makes it hard to buy the illusion.
The depth of Leela’s character has made it really interesting to see the way in which Doctor Who interacts with her across the story. He continues to be rather paternal towards her (it’s miles away from the ‘best friends on equal footing’ relationship he had with Sarah), and there’s some wonderful examples in here of him simply being kind towards her. When she’s possessed and tried to kill the Time Lord he simply snaps her out of the trance, and doesn’t go on to tell her what’s happened, because he knows she’d be horrified.
So it’s all the stranger that he actively doesn’t want her to go with him at the end. I’d forgotten that Leela joins the TARDIS by literally running into the ship and setting the controls herself, and it came as a real surprise. I don’t dislike it as a moment, and it’s a fun enough way to set off on a new adventure, but I sort of want to hear Doctor Who inviting her along. I almost feel a bit cheated of the moment.
Something I want to touch on before I leave this story behind, is the use of special effects. We’ve not had this many different video effects in a story since Planet of Evil, and they’re used really well. I don’t even know how to describe the effect applied to Tom Baker’s face to create the image of Xoanon on the screens, but it looks brilliant, and there’s a really nice ‘glitchy’ effect that’s used here when the camera cuts between different views of Doctor Who and Leela. The one part of the story I’d have loved to see some more on was the invisible creatures being revealed to be giant projections of Tom Baker’s head — the brief shot we get in Part Three looks amazing, and I suspect I’d have enjoyed spending more time out in the jungle with these things than trapped on the Tesh spaceship with it’s bland corridors.
I’m going with another 7/10 for this one, but I suspect that at least some of that is residual goodwill from the opening episodes, because I’ll admit that I’ve just not been as invested in the later parts of the story. This final episode in particular adopts something of an odd structure in which Xoanon is defeated with eight minutes of the story still to go, and we’re treated to a bizarre scene of Doctor Who sitting down to talk with the restored computer which I’ll admit left me cold.
So this time around The Face of Evil hasn’t come out as my favourite Tom Baker adventure, but it’s still high up there, with a score that puts it squarely in my Top Ten.
