The Faceless Ones
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Revision as of 01:00, 25 July 2021 by Jon Preddle (talk | contribs)
| Story Code: KK / Season 4 | UK Airdate: 8 Apr to 13 May 1967 | Doctor: Patrick Troughton |
| First airings by location | UK Repeats / Foreign Cable and Satellite | Previous Story / Next Story |
This story aired in the following five countries. They are listed in chronological order according to known airdate. (Refer also to Selling Doctor Who for expanded airdates.)
| Australia | Dec 67 | b/w |
| Uganda | Jan 69 | b/w |
| Singapore | Jun 69 | b/w |
| Hong Kong | Jun 69 | b/w |
| New Zealand | did not air | b/w |
| Zambia | Jun 73 | b/w |
- Singapore may have sent its films to Hong Kong.
- The films were examined by the New Zealand censors in August 1969, but given a "Y" rating. The episodes did not air. The films were sent to London on 3 July 1970.
- ZTV in Zambia had got as far as screening The Macra Terror in July 1970. BBC sales paperwork indicates that The Faceless Ones was sold to Zambia by March 1970, on the same date as the other season four serials, and yet it didn't air until three years later. This is likely due to the non-sale to NZ, which meant Zambia - being a minor-Commonwealth country - was not able to air the serial in 1970, but three years later, close to when the screening rights were due to expire, ZTV was permitted to screen it.
- The ABC in Australia returned its prints to the BBC on 4 June 1975... however:
- ... a print of part one still bearing the censor edits was found in the possession of an Australian film collector, who had owned it since 1970! It's possible that the ABC had two copies of this episode: one was discarded in 1970 (soon after the delayed repeat screening in Melbourne in May 1969), and the other sent back to the BBC with the others in 1975.
- The BBC retained the original telerecording negative for part 1. It's not clear whether or not they also had a print of the episode. If they did, it would be either the one returned by New Zealand in 1970, the one sent back by Australia in 1975, or it was returned by Zambia.
- A print of part 3 was found in the possession of film collector Gordon Hendry in early 1987 (along with part 2 of The Evil of the Daleks). He'd acquired both prints from a private dealer in 1983. The film was badly damaged, due it would seem, to mishandling by the various owners. (Hendry placed his own labels on the film cans -- see image above.)
- The existing prints of parts 1 and 3 are therefore likely to be the remnants of the returns from Australia, and/or New Zealand.
- See also the Troughton Junkings page.
Reconstruction
- The story was animated in full (in colour/widescreen, and b/w 4:3 ratio) and released on DVD/Blu-ray in March 2020. It was also available to purchase via iTunes and Amazon Prime.
- The animated colour reconstruction aired on BBC America on 7 and 8 October 2020. Three episodes screened back to back each night, with only the first title sequence and last credit roll retained. To fit the scheduled 93-minute timeslot, some minor edits were made.
