4 Episodes
Aired between 1st January 1977 and 22nd January 1977
Written by Chris Boucher
Produced by Phillip Hinchcliffe
Directed by Pennant Roberts
Synopsis
Leela, a female warrior from a tribe known as the Sevateem is exiled from them for blasphemy against their god, Xoanon.
She is sent into the wilds of the alien jungle they call home, and it's not long before she is followed by tribe members on the orders of the tribe shaman, Neeva.
The tribesmen are not the only ones out there however. Her friend, Tomas follows and kills one of the enemies. The other pursues Leela. She manages to defeat him and eventually comes across the Doctor whom she believes has the exact same appearance as the evil one, a fabled enemy of her people.
Enemy tribes people are not the only dangers in this jungle however. It becomes apparent to the Doctor and Leela that an invisible force is stalking them. With the aid of an alarm clock, the Doctor works out that the force is a creature that's attracted to sound and vibration.
Using the clock as a distraction, they work their way back to Leela's village, where they soon find an anachronistic sonic disruptor field set up along the perimeter of the village that supposedly keeps the invisible creatures at bay.
His curiosity piqued by the strange finding, the Doctor questions Leela about her folklore some more. Leela tells him that their great god, Xoanon is trapped by the Evil One behind a great black wall. Her tribe, the Sevateem are planning to once again assault the wall and the Evil One's minions - the Tesh, in the hopes of freeing their god. This attack although some think foolish, is being pushed for by a tribesman called Andor. He wants to unite the tribe under him and decry their Shaman, Neeva, whom he believes is a false prophet.
The Doctor gets spotted and captured by two warriors as they near the village, Leela manages to hide.
The warriors also believe the Doctor is the Evil One and make protective religious gestures, which the Doctor seems to think is strikingly similar to the way one would check seals on a spacesuit. After unsuccessfully threatening them with a "deadly" Jelly Baby, they take him to the Tribe Elder whom has him imprisoned.
Leela breaks him out, and as they flee, she kills one of her own tribesmen with a Janis Thorn, (a thorn from a native plant that paralyses and kills as there's no known antidote).
The Doctor is horrified at this and commands her never to use another Janis Thorn to kill.
Fleeing from the village, the Doctor and Leela go back through the jungle, where she leads the Doctor to the face of evil, a giant statue in the face of a cliff, that bears his own face, despite his insistence that he doesn't know the Sevateem or the Tesh.
He tells her that they must go back to the village, even though it's dangerous as that's the only way of finding out why his face is in the rock and to work out if he's indeed been on this planet before and just forgotten.
They successfully sneak back into the village and Leela takes him to Neeva's tent, so he can inspect their religious relics. It turns out that the relics are in fact the gutted electronics from a crashed survey space ship. The commands of the god Xoanon are beamed to Neeva via a transceiver in a space helmet that is now like a head dress. As they are there, Xoanon broadcasts commands. The voice sounds incredibly similar to the Doctor's current voice.
The Doctor tries to communicate with Xoanon whom seems surprisingly happy about it, decrying "at last we are here, at last I shall be free of us".
From all of this, the Doctor is certain that he must have indeed been here before, and the Sevateem are descendants of a crashed survey ship - Sevateem being a marred name of Survey Team that's been passed down from generation to generation. He also believes that Xoanon and the Tesh must also be somehow connected.
As they are making these deductions, the Sevateem are preparing to Assault the Wall and are lead by Andor and Neeva.
Leela takes the Doctor to the black wall. The Doctor recognises it as a time barrier that puts anyone passing through it out of phase with the regular time stream, meaning the enemy can predict their moves. Sure enough they see that the primitive warriors are cut down by laser fire in the assault, losing over half of their warriors before they retreat again. The Doctor realises that because Xoanon called Neeva to convince Andor to mount the assault, that must mean that Xoanon planned to kill the tribes people.
As the force return to the village, the Doctor and Leela are discovered by one of the tribe elders, Calib.
He is skeptical enough to know full well that the Doctor is not the Evil One, but he intends to use him to dispel the myth of these religious practices and break the power that Neeva has on the tribe, therefore allowing himself to become a powerful Tribe Leader. Leela forces a fight and Calib stabs her with a Janis Thron.
Tomas turns up to see what's happened and is about to kill Calib but the Doctor convinces him to stand guard over Calib whilst he tries to cure Leela. Using Neeva's relics, the Doctor manages to analyse the poison from the Janis Thorn and artificially construct an antidote. Leela is saved and soon comes around.
The Doctor, Leela and Tomas are brought before the tribe to account for their lives.
Leela tries to convince the tribe that Xoanon ordered the attack, knowing they would be slaughtered, but this doesn't go down well. Calb plays his hand by stating that the Doctor is not the Evil One like Neeva is suggesting. He wants to prove this by making the Doctor take the test of Horda. If he dies in it, then he is clearly a mortal. Neeva agrees.
The Doctor is taken to the pit of the Horda, a hole in the ground covered by moving stone slabs held together by a counterweight. Beneath the slabs lies hundreds of piranha like insects that react to movement. The Doctor is given a crossbow and told to shoot a rope that is tied to a boulder. When the boulder is lowered, the slabs will move and drop the Doctor into the pit if he's not fast enough.
Thanks to some pointers from William Tell, the Doctor succeeds in shooting the rope and much to Calibs chagrin, he, Leela and Tomas are released.
Knowing that the Tesh will attack, the Doctor looks once again at the relics, finds, and repairs an old disruptor gun. He gives the gun to Tomas and tells him it will be effective against the invisible creatures but only when used in short bursts.
As the tribe prepares for the oncoming attack, the Doctor and Leela go off again to the face of evil, climbing through its mouth where the Doctor suspects is a sort of back door to the Evil One's base.
Sure enough, Neeva is told by Xoanon that the tribe will be crushed and the invisible barrier suddenly fails, allowing the creatures into the village killing many, including Andor, the leader. Tomas uses the disruptor to fight them back, and the creatures show up as huge heads of energy, bearing the Doctor's face.
Once in the tunnels within the rock face, the Doctor and Leela see a man in a space suit walk through a wall. Leela believes this man to be a Tesh. They go to where he disappeared and find a hole in the rock, looking out onto a spaceship some distance away. The Doctor finally remembers that he had indeed been to this planet before. He remembers that this was a crashed ship that was part of the Mordee Expedition, a survey team looking into Eugenics. He'd helped the technicians (through time being shortened to Tesh) to put their faulty computer right.
The Doctor soon works out that the Tesh used some kind of transport hidden behind a false projection of the cave wall to travel to the ship, where Xoanon would be held. They both use this transport and arrive on the ship, where they are met by three Tesh, one of whom is their leader, Jabel. The Tesh treat them with civility.
Unlike the Sevateem, the Tesh are technologically advanced to the point where they even have telepathy. Through discussion with the Tesh, the Doctor realises that the computer he repaired is Xoanon and the Evil One combined. It has a split personality due to him not wiping his own personality print from the data banks of the computer before he left. Xoanon over time slowly became mad and began carrying out using Eugenics experiments on its own crew, turning them against each other in a battle of survival of the fittest.
The Tesh telepathically subdue Leela and the Doctor, imprisoning them. The Doctor uses his wits to free them and they manage to find the device that Xoanon uses to speak to Neeva through his helmet headdress. The Doctor uses the device to order Neeva to lead the tribe through the face of evil.
Neeva tells Calib, the new Tribe Leader who agrees and they go through the mouth of the evil face.
Using a captured disruptor gun, Leela holds the Tesh back, allowing the Doctor to enter the main room where he confronts Xoanon. He tries to persuade it to shut down, but the computer refuses and launches a mental attack at the Doctor, yelling "who am I?"
Leela risks herself by entering the control room and pulling the Doctor free and out into the corridor.
Xoanon electrifies the walls, and mentally possesses one of the Tesh to try and shove the Doctor and Leela into them. Luckily, the Sevateem enter the ship, distracting Xoanon from that purpose and forcing it to defend against their new enemies. The Doctor shoves the Tesh into the electrified wall.
The Doctor and Leela go to try and jury rig the controls to fully repair Xoanon. The computer tries to kill the Doctor again, this time by mentally possessing Leela. The Doctor uses counter hypnotism and forces her out of it.
In desperation, Xoanon sets a self destruct sequence into action. The Tesh, knowing they will die, continue to protect the computer, setting up huge disruptor cannons to slaughter the Sevateem when they reach so far.
The Tesh's plans don't get carried out however as a wild Xoanon seizes control of their minds and the minds of the Sevateem to send them all against the Doctor to try and stop him make the repairs. The only one to resist is the incensed Neeva, who is in a fury at his god's betrayal. He grabs one of the huge cannons and races to find Xoanon. He indeed comes face to face with the mad computer and they fire at each other,
Xoanon turns Neeva into dust with a heavy bout of electrical charge, and Neeva disrupts the computer long enough for the Doctor to complete the repairs, wiping his personality from the data banks. The control panels explode, knocking the Doctor unconscious.
He awakens two days later, with Leela watching over him. She tells him Xoanon has been quiet since he repaired it. The Doctor takes her to the computer to check and is satisfied that it's restored to sanity. Xoanon explains that all that outside with the tribes was it trying to recreate the world in its own image, a chaotic mess, fighting for survival.
They go to command deck to see Calib and Tomas arguing with Jabel and the Tesh over what happens next. The Doctor explains that Xoanon is fine now and can help them decide and will support their new society.
Tomas calls for Leela to be the leader of the new society but she refuses and runs after the Doctor as he slinks off back to the TARDIS. He meets her outside its doors and she asks to go with him. He refuses. She asks if he likes her and he says yes, but he likes lots of people so again, refuses.
Leela doesn't give him a chance to refuse a third time, as she runs into the TARDIS. He follows her, telling her to come out and it sounds like she begins messing with the controls as the TARDIS takes off once again.
Trivia
- The original name was The Day God Went Mad. Phillip Hinchcliffe protested about this but not on grounds of offending anyone. It was because it didn't fit with the format of the other titles
- In hindsight, Tom Baker was apparently quite off with Louise Jameson for a good deal of her run. They eventually cleared the air and are now great friends but for many of her stories, he wasn't particularly welcoming her with open arms
- Leela's character was based on Emma Peel from the Avengers, mixed with Eliza Doolittle, so the Doctor would have to teach her to be civilised. And yes, part of the reason for her outfit was so that the Dad's could Oogle at her after Grandstand
- The story concept
- The Doctor's jokes
- The scene with Leela's use of a Janis Thorn
- The scary image of Tom Baker as an evil computer
- Leela's refreshing bravery
What didn't work
- The Tesh's uniforms
- The "pipe" trees
- The confusing bit about the tribes attack on the Tesh
- All the messing about in episode 3
Overall Feelings
The Face of Evil is as ambitious as it is intelligent. We start off with a great mystery concept of how can the Doctor's face be engraved in the side of a mountain as the Evil One on a planet he reckons not to have seen before? Even when we get answers, nothing is dumbed down. We're shown aspect to Doctor Who. For much of the show's run, the Doctor's been gallivanting across time and space, fixing problems and moving on. I love that they tried to show what happens after his intervention isn't always perfect.
Sure, there's problems with the story if you look beyond the glaze, such as the situation he's left it in after Xoanon being less than ideal, or the fact that some of the story is weird like the chaotic plan of the computer. Perhaps though, these flaws are part of the appeal. They were trying to get away from the image of the Doctor as a goody too shoes and show some serious consequences to his actions, even if for only one story. That then is the true flaw for me, The consequences are laid bare, but the Doctor doesn't seem to care very much beyond an oops! He just goes and fixes stuff and tootles off again, where we could have had some grade A angst like we saw in Genesis of the Daleks.
A fine effort of a story and one that doesn't get praised perhaps as much as it should
Rating
9 1/2 out of 10
Marked down not for all the points above, but because we spend ages messing about in episode 3 and 4 to fill up some timeRewatchability Factor
5 out of 10
Great concept but drawn out in the presentation. A must see, but it'll be a while before I watch again
Watch this if you liked...
- An Unearthly Child
- The Rescue
- The Mutants
- The Green Death
- The Planet of Evil
- Full Circle
- State of Decay
Consulting the Matrix
Would you like to see more episodes dealing with the consequences of the Doctor's earlier involvement?
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