The Face of Evil (TV story)

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The Face of Evil was the fourth serial of season 14 of Doctor Who. When broadcast, it was originally billed as the start of a new series, due to the six-week gap since the final episode of The Deadly Assassin. As originally broadcast, it in fact followed omnibus editions of Pyramids of Mars and The Brain of Morbius, amongst other, unrelated programmes. (INFO: The Face of Evil) However, this marketing ploy has not generally been remembered — nor has it been propagated in reference books such as The Fourth Doctor Handbook.

Synopsis

The Doctor arrives on a planet where two tribes, the savage Sevateem and the technically brilliant Tesh, are at war. He meets Leela, an exile from the Sevateem, and discovers that their god of evil is apparently himself.

Plot

Part one

The Doctor, alone in the TARDIS, arrives on a mysterious jungle planet which he cannot resist exploring. He soon encounters Leela, a savage from the local tribe. She denounces him as the Evil One of her people's fables. She has been exiled from her tribe, the Sevateem, for profaning their god, the mysterious Xoanon, who speaks to them through the tribe's shaman, Neeva. Her father, tribal elder Sole, tried to protect her but died taking the Test of the Horda on her behalf. Now Leela is an outcast beyond the invisible barrier around her tribal home.

Neeva, meanwhile, has sent two men to murder her, an action witnessed by Leela's friend Tomas. He kills one of them as Leela dispatches the other. In the jungle beyond, she encounters the Doctor, who soon wins her over by defending her from invisible monsters that rampage about, attracted by vibration of any kind. Exploring further, the Doctor finds a sophisticated sonic disruptor. It creates the force field that keeps creatures from attacking the village itself. Leela regales him with more folklore; the god Xoanon is kept prisoner by the Evil One and his followers, the reclusive Tesh, beyond a strange black wall.

The Sevateem have decided to launch an attack on the Tesh to free their god. They are led by the combative Andor, who is determined to free his god. He also believes an attack will unite the people. Andor suspects Neeva of being a false prophet, and Tomas tells him of Neeva's attempted murder of Leela. Still, Andor believes the attack will succeed and is prepared to go ahead.

Andor threatens the Doctor's life

Two warriors are scouring the jungle when they find the Doctor. They also call him the Evil One and make a hand gesture which the Doctor interprets as the sequence for checking the seals on a Starfall Seven spacesuit. The warriors seize the Doctor but not Leela. They take him to the village council, where his face is shown to the tribe. Andor is convinced the prisoner is the Evil One and has him confined. However, Leela frees him using poisonous Janis thorns, which paralyse, then kill the victim. The Doctor is horrified by this. He instructs her, "No more Janis thorns, ever."

The pair flees the village and heads to a clearing beyond, where the Doctor is greeted by a stunning sight. Carved into a mountain nearby is a relief of his own face.

Part two

The Doctor cannot recall clearly why his face is here. He persuades Leela to return to the village to learn more, despite their death sentences. They return to Neeva's holy tent. The Doctor inspects the ancient tribal relics, recognising them as artefacts from an Earth survey expedition. He also finds a transceiver used by Neeva to hear the commands of Xoanon. It speaks with the Doctor's own voice, exhilarated at hearing the Doctor, saying, "At last we are here. At last I shall be free of us."

They head off to inspect the dark wall that stands at the entrance to the realm of the Evil One. The Doctor deduces it is a primitive time barrier. He is certain the Sevateem warriors will be massacred if they attack the fortress of their enemy, the Tesh. From afar they see the massacre unfold, as laser beams cut down warriors armed only with crossbows and other basic weapons. Half the tribe is lost in the assault.

One of the elders, the devious Calib, is first back at the camp, where he finds the Doctor and Leela. He is evidently intent on using the Doctor to break Neeva's hold on the tribe by exposing the faith in Xoanon as mythology. Leela's friend Tomas also arrives. He is apalled to find Calib has stabbed Leela with a Janis thorn to prevent her exposing his schemes. The Doctor gets Tomas to help him move Leela to Neeva's tent, where he uses a bio-analyser to synthesise an antidote to the poison.

The Doctor fires a crossbow, successfully ending the Test of the Horda

When the surviving warriors return, the Doctor, Leela and Tomas are invited to address the tribal elders in defence of their lives. Leela makes matters worse when she accuses Xoanon of causing the trap at the wall. Calib intervenes to suggest the Doctor is not the Evil One. He suggests this be proven by getting him to take the fabled Test of the Horda.

In the centre of the village is a pit full of Horda, two-foot-long worms which hunt in packs and react to the movements of their prey. They are reputed to strip flesh from a man in an instant. The Sevateem evolved the Test of the Horda as a trial of justice and bravery. It involves the defendant standing on a board over the pit, who then must shoot a rope attached to a boulder that is pulling the board out from under him.

The Doctor is given a crossbow. He must fire it at a precise moment to sever the rope without making him fall into the pit — the fate of the guilty. The Doctor succeeds, is proven a non-malign influence and freed. He proceeds to examine some relics of the tribe and repair a disruptor gun. He also tells some of the tribe that the Sevateem are the descendants of a "survey team" from a Starfall Seven Earth colony ship. The Doctor and Leela go to examine the face in the mountain; they climb into it by scaling the Doctor's teeth.

Neeva returns to his tent, where the voice of Xoanon tells him the tribe will be destroyed. The mysterious being shuts down the sonic disruptor, leaving the village open to attack from the invisible beings. These descend on the village, killing indiscriminately and crushing Andor to death. Tomas uses the disruptor gun built by the Doctor to expose the true appearance of the invisible beings: ferocious, angry versions of the Doctor's face.

Part three

Leela and the Doctor notice a figure in a spacesuit in the "mouth" entrance and follow it through a projection of a wall. Beyond this barrier is a rocket, which the Doctor recalls as belonging to the Mordee Expedition; his memory of events earlier in his incarnation are returning. Xoanon has detected the Doctor. When he reaches the ship, the god-creature is ecstatic that "we are here" and also maniacally pledging that "we must destroy us".

The Doctor and Leela meet three of the Tesh who serve and worship Xoanon. They are human too, but technologically advanced and possessing telepathic abilities. The Doctor deduces both Sevateem and Tesh are descendants of the same crew from the Mordee Expedition, with the Tesh (or technicians) involved in the same deadly eugenics exercise as the Sevateem.

The invisible creatures which attacked the Sevateem are also part of the same deranged scheme. Xoanon is a highly sophisticated computer, designed to think independently. The Doctor repaired Xoanon but forgot to wipe his personality print from the data core, leaving the computer with a split personality.

Xoanon has an identity crisis

The Doctor and Leela are soon imprisoned, then escape and find the device used to communicate with Neeva. The Doctor, speaking as Xoanon, instructs Neeva to tell Calib, who is now tribal leader, to lead the Sevateem survivors through the mouth of the carved face in the mountain. Calib accepts this instruction and leads them into the safety of the mouth, where the invisible beings cannot threaten the tribe.

With Leela keeping guard and holding the Tesh at bay with a disruptor gun, the Doctor ventures into the computer room of the ship to confront Xoanon. He blames himself for creating the computer's maddened split personality. He now attempts to persuade it to shut down. Xoanon refuses and channels a vicious mental attack at the Doctor. As the Doctor writhes on the floor, Xoanon shouts in a child's voice: "Who am I?"

Part four

Leela rescues the Doctor from the mental assault. As he recovers, he warns her of Xoanon's power. Moments later they realise the computer has electrified the walls to kill them. The Tesh become more purposeful in tracking them down in the spaceship.

Jabel consults his Tesh acolytes

The Tesh also come under attack by Calib, Tomas and the survivors of the Sevateem, who reach the spaceship too. This diverts the Tesh while the Doctor and Leela return to the computer room. Xoanon briefly takes control of Leela's mind, as he does of most of the Sevateem.

The Tesh and Sevateem soon converge on the computer room too and interrupt the Doctor as he tries to repair Xoanon. The computer has triggered the countdown to an atomic explosion. Elsewhere in the ship Neeva is alone and crazed, his faith in Xoanon shattered. The shaman uses the disruptor gun against one of the images of Xoanon/the Doctor projected through a wall. The ensuing blast kills Neeva but also interrupts Xoanon's control of its subjects, allowing the Doctor to resume and complete his repairs. Xoanon's circuits explode, knocking the Doctor out.

Neeva attacks his god.

Two days later the Doctor wakes up to find himself aboard the spaceship in Leela's care. She explains Xoanon has been quiet, and he interprets this as success for his extraction experiment. They visit the computer room and find Xoanon's identity and sanity restored. The computer confirms it was running a eugenics experiment and thanks the Doctor for his repair work. The Doctor contacts the survivors of the Tesh and Sevateem to tell them Xoanon is cured and able to support their new society.

Unwilling to help them sort out the political question of which group should control the planet, the Doctor heads off to the TARDIS, followed by Leela. She insists on joining him on his travels. When the Doctor refuses, Leela runs past him and into the TARDIS. The Doctor follows Leela inside, telling her to come out. He is heard saying "Don't touch that...!", but it's too late. Leela has started the dematerialisation process, and the TARDIS departs from the planet.

Cast

Crew

Uncredited crew

References

Individuals

The Doctor

  • The Doctor mentions that he once studied marksmanship with William Tell.
  • When the Doctor offers a jelly baby to Leela, she misunderstands his gesture and accuses him of being the Evil One who eats babies.
  • The Doctor threatens to turn the Sevateem into toads.

Science

The TARDIS

Story notes

  • This story had the working titles The Tower of Imelo and The Day God Went Mad. The latter was objected to by Philip Hinchcliffe, not because it might offend viewers with religious sensibilities, but because it was out of keeping with other titles.
  • The Radio Times programme listing for part one was accompanied by a black-and-white artwork illustration by Roy Ellsworth depicting the Doctor and Leela being watched over by the face of Xoanon on a screen, with the accompanying caption "Dr. Who and new girl companion, Leela, confront The Face of Evil: 6.20".
  • On emerging from the TARDIS in part one, the Doctor directly addresses the camera/audience:
Doctor: "I think this is not Hyde Park. Could be a nexial discontinuity. Must remember to overhaul those tracers. Put a knot in my hanky. (Pause. He puts his hand in his trouser pocket, and produces a blue handkerchief which already has a knot tied in it. He looks at it quizzically for a second, then turns back to the camera.) Wonder what that was for? (Pause, as he tries to remember. No luck. He puts the handkerchief away.) Little look round, Doctor? Why not?" (He takes a single step forward towards the camera, then turns around and walks away into the jungle.)
  • The Doctor's opening fourth wall break would be mirrored in TV: Before the Flood in 2015 by the Twelfth Doctor discussing the Bootstrap paradox with the audience.
  • The Janis thorns which Leela uses were originally pronounced with the first syllable rhyming with "can"; however, Tom Baker pointed out that "Janice Thorn" sounded like the name of an out-of-work soap actress, so the pronunciation was changed. (DCOM: The Face of Evil)
  • The story was written with two endings, one with Leela going off with the Doctor and one where she didn't.
  • The story does not explicitly explain when the Fourth Doctor repaired the Starfall Seven's computer. The novelisation suggests that the earlier visit to the planet of the Sevateem took place during the story Robot in the moment when Sarah sees him begin to leave in the TARDIS, suggesting that the Doctor actually left in the TARDIS and returned to UNIT so quickly that nobody realised that he had ever gone, with the Doctor's still-addled mind due to his recent regeneration causing him to forget the whole trip. This was not derived from any information given in the televised version.
  • Pamela Salem and Rob Edwards provide two of the voices of Xoanon. Both actors were at the time rehearsing for the following story, The Robots of Death.
  • Anthony Frieze, credited as one of the voices of Xoanon, was a student at the school where Pennant Roberts' wife taught. Philip Hinchcliffe arranged for a recording of his voice to be made shouting, "Who am I?", for the climax to part three. After the initial recording (in a sound studio), Frieze made a second visit to the set and re-recorded the line. (DOC: Into the Wild)
  • In light of the revelations in The Timeless Children, Jonathan Morris theorised that Xoanon's non-Tom Baker voices may in fact have been drawn from forgotten incarnations of the Doctor (similar to the Brain of Morbius Doctors) which Xoanon had drawn from the Doctor's subconscious.[1]
  • Leela's costume was leotard-based, and designed by John Bloomfield.
  • The Doctor expertly whistles an extended version of the "Colonel Bogey March" (from the film The Bridge on the River Kwai) at the beginning of part one. This whistling continues a tradition Patrick Troughton began of the Doctor displaying musical aptitude. (TV: The Power of the Daleks, The Three Doctors and others) Pertwee similarly sang on occasion, (TV: Terror of the Autons, The Curse of Peladon and others) while Davison had some proficiency as a harpist, (TV: The Five Doctors) Eccleston could play delicate, non-human instruments, (TV: Dalek) Tennant at least fancied himself a composer and conductor, (TV: Music of the Spheres) and Capaldi demonstrated skill in guitar. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice, Before the Flood, Hell Bent and others) Tom Baker also whistled the "Colonel Bogey March" in TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang and The Invasion of Time, and plays Bach on an improvised flute in The Power of Kroll.
  • Chris Boucher was inspired by many of the science-fiction stories he had adored since childhood: Brave New World influenced Boucher's ideas about how the Sevateem religion had evolved, while he drew upon Harry Harrison's 1969 novel Captive Universe for the element of an insane computer.
  • Robert Holmes suggested that Leela possess some sort of supernatural powers, which he thought might be inherited from a witch-priestess grandmother. Chris Boucher was not fond of this idea, and instead opted to grant her a sort of sixth sense for danger.
  • The script originally called for the Doctor to threaten a Sevateem tribesman with a knife. Tom Baker objected to this, thinking it was too violent and out of character, so it was changed to a jelly baby.
  • Tomas was originally named Loke and originally had a more prominent role before it was decided to give Leela more focus.

Ratings

  • Part one - 10.7 million viewers
  • Part two - 11.1 million viewers
  • Part three - 11.3 million viewers
  • Part four - 11.7 million viewers

Myths

  • During Xoanon's repeating of the phrase, "Who am I?", the child's voice was that of the Doctor's during his childhood. (There is no evidence on-screen to prove this.)
  • Anthony Frieze, who recorded the child's voice, was a Doctor Who competition winner. (He was a pupil of the director's wife.)
  • Leela is the only female member of the Sevateem. (Another female warrior is seen as the tribe prepares to attack the Wall.)

Filming locations

Production errors

If you'd like to talk about narrative problems with this story — like plot holes and things that seem to contradict other stories — please go to this episode's discontinuity discussion.
  • Louise Jameson pronounces Calib's with a short "a" ("Callib") in the sequences captured on film, but with a long "a" ("Kaye lib") during the sequences later recorded on video at Television Centre. This was because the sequences on film were shot before the script readthrough, so Jameson had not yet heard the name said aloud.
  • After Neeva is vapourised, the sonic gun is left lying on the floor. However, during the effect used to represent his death, although David Garfield drops the gun as he is faded out, it has already become caught up in the effect and is see-through before it falls off-screen.
  • In part four, Leela turns her gun on the Doctor and fires. The "ray gun effect" was recorded live in shot, but had limited flexibility as to how it could behave with respect to the actors. In effect, it was merely laid down on top of the rest of the action in frame. Thus, when Tom Baker moves downstage (i.e. towards the camera and away from Leela), the "ray gun effect" remains in front of him, and actually appears to hit him — even though Leela's gun is still clearly pointed behind Baker.
  • When Leela wrestles the Tesh guard to the floor in part three, his gun falls a considerable distance away from him. Some cuts later, however (though still in the same scene), she picks up the gun, and it has miraculously relocated right next to the fallen guard.
  • In part two, following the test, Calib says "untie [the Doctor]", despite the Doctor being bound in no way any more.
  • Towards the end of part two, the sound of the gong being struck is out of sync.
  • In part two, the Doctor refers to Tomas as "Thomas".

Continuity

Home video and audio releases

Video releases

This story was released on VHS in May 1999 in the UK and in March 2000 in the US.

  • VHS UK cover

    VHS UK cover

  • The Face of Evil VHS Australian cover.png

    VHS Australian cover

  • VHS US cover

    VHS US cover

DVD release

The DVD was released in Region 2 on 5 March 2012 and in Region 1 on 13 March 2012.

Special features include:

  • Region 2 UK DVD cover

    Region 2 UK DVD cover

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Jonathan Morris on Twitter

External links

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