Escape To Danger 2.0 No.9

When I was writing the original Escape To Danger article for "The Faceless Ones", I was in a bit of a hurry and wanted something quick to dash off which wasn't very image-intensive.

 

Likewise today, when I'm trying to get back into actually doing something on these pages, I find myself in the need of something similar to help ease myself back into things.

 

How fortunate that Serial KK is one of those rare stories for which hardly any publicity images seem to have been taken. (Well, obviously bad for posterity bearing in mind the state of the archive holdings, but good for me being a lazy bugger right here and now).

  

In fact, I was so embarrassed at the paucity of the goods in the original article, that I gave a little description of the images I would have included if the remit of the column were different.

 

So, erm... here they are now. And this one below still grosses me out.

I've always found "The Faceless Ones" to be a genuinely unnerving story. Doppelganger stories are always good for cranking up the paranoia, and having most of it solely on soundtrack seems to (accidentally, I admit) actually intensify the feeling of dislocation.

 

The contemporary setting was still relatively new to the series at that time, which also lends to the feeling of oddness. And the discovery of the missing humans in cars in the Gatwick parking lots is another slightly sinister twist.

 

Would the story have been improved if set in a department store as originally intended? Maybe not, but it would have been nice to see Doctor Who's take on the familiar creepy mannequin trope a few years before "Spearhead From Space" gave it a try.

 

And did Pauline Collins do the decent thing by not accepting the offer to take Samantha Briggs into Time and Space? Think of all those excellent hats we missed out on...

Escape To Danger No.23

It's fast approaching the time of year when a seasonal Beaus is brought into the house, the accommodation of which necessitates a rearrangement of furniture. Alert readers will recall that as a result, this is also the time of year that Ms Monoid deems it necessary to share sofa space with me.

 

So, apologies in advance if December proves to be a spartan month here in the Security Kitchen. The creation of trivial nonsense such as this is generally not helped by a barrage of interruptions such as "What the hell are you doing?", "I thought you didn't write a blog anymore after I stopped reading it" and "What's so bloody fascinating about black and white TV and concrete buildings anyway?".

 

Anyway, with this being the first night for some considerable time that I haven't brought work home with me, I'm already playing catch-up and also hoping that I can rough out enough material in advance to keep some kind of  sporadic posting schedule throughout the unfortunately festive season.

 

So, in keeping with the rushed nature of today's post, let's keep it short and to the point and look at a story that is pretty damn unique in that only one image resonates down through the ages...

 

 

And there you have it. Dirty Patrick hiding behind an aircraft wheel. (Sadly not the same aircraft wheel that appeared in the studio recordings of "Time-Flight", that would have been just too bloody cool). But a pretty damn fine aircraft wheel, nevertheless.

 

As far as I know, only a mere smattering of other publicity shots from "The Faceless Ones" exist, one being an alternative angle of the above shot, where you can see Frazer Hines lurking behind another wheel. And another of "raw state" alien which is pretty bloody scary even when viewed today. No wonder it didn't see the light of day much back when Mary Whitehouse was saying some rather sensible things but for all the wrong reasons.

 

And it was many years before we realised that we had John Cura to thank for sole documentary evidence of That Hat...

"I Would Like a Hat Like That!" No.2

Another popular yet predictable choice of hat this week. Future entries will hopefully wander deeper into the realms of obscurity, but for now you're stuck with the familiar old Comfort Hats that have sustained me for many years.

Look, if you have a problem with that, you're quite welcome to take your custom elsewhere...

Right, it's traditional at this point to mention that before the discovery of John Cura's telesnaps and their subsequent publication in the pages of DWM, nothing had really prepared us for the millinery delight that Pauline Collins sports in Episode 2 of "The Faceless Ones".

No hint of the hat's presence is given in the audio soundtrack of this currently missing episode, and neither is it mentioned in the novelisation, if memory serves.

So what a pleasant surprise it was, and I'm sure it has become a Gay Icon in its own right, possibly evcn entering a kind of fan palare as used by Russell T. Davies OBE when having "tone" meetings regarding the Welsh Series.

(No, really. Go and look up how he sullied the memory of Chancellor Flavia...).

Anyway, if there were any justice in the world, that hat should have got its own series. Not only does it seem to simply sit on top of the wearer's head rather than actually being worn, its presence is actually much more entertaining than watching the character beneath it.

(Even today, I still let loose a lorra, lorra laughs when I think of the parallel world where Sam Briggs joined the TARDIS crew...).

And of course, any similarities to the following hat are purely coincidental...