An Interesting Dichotomy

Face of Evil is a story from around the middle of Tom Baker's tenure as the fourth Doctor. It's the first story in which Leela, his new companion, is featured. In it, we learn a little about her life and her warrior heritage. So, it's fitting that Louise Jameson herself, AKA Leela, should narrate this story, reproducing her own dialogue in character perfectly.

The story itself isn't one of my favourites, but still stands up well within the Baker era. I think Terrance Dicks did miss a trick here with the written adaptation by missing a prologue that explained something of the initial landing of the survey ship. It would've been a nice addition and fleshing out of the back story, something that has been done in other adaptations. To that end, I'd strongly recommend the superb 'Brain of Morbius
' read by the man himself, Tom Baker. It has a short prologue type introduction that wasn't covered in the TV story and added to the narrative. The 'Time Warrior' also has a small introduction that fleshes out the Sontaran's conflict with their arch enemies, the Routeeans.

That aside, Face of Evil is a solid story, but not one of my favourites as mentioned above. Louise Jameson does a decent job of reading this. However, her impression of Tom Baker's Doctor sounds a bit like an old man with a crusty voice. Still, she does her best and I can't fault her. Only two narrators I've come across so far can do a good Tom Baker, Nicholas Briggs and the most uncanny of them all, John Culshaw's rendering of the man.

The story revolves around classic science fiction tropes: The all powerful computer that has gone mad. This though, is perhaps more relevant today than it ever was, what with the rise of ever more, and frankly scary, iterations of A.I.

What differentiates classic Who, especially the Tom Baker era, from current Who, is the quality of the stories. Despite having a shoe string budget back in 1977 when Face of Evil was written, the core story is clever, describing the split of one group of people into two distinct and very different tribes. The distortion of meanings and identities over the centuries, leading to the ultimate dichotomy of what was originally a single, cohesive social group. Today's science fiction, not just Who, tends to rely more upon effects than story. Millennials would laugh at what passed for special effects in stories like this and the wobbly sets, but they miss the point. It's story telling, not eye candy, that makes for interesting and compelling tales.

Anyway, this is a good listen with excellent accompanying audio effects to enhance the telling of the story. If you're a Tom Baker fan like me, then you must add this to your fourth Doctor audio collection.

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