As those of you who joined us for a look at Ben & Polly's time in the TARDIS will know, they bowed out at the conclusion of The Faceless Ones.
The couple are handily delivered right back to 1966- the point in time at which they joined the Doctor, and following a Hard Day's Night-ish chase (with the Doctor himself as ' Paul' of course), they'll be investigating strange doings at Gatwick, home of the 'flying beasties' as their fellow traveller Jamie calls them!
Materialising on a runway immediately draws attention to them, not the smartest of moves on the Type 40's part if indeed it is sentient- The Edge Of Destruction having been the first implication that it might be. The old girl just might have come a cropper now too, and this has nothing to do with a mechanical fault!
COMMANDANT: The pilot said what?And after splitting up, Polly witnesses a murder. Meeting the Doctor & Jamie, who are hidden under cover of a parked plane, she tells all-
MEADOWS: A police box on the runway.
COMMANDANT: A likely story. Tell him to get back into stack and await further instructions.
MEADOWS: Yes sir.
COMMANDANT: Miss Rock, get the Airport Police.
MEADOWS: Gatwick Control, Sugar Delta X-Ray. Return to stack.
COMMANDANT: Police? Commandant here. In-bound aircraft reports obstruction on intersection of runways Five and Two. Investigate and report back. Police Box.
POLLY: Doctor, I've just seen a man killed.Answers are needed, and to that end the Doctor takes Jamie to help him get them.
JAMIE: Hit by one of the beasties?
POLLY: No, no. He was murdered by another man.
DOCTOR: Get your breath, Polly, and tell us exactly what happened.
POLLY: Well, I went into the hangar to get away from a policeman, and there were two men in there. One of them had a gun and he shot the other one.
DOCTOR: The murderer, did he see you?
POLLY: Well, he chased me, but I managed to lose him.
DOCTOR: Could you find this hangar again?
POLLY: Well, I think so. I can remember the name. It was Chameleon something or other. Hey, where's Ben?
DOCTOR: We haven't seen him. Come on, let's find this hangar.
POLLY: But listen. The bloke with the gun, he'll be looking for me.
JAMIE: Ah, we'll look after you. Now come on.
Makes the modern day tourist information service look good, right? Just when Polly thought she'd eluded capture the Chameleons- the faceless aliens stealing the identities of tourists- get their hands on her!
SPENCER: I've got her.Perhaps mindful of the fact Ben & Polly would be leaving at the episode's conclusion, Pauline Collins (who would later portray Queen Victoria alongside David Tennant's Tenth Doctor in Tooth & Claw) was cast as Samantha Briggs, a gutsy Liverpudlian who wants to know what's happened to her brother.
BLADE: Excellent. Did anybody see you this time?
SPENCER: She was following behind her friends, but they didn't notice.
POLLY: They'll come looking for me.
BLADE: Sit down.
POLLY: Murderers.
BLADE: You'll have to show us some respect, and answer my questions. Which airline do you work for?
POLLY: I don't understand.
BLADE: You must belong to some airline or the airport authority to be in this part of the airport.
POLLY: I've got nothing to do with the airport. We'd just arrived. We were lost. I was trying to find someone to help me and I saw him kill a man.
SPENCER: You say you'd just arrived? How did you get here?
BLADE: We'll gain nothing by questioning her. The important thing is that we've got her.
POLLY: You don't think my friends are just going to forget me like that, do you?
And while she was offered the chance to join Patrick Troughton & Frazer Hines, she declined! You can listen to her talking about that time in the Radio 4 documentary Doctor Who- The Missing Episodes (here), which details what happened to some of the stories long thought to have been consigned to the BBC's Totters Lane of a cutting-room floor.
But back to the story, and a conditioned Polly, now believing herself to be Michelle Leuppi from Zurich, has to deal with her!
SAMANTHA: Oh, er, are you in charge here?After all that rigmarole comes the inevitable goodbye. Which technically means they're back where they started in some sense!
MICHELLE: Yes. Can I help you?
SAMANTHA: Yes. I'm Samantha Briggs and I've come down from Liverpool.
MICHELLE: Oh, really.
SAMANTHA: It's about my brother, Brian Briggs.
MICHELLE: What about him?
SAMANTHA: He went on one of your tours, and now he's disappeared.
MICHELLE: I'm sorry, I don't follow.
SAMANTHA: Well, it's really very simple. I tried to get the telephone number of the hotel you sent him to, and the operator said there was no such place.
MICHELLE: Well, the operator must have been mistaken then.
SAMANTHA: So, I got in touch with the police and they said that Brian wasn't staying at any hotel in Rome.
MICHELLE: Well, perhaps he changed his mind and decided to go off on a different tour then.
SAMANTHA: Yes? Well what about this then? A postcard from Brian posted in Rome.
MICHELLE: Yes, that does seem odd, doesn't it. Er, would you like me to make some enquiries, for you?
SAMANTHA: Well, what do you think I've come all the way down from Liverpool for?
MICHELLE: Well, since you've put the matter with the police, why have you?
SAMANTHA: The police. They said that dozens of people go missing every week and they haven't got the men to go chasing after them all.
MICHELLE: I see. What did you say your brother's name was?
SAMANTHA: Brian Briggs. Would you like me to spell it for you?
MICHELLE: That won't be necessary, thank you. I'll see what I can find out, if you don't mind waiting.
Remember how it all began for them?
POLLY: Shh, watch him. I'm sure there's something strange about that police box . Look, he's got a key for it. He's going inside!What a great spirit of adventure, hmm?
BEN: Key, that reminds me. I forgot to give him this one back.
POLLY: Come on, we'll do it now.
BEN: Yeah, but I've got to get back to barracks.
POLLY: Oh, come on. Doctor! What on Earth is he doing in there?
BEN: Ah, look. it's locked. Let's forget it.
POLLY: Hey, Ben...
BEN: But I've only got a couple of minutes.
POLLY: Come on!
