The Face of Evil is the fourth serial of the 14th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 1 to 22 January 1977.
In the serial, the powerful split-personality computer Xoanon (played by Tom Baker, Rob Edwards, Pamela Salem, Anthony Frieze, and Roy Herrick) attempts to create two super races from the descendants of a human expedition with eugenics—the savage Sevateem, and the psychic Tesh.
The Fourth Doctor, travelling alone in the TARDIS, arrives on a jungle planet and encounters Leela, a savage from the local tribe, who denounces him as the Evil One of fable among her people.
The Sevateem will launch an attack on the domain of the Tesh to free their god, led by the combative Andor who suspects Neeva of being a false prophet.
In Neeva's holy tent, the Doctor inspects the ancient tribal relics, artifacts from an Earth survey expedition.
The Doctor, speaking as Xoanon with the communicator, instructs Neeva to tell Calib, who is now tribal leader, to lead the Sevateem survivors through the face in the mountain.
With Leela keeping guard and holding the Tesh at bay, the Doctor ventures into the computer room of the ship to confront Xoanon.
The ensuing blast kills Neeva but also interrupts Xoanon's control of its subjects, allowing the Doctor to resume and complete his repairs.
He invited Boucher to work on another story, which was to be called The Prime Directive, based on an idea by Holmes and producer Philip Hinchcliffe about the breakdown of a society controlled by a central computer.
This included a model shot of a mountain side which had the Doctor's face carved into it in the style of Mount Rushmore, an idea from Hinchcliffe.
Lead actor Tom Baker refused to threaten someone with a weapon and instead substituted it for a jelly baby, much to Hinchcliffe's annoyance who wasn't present at the day's filming.
[2] Abandoning this plan, the production team decided to make the feisty Leela the new companion instead, thus director Pennant Roberts set about auditioning 26 actresses for the role before finally settling on Louise Jameson.
Jameson was surprised at the level of attention she received from the press and the subsequent male interest due to her wearing a skimpy leather costume (designed by John Bloomfield) in the series.
[5] The red contact lenses she wore (to turn her blue eyes brown) caused her great discomfort and she was unable to wear them for long periods.
[6] In episode three, several actors were employed to take on the voice of Xoanon, including Pamela Salem, who had also auditioned for the role of Leela and would then appear as a cast member in the following serial.
[9] Paul Cornell, Martin Day, and Keith Topping wrote of The Face of Evil in The Discontinuity Guide (1995), "A little masterpiece, often undeservedly forgotten by the weight of the surrounding stories.
"[3] In The Television Companion (1998), David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker praised the casting and use of the image of the Doctor's face, calling it "unsettling".
[10] In Doctor Who: The Complete Guide, Mark Campbell awarded it three out of ten, describing it as "a clever story, boringly told.
He described Part Two as "arguably the most abysmally plotted episode of the 1970s so far" but two of the serial's cliffhangers were "saving graces" and he highly praised Jameson's performance, but observed a lack of chemistry between her and Tom Baker and criticised Baker, saying the serial "marks the moment when the egos of the fourth Doctor and of the programme’s emboldened star become untethered".