The Ambassadors of Death: Episode 7

This serial is a rather odd mix and I'm not entirely sure it works, but at the same time am not entirely sure it doesn't. The plot sees an astronaut trying to do a recovery mission on another craft which Earth has lost contact with, only to lose contact again. UNIT and of course the Doctor gets involved and quickly it becomes clear that something odd has happened to the astronauts – although just as quickly it seems that there is someone who is keen to get their hands on the content of the space craft when it does eventually return to Earth. From here the story goes and mostly it is decent enough although it has its fair share of flaws.

To start with it is clearly longer than it can bare and, while it doesn't really sag, there are parts where clearly it is just introducing things for the sake of filling time and keeping people busy rather than actually moving the story forward – or as fans of 24 may call them: 'cougar moments'. These moments still work but it does feel padded. The other odd feeling throughout is that it is a mixed approach. On one hand the serial seems quite talky and 'Quatermassy', with reality-based ideas and aliens, conspiracy and so on; but then on the other hand it has plenty of running, jumping, shooting and aliens with deadly electric hands. The latter style seems to be the one that is padded out the most and it is regularly called upon to produce cliff-hangers which are dramatic but rarely do much more than provide an ending because seconds into the next episode it is generally forgotten, but it does its job at least.

The downside of these things is that it does feel like a core of a very strong story has been watered down somewhat – a feeling I was left with even more by the rather sudden but yet also a tad underwhelming conclusion. I guess it depends on personal taste but personally I wanted more of the dialogue and ideas driven stuff and less of the "woman in mini-skirt running" stuff. Speaking of which, Caroline John continues to do little for me but at least here she has some fight in her character and, although she doesn't convince, she does get some decent dialogue. Pertwee plays things a bit stiff at times but his serious delivery is good for the majority. Courtney is solid as ever and does well with the twists and turns even though I would have liked him to do more with the twists as they impact his character and his position. The production itself is okay, a mix of locations and sets, both of which work – just a shame that it changes form black/white to color all the time and that the color sections are not of a good quality.

Ambassadors of Death is a good enough serial but has its weaknesses evenly spread out. It is longer than it needs to be and the mix of "action" and dialogue-driven material really doesn't merge together as would have been hoped, instead undercutting each other more than you'd expect.

The Doctor enlists the help of The Ambassadors to prevent a catastrophe on Earth.

It really has been an excellent story, it's been well written and cohesive, with a definite start, development and conclusion. Very well written with subplots, mystery and a great deal of suspense.

I thought Part 7 was great, a tense conclusion which put The Doctor very much centre stage, his ability to convince and reason. Some may argue it's a bit of a slow burner overall, I'd strongly disagree, I think it deserves its place up with Spearhead from Space, The Silurians and Inferno. 9/10

Review of all 7 episodes:

This story begins intriguingly with UNIT and The Doctor helping to look into space missions which have run into trouble. The whole story has brilliant performances from Jon Pertwee (The Doctor), Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier Lethbridge-Stuart), Ronald Allen (Professor Cornish), John Abineri (General Carrington) and the rest of the cast, some good grown-up science fiction writing, realistic dialogue, plenty of thrills and intrigue plus good production values. It features some mysterious aliens, lots of action and double crossing and some good underlying moral themes to do with xenophobia and military reaction to perceived threats. That this good, solid story is the weak link in series 7 is testament to the extremely high quality of this period of the show.

The first episode is very well done with interest provided by missing astronauts, mysterious goings on, lively action and very good script and performances. The second and third episodes are less impressive. The storytelling in these two episodes feels a bit jumbled and unclear and in the second episode the Doctor inexplicably is able to make an object disappear into thin air and reappear at will - bizarre and inconsistent with anything in the series history! Episodes 4 and 5 are better although it is slightly hard to believe that UNITs security is repeatedly shown to be so poor. Episodes 6 and 7 are back to the excellent standard of the first part with the story coming to a well written, action packed and satisfying climax.

Whilst being pretty impressive for its day in presenting a space mission it does not feel entirely in keeping with its setting in the 70s or even early 80s. The ability to travel to Mars, to carry out launches and returns to Earth at great speed and a few other bits of technology shown suggest a more advanced age. This is because it was originally written to be a Second Doctor story set a bit further in the future. The original story was written by David Whitaker and would be his last credit as writer on the series. Whitaker had been the very first Doctor Who script editor, a role he carried out brilliantly, and had written such great stories as The Crusade, The Power of the Daleks and The Evil of the Daleks. His contribution to the series was huge. Sadly this final story was rewritten (uncredited) by Terrance Dicks, Malcolm Hulke and Trevor Ray and, whilst good, I believe it became less successful than it could have been. I think the rewrites lead to the little bits of jumbled plot, UNITs inept security and the Doctor's incongruous magical powers making it into the story! It is also a pity the story was used whilst the Doctor was stuck in a contemporary Earth setting as a setting in the future would have added believability.

This is a very exciting, enjoyable, well acted story but under different circumstances I think it could have been one of the real classics which it falls short of in my opinion.

Episode ratings: Episode 1 - 9/10, Episode 2 - 6.5/10, Episode 3 - 7.5/10, Episode 4 - 8/10, Episode 5 - 8/10, Episode 6 - 9/10, Episode 7 - 9/10. Average rating: 8.14/10