Day 136 — May 16th 2021
The Ambassadors of Death Episodes Four and Five
The Ambassadors of Death — Episode Four
While I’m still enjoying The Ambassadors of Death, I’m reaching a point where I’m struggling with it a bit as a Doctor Who story. This episode in particular feels like it’s been transplanted from another series entirely, with lots of double crossing bad guys, bombs in briefcases, corrupt officials and some decent action sequences for Liz. If it weren’t for the fact that we finally get a bit of scary monster action right at the end, you could be forgiven for thinking you’re watching something else.
As I say, it’s still enjoyable enough — I’m giving this one another 7/10 — but I’m not sure I’d want the whole of the Pertwee years to be in the same vein as this one.
And when we do get some ‘monster’ action it’s brilliantly effective. The space suit designs in this one have always looked a little crude to me, but that’s all part of the appeal. They manage to walk the line between looking functional and beautiful, and there’s something genuinely sinister about their expressionless forms, and that they manage to look both recognisably human and also not is one of their greatest strengths.
The sequence when one of the astronauts walks slowly towards the space centre while being fired at is brilliant — it’s reminiscent of the Auton attack from Spearhead From Space (and the direction recalls that gorgeous shot of a Silurian on the moors from the last story), but it also manages to be its own thing, and it’s a striking image. I don’t know if there was a conscious attempt to evoke the feeling of that vintage photograph of a spaceman in a field with a little girl, but that’s what this reminds me of. It’s that juxtaposition of the space man with the real world which works so well.
Something that’s perhaps a little less effective here is the music. Truth be told I don’t really know what to make of it. It’s certainly not a bad score — if anything it’s actually rather nice — but it feels oddly out of place with the story we’re watching. Liz gets a jaunty little theme when she’s trying to escape (which cuts out so abruptly when we change scene that I thought I might have skipped ahead by accident), and although I praised the UNIT theme in the first episode it has to be said that the rendering of it was a little bizarre.
There’s also some rather trippy almost concept-album stuff played in Episode One which is given an effect in some shots that gives the impression that NAME is actually listening to the music in the space capsule. I mean maybe he was? I’m not one to judge.
The Ambassadors of Death — Episode Five
It feels a little ridiculous to say that I actually shouted ‘Benton!’ at the screen when everyone’s favourite sergeant showed up in this episode. I hadn’t even noticed that we’d not seen him yet in this era. It’s quite nice that every story this season so far has introduced another element of the UNIT ‘family’ that are so identifiable with this era. Spearhead gives us the Third Doctor Who, Silurians introduces Bessie, here we’ve got Benton… I can’t recall if there’s any other key elements in Inferno, but I look forward to finding out.
I’ve been a little disappointed with the direction in this story so far. There’s nothing wrong with it — this is a perfectly competent production — but it’s the return of Michael Ferguson, who was one of my favourite directors in the 1960s. I feel like we’re missing some of his trademark style from this one; notably there’s not been any particular shots that have really stood out for me. I’ve held off on really discussing the direction in case something extra special comes along, but we’re getting a bit late in the day now…
That said, I would love to see this episode in particular presented in full HD. Not only do the film elements no longer exist for this story, but the only copies we have of the episodes themselves are particularly poor sources. I think I’m right in saying that they might only exist as NTSC copies, which despite the best efforts of the Restoration Team still look pretty ropey.
In particular the colour in this episode is running all over the place, and it’s really distracting in some of the close ups especially. I wouldn’t say that it’s spoiling the story for me, but I think it’s certainly hampering things a little. I really enjoyed all the location work for this one, with bad guys and soldiers climbing all over a vast industrial complex, and reckon it would look great in HD. There’s so much detail in there that feels like it’s getting lost with the print we have.
One area where the direction does seem to be doing something interesting is the sequences of Doctor Who up in the space capsule. I’m fairly sure these shots have been slowed down a little, helping to give the appearance of him being free from the effects of gravity. And somehow Pertwee manages to get through these scenes with a shower cap on and not come out looking too ridiculous.
The model work is also rather nicely done, and I think it helps that we saw similar back in Episode One but nothing since. The combination of that and the nice location work helps to make this episode feel like a breath of fresh air having spent a few episodes in relatively plain recurring sets.
I was also a little surprised by the structure of this episode. We build to a point which is clearly going to be the cliffhanger, as Doctor Who finds himself buffeted by G-Force and the team on Earth struggle with the fact that his mission has been sabotaged. We even get some proper end-of-episode dialogue ready to crash into the closing titles;
Scientist 1: ‘Computer calculates fuel burn rate indicates forty eight percent in excess…’
Cornish: ‘Forty eight percent?’
Brigadier: ‘Why? What will happen?’
Cornish: ‘Reduce flame apertures. At twenty percent in excess of planned lift-off speed, he’ll blow himself out of Earth’s orbit, go into the sun.’
Scientist 2: ‘Apertures will not close on automatic owing to excessive heat. Lift-off speed now thirty percent in excess.’
Cornish: ‘Doctor, can you operate manual control on flame aperture to reduce speed? Doctor, do you read me? Doctor?’
Only… we don’t end the episode there. Doctor Who manages to come through unscathed, and dock with the Mars probe. We end instead with the arrival of a massive spaceship, which feels like it’s lurching the story in a whole new direction. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, per say, but it certainly stood out as A Choice while watching.
Another 7/10, I think.
