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The Ambassadors

of Death

21ST MARCH 1970 - 2ND MAY 1970

(7 EPISODES)

Season seven’s third story, “The Ambassadors of Death”, is a serial that can only really be enjoyed today by a hardcore Doctor Who fan. It is by no means a bad story, though were it not for a few astonishingly expensive set pieces David Whitaker and company’s seven-parter would be quite a routine affair.

The story is grounded in a sound enough idea – three astronauts going up into space

human and coming back down alien – and more to the point it is executed well, particularly before the aliens are unmasked. There is something about those blank space helmets that

is really quite unsettling. Furthermore, I enjoyed the idea that the aliens in this story are not the baddies per se – it is the human General, blinded by paranoia and xenophobia that poses the true threat. However, as was the case with the previous serial, this one is let down by its remarkable length. Having three different writers consistently rewriting each other’s work cannot have helped the flow of the story either.

This serial is best remembered for new producer Barry Letts' financial faux pas. Director Michael Ferguson blew half the season’s budget on several huge, cinematic set pieces – there is an epic siege in the first episode, a car chase in episode three, Derek Ware’s HAVOC boys let loose in a dam, helicopters, missile hijacks (and re-hijacks)... I could go

on! It is James Bond, basically. The trouble is that Ferguson did not realise that he was shooting a modest  television series, not a blockbuster movie, and as Terrance Dicks quite rightly points out little bits of dialogue like “what happened to the missile?” and “it got hijacked” would have done the job just as well as a lengthy and expensive set piece without emptying the purse!

All told “The Ambassadors of Death” is well worth watching, especially if you have a fondness for the old UNIT ‘Blunder’ days as I do. It is like Bond meets Quatermass, with a bearded, bespectacled, television presenting Davros thrown into boot. Now who could

resist that?

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2008

E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

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