The Ambassadors of Death | Sophisticated Idiots

The Ambassadors of Death
1970

The Ambassadors of Death review: The ambassadors are an intimidating presence

or Radio(active) Ga Ga

or Spaceman. I always wanted you to go. Into space, man

Let's all just take a moment. Because this one is a surprise on all sorts of levels.

As soon as the Sixth Formers are let loose on the title sequence and clumsily splice the cliffhanger mid-credits (a quickly abandoned gimmick, we notice), it's clear this isn’t your typical Third Doctor offering.

The Ambassadors of Death has a thoughtful and reflective (yes, that’s a euphemism for slow) plot exploring mankind’s deep-rooted xenophobia, pockmarked with lashings of major set-pieces.

This story isn't sure if it’s trying to be a claustrophobic character study or an action blockbuster.

Imagine 2001: A Space Odyssey interspersed with scenes from Commando (or The Sea Wolves is probably a more accurate level of combat craft UNIT’s ragtag bunch can muster).

In Doc 3 years, when the show is trying to find its feet in the colourised glam world of the 1970s, we frequently damn these stories with the faint praise of saying they possess a good story that’s buried beneath Pertwee-era clichés and on-screen evidence of tight purse strings.

With Ambassadors, the problem is far more straightforward.

Without doubt, there’s a good story but it’s dragged out needlessly across seven – a number so large that a football team scoring seven is reported by BBC Sport in CAP LETTERS – hefty episodes.

Granted, there were marathon stories in the black and white heyday, but the likes of The War Games and The Invasion had (just about) enough plot to sustain the excitement.

This season’s need for a fifth story to share the burden has never been more apparent.

The argument was the Beeb couldn’t afford the extra sets required of an additional story but in this one they’ve squandered taxpayers’ hard-earned green on helicopters, cranes and rotating van signs.

Not to mention a plaque to announce Bessie’s goofy Loony Tunes Anti-Theft Device.

Imagine a parallel world (next time out, Who fans) in which producers strip out the warehouse shootouts, chase scenes and truck ambushes = Ambassadors could be an intelligent, plot-driven four-parter offering a very welcome Season 7 change of pace.

A mid-season pause. The chance for everyone to take a moment.

As it is, this serial is still far better than its reputation would have you believe, but we’re not gonna argue against the charge that it’s an odd mix of styles that rub along together as frictionless as the Doctor and the Brigadier.

The first episode is really strong. After the off-putting messing about with the titles, producers double-down on destroying the audience’s comfort-zone by greeting us with a cold opening of a rocket in distress and a TV newsreader (hello, new Pertwee trope: see also The Daemons and Day of the Daleks) whose exposition is well-used to slowly introduce us to what the flipping heck is going on.

The knockabout with the Doc and Liz is also a joy.

In a short-lived recurring gag during the Exile Years, the Doctor is fiddling with the console in a vain attempt to escape his nine to five Establishment Hell. And in this one duly manages to make the two of them disappear.

Then we’re introduced to a succession of mainly bearded men, some with nondescript European accents, and some stuffy management types who are easy to hate.

At this, the Doc and the Brigadier’s ears prick up, expecting the ire of Sophisticated Idiots to be turned on them.

But in another surprise, both dial down the abrasiveness in this one and are all the more likeable as a result.

For his part, the Brigadier has plenty of fisticuffs to get stuck into, which limits the screen time he can devote to brandishing his baton in an office and hollering down a phone.

First, there’s the wonderfully OTT shootout which lasts for TWO MINUTES AND TWENTY-THREE SECONDS (or 10% of Part One’s running time).

It’s terribly dubbed (at one point a UNIT guy actually roars like the MGM ident lion) but is most notable for the Brigadier ambling about without taking any cover, like he’s indestructible Connery in From Russia With Love’s gypsy camp gunfight.

Only we can all agree that Nicholas Courtney is most certainly not Sean Connery.

Impressively, the Brig is also entirely unmoved by several members of his team being gunned down.

Then we have that moment when we think our favourite surly soldier is going to be executed in cold blood.

It carries quite a punch and Courtney is superb: he’s resigned to his fate and, as you’d expect, is stoic to the last, his thoughts focused on Her Majesty and nothing else.

If that wasn’t enough melodrama for a series that will one day give us an ageing Troughton enjoying luncheon with a cannibal, we’re then graced with the multi-vehicle cash splurge of the assault on the flatbed carrying the rocket capsule (an action scene during which the Brigadier is literally a passenger, it should be noted).

This scene also gives us the gem of the Slowest Truck Ride in History™. Seriously: watch it again and bask in the motorcycle outriders going so slowly they can barely stay upright.

Things are cranked up a notch when Liz – who’s never better in her criminally short tenure – gets to enjoy her own mid-speed car chase before a meander across a dam.

It serves no narrative purpose at all but is exciting so whatevs.

But aside from the stuntmen showreels, Ambassadors manages to build the tension magnificently with some outstanding writing, never more so than with all the Space Control Centre shenanigans – the capsule comms scene at the end of Part Two (“How many beans make five?”) is sublime, amassing levels of tension Tarantino would be proud of.

David Tennant-obsessed Gen Z would argue the skeletal astronauts of Silence in the Library are creepy. But they’ve got nothing on the ambassadors in this story, who spend seven episodes being silently unstoppable.

And unfathomably terrifying. They’re the scariest thing in Who until the name M. Waterhouse is accepted onto the audition list.

What’s more, such quality can’t even be undone by the Jethro Tull score seeking to undermine most scenes.

And yet…

As great as The Ambassadors of Death is, it can’t shake the brutal reality that the Doctor being stuck on Earth is an enormous drag (he spends five episodes trying to get the rocket into space. When he finally does, he’s only there five minutes).

And if the abrupt ending’s anything to go by, Pertwee’s had enough of this exile malarkey too.

But our recommendation is that we all take a moment - and enjoy the relative calm that comes with it. The sensory overload of Inferno is nigh.