Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 278: The Ambassadors of Death, Episode Seven

Dear diary,

One of the ways that I've been trying to keep myself amused though out this story is trying to figure out which - if any - of the characters might be working for Torchwood. It was always going to be tricky when the series introduced the Torchwood Institute. An organisation created in the Victorian era, with objectives to defend the Earth, scavenge technology for the good of the British Empire, and to capture the Doctor if he ever set foot back on british soil. An organisation which, presumably, was on the hunt for the Doctor during the time he spent trapped on Earth, and working for an organisation pretty similar to theirs.

During The Web of Fear, I picked out the member of Torchwood based solely on the fact that he had an outrageously strong Welsh accent, and was acting a little bit shifty. For The Ambassadors of Death, I've decided that General Carrington is our man from the rival organisation, at least in part. He's spent the last few episodes banging on about his 'moral duty' and seems determined to shoot down the alien vessel in case it poses some kind of threat to the planet - it's a stave that's pretty in keeping with Torchwood's appearances from Series Two of the modern series.

We also get plenty of references to the fact that he's gone off the deep end and is quite possibly mad. Therefore, I'm choosing to believe that he was placed on Mars Probe Six as part of some Torchwood mission (maybe to put some kind of tracking equipment up in orbit? I can't say I've given it that much thought), but instead ended up in contact with the race from which our titular Ambassadors hail. His exposure to them has somewhat warped his mind, meaning that he's gone rogue from Torchwood and decided to use them to unveil aliens to the world via the live TV broadcast we see in this episode - ready then to have their ship obliterated. He's taken away at the end of the story, presumably to be court-marshalled by whoever's in charge of the Institute.

Mind you, I'd be a bit sceptical about having him led away by a single soldier. It has to be said that based on this story alone - UNIT are rubbish. I've already commented about that scene from the first episode in which they're caught up in a big fight and seem to be doing pretty badly for the most part, but today they gat another chase at a shoot-out… and they still muck it up! Their enemy is out of ammunition. They've surrendered. They're still able to over power the two soldiers and drag the fight on that little bit longer.

The only one to come out from all this well is the Brigadier, who does look quite impressive when he's right in the middle of a battle. Nicholas Courtney has a specific 'look' (you know the one), and it just seems to fit in brilliantly. I've not had much chance to praise him since we moved into colour, so it's nice to see him getting some of the action in this story.

On the whole, I'm sorry to say that I'm just really disappointed by The Ambassadors of Death. Having enjoyed the last story so much more than I thought I would, this had the potential to be a real winner. Inferno is another one of those ones that I know precious little about, apart from the fact that it's got a supposedly golden reputation. here's hoping it can win me back round after this one…

 a

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 277: The Ambassadors of Death, Episode Six

Dear diary,

So there we have it! The truth about General Carrington! The problem is, I'd been sort of guessing this for a while, now, and it's not the most interesting of reveals. On the plus side, it does seem to even out my debate as to how many different groups there are working together - it looks like it is three, but Carrington works for one and is the shady paymaster of another.

Still, even if the reveal isn't the most interesting thing the series has ever given us, the cliffhanger itself is pretty good. The Doctor's often threatened at gunpoint (has already has been in this story), but the gun isn't usually so close to the Doctor's nose!

I'm sorry to say that I'm still not massively enjoying The Ambassadors of Death. Things have picked up a bit today, but I think my interest dropped too long ago - it's too much of an up-hill climb to try and get back into it now. For a while, when the Doctor was taken aboard the giant clam and encountered the astronauts all safe and well, I did think that things were going to start turning around for me. It was fresh, it was exciting, but then, it was right back down to Earth, so we could carry on with the story at a snail's pace once more.

Something I do have to wonder about this story could potentially be opening a bit of a can of worms. I'll be discussing the actual placement of the UNIT stories further down the line, once I've seen enough of them to make up my mind properly, but The Ambassadors of Death seems to be the first real hint we've had that this isn't as contemporary as I might like to think.

At the time, the Doctor Who production team intended that the Third Doctor's adventures would be taking place in the near future. The Radio Times write up for The Invasion specified the story as taking place in 1975, which would put these tales in the late 1970s at the earliest. Aside from a few bits of equipment seen in the last few stories, I've not had any real reason to assume that the stories aren't simply set an the time of broadcast, but today we've got a full on British Space Programme!

I'd be tempted to simply say that in the Doctor Who universe, things are a little different to the way that they are in the real world, but by the time of The Christmas Invasion we're sending probes up to Mars that are nowhere near as advanced as the manned missions we're seeing here - and they're now on the seventh one! I'm not going to be opening the big can of worms today, but I am wondering what people generally think on the subject - are the UNIT stories set at the time of broadcast or are they set later?

Leave a comment, or head over to the 50 Year Diary Facebook page and let me know - I'll be discussing it all at some point, I'm sure!

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 276: The Ambassadors of Death, Episode Five

Dear diary,

'Can't you hurry it up a bit?' the Doctor snaps as he sits awaiting his trip into space. I think that's a fairly good line to sum up this whole story. Things have shifted a bit for me now - I'm no longer simply failing to connect with The Ambassadors of Death, I'm actively bored by it, and that's not something that you ever want to say about an episode of Doctor Who.

As we counted down to the Doctor's lift-off, I quickly assumed that today's cliffhanger would be a shot of him heading away from the planet. No. Then we started to get some sabotage, so I figured that maybe it would be a closing shot of the Space Centre finding out about the interference. No. Maybe it would be the moment of blast off, but with the rocket exploding? No. Oh, but they can't steer the ship via remote control and the Doctor could end up shot into the sun! That must be the cliffhanger! Nope. 'We don't really know what's in there,' Cornish warns the Doctor as he moves to enter the Mars probe. Right then, the cliffhanger must surely be that the probe is empty? No! We may never know, because all of a sudden there's an unidentified object closing in on the Doctor at high speed - and it's going to hit!

It's not so much the fact that the cliffhanger is sudden and from nowhere, bur more that it felt as though it took forever to actually get to one. It's almost as though The Ambassadors of Death has the ability to actually warp and slow down time around it.

Oh, ok, that's not entirely fair. There are a few things to like about today's episode. For a start, the 'astronaut' looming over the Doctor in Sir James' office really does look pretty sinister. I don't know what it is about a space suit - that odd mixture of something so familiar and yet still very alien - that really works for a Doctor Who story. It's no wonder that Steven Moffat has used them on a few occasions to inject fear into the series, be it with a skeleton inside or simply someone capable of 'killing' the Doctor.

And then we've got the return of Benton for the first time since The Invasion. He'll become a regular fixture in UNIT over the next few years, so it's perhaps odd that I've not actually noted his absence from the last two stories. All the same, it's nice to have him back, and looking after Doctor Lennox so well. I'm pleased to see the return of Cyril Shaps to the series, too, considering he was in The Tomb of the Cybermen, still my favourite story. When he first appeared a few days ago, I instantly saw him as Viner from the other story, but I've taken to him as Lennox now. His fear in the cell is very real, and you can’t help but feel for him. The idea of sitting down to dinner and finding an isotope waiting for him is striking, too, though I do hope he gets to have a chat with the Brigadier (unlikely, I think!)

 a

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day 275: The Ambassadors of Death, Episode Four

Dear diary,

Back during The Invasion, there's a point where the Brigadier has to go to a government official to ask permission before he can send the troops in to take control of International Electromatics. Tobias Vaughn gets there first, though, and the minister he needs to speak to has already been won over (read: 'blackmailed') to side with the Cybermen. I very nearly commented at the time that wished the Brigadier had to spend more time with the government during the Pertwee era, because it would make it more 'real' or something. I specifically thought of it comparing to the Big Finish series Counter Measures, featuring the team from Remembrance of the Daleks. They answer directly to a member of the government - Sir Toby - who can at best be described as 'shady'. It's a great dynamic, and one I'd love to have in the UNIT years.

I'm glad I didn't actually say anything, though, because I'd have looked like a complete fool! In every one of the Season Seven stories so far, our heroes have come up against a 'higher power' in one form or another. In Spearhead From Space it's Major General Scobie (or, rather, an Auton replica of him). Doctor Who and the Silurians marks the first - and last - appearance of Masters. This story gives us Sir James Quinlan who, much like our character from The Invasion is working for the other side (or is he? More on that in a minute…)

What I'm realising through all this is just how little I actually know about this period of Doctor Who's history. I can rattle off the big, obvious facts in no time, but the intricate details of the story… not a clue. On the whole, I think it seems to be working to the Pertwee era's advantage - there's plenty of room for me to be pleasantly surprised by things as I go along, almost entirely uncoloured by years of knowledge building up in my head.

It's not doing much to save The Ambassadors of Death for me, I'm afraid. Try as I might, I just can't get into the story. It's not helped by the fact that I have absolutely no idea what's going on. For a start, I've lost track of wether there's two or three different organisations at work (I'd settled on three at the start of today's episode, but now I'm back to thinking that there's just two), and I'm not sure wether all the 'contagious radiation' stuff from yesterday was just an excuse to throw UNIT off the scent or not. The Doctor seems to imply here that it's a load of old nonsense, but I'm sure it was talked about a lot in scenes that didn't feature him - or any of his colleagues.

I'm also finding that things are moving just that bit too slow for my liking. I've just sat through the entire 1960s era - large chunks of which no longer exist to watch! - but this may be the most leisurely pace we've seen in a long time. At various points during Doctor Who and the Silurians, I commented that the fast cutting between scenes, losing chunks of time in the process gave the impression that there was more than enough story for the seven-week running time, but this tale seems to be having just the opposite effect.

Today, Liz manages to escape from her captivity only to be picked up as a hitch-hiker by a man heading back where she's just come from, and one who knows that she's not supposed to be out and about. The scene isn't a total waste - it gives us an opportunity to see that Doctor Lennox isn't completely siding with the 'baddies' - but it does feel like that typical 'Episode Three Syndrome' of capture and escape.

Now that I'm past the half way point, I'm hoping things might start to pick up a little. I've been enjoying the series so much this far, and I'd hate for The Ambassadors of Death to be the black sheep of the season…