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

Day 272: The Ambassadors of Death, Episode One

Dear diary,

It's often said that Doctor Who is quite unlike anything else on TV. It does things differently, and in whichever way it wants to do them. It seems perfectly fitting, then, that the 'cliffhanger sting' an element of the show that's become synonymous with the end of an episode over the last forty years should only make it's first appearance halfway through Season Seven.

In the opening titles.

Actually, it's not even in the opening titles, because for this one story only, they're experimenting with the titles finishing, cutting away to a bit of the story, and then going back into the titles to give us all the episode numbers and writers credits etc! When Doctor Who decides to do something its own way, it really goes for it!

I'm surprised that the 'sting' didn't make more of an impact on me. I'm so used to hearing it crash in over those final seconds of a cliffhanger that it simply feels natural to me that it happens here. It doesn't matter that I've just done two-hundred-and-something other episode without it, because it just sounds right! Truth be told, I had to double check with the end of yesterday's episode to make sure that we hadn't already been hearing it for a while. As time goes by, it'll become one of those things that's so intrinsically linked with Doctor Who, like the police box, or the Daleks.

The Ambassadors of Death is another one of those stories that I simply know nothing about. In this case, I know even less than I did about Doctor Who and the Silurians. I've had the video tape for ages but simply never got around to watching it, and by the time the DVD was released I was already vaguely thinking about doing a marathon, so it went unwatched onto the shelf in anticipation. Aside from the images of the space-suited figures on the cover (who I'm assuming are the bad guys for this story, and thus hidden away inside that other spaceship), I know absolutely nothing about the story.

It's exciting, because it means I'm going into this one completely cold. In some ways, it feels a bit like UNIT-by-numbers based on what we've seen in the series before. You've got a high tech base using technology that's a little in advance of the viewer's own time (Doctor Who and the Silurians), a reporter on site to cover the events for the masses (The Web of Fear - not technically a UNIT story, but close enough), a gritty industrial location (The Invasion, Spearhead From Space), and a chance for UNIT to engage in a big battle (all of the above, really). While it could give this story the same issues that something like Fury From the Deep had - feeling as though it's just going over old ground - all these elements are presented in an interesting enough way to keep me interested, and it's borrowing elements from stories over the last few years, as opposed to simply the ones around it.

The big fight sequence, which takes up a large chunk of today's episode, is my chance to say 'I wish I could see this in high definition' and get that out of the way early. As ever, the location is a really interesting one, and there's some shots that I'd love to see in the highest possible quality. There's one particular shot of the Brigadier, as he comes to a stop and fires his gun in several different directions as the battle rages on around him, which looks great. The rest of UNIT, though… They're really rubbish, aren't they? Half the battle seems to be the soldiers getting shot down, while the other side only sustains one or two injuries. I'm hoping they'll get a chance to redeem themselves before the story is out, or the government will be cutting the Brigadier's funding!

The Doctor is continuing to grow on me, much to my surprise. The rather arrogant air surrounding the Third Doctor is one of the things that I've always hated about the character, but I'm finding myself really enjoying it now. I wonder if it's simply because it's in contrast to the Second Doctor's persona, and I'm enjoying the different approach? A personal favourite from today's episode has to be the way he walks into space command, calling down the lift shaft that he simply 'doesn't have' a pass, before striding across the room and asking the most senior-looking person questions.

We also get to see him working on the TARDIS console in this episode, marking the first time that we've seen it in colour. I've always thought it a bit odd that they kept it green even after the shift (it was green for the black and white episodes, because it showed up better that way in monochrome), but it actually looks quite good! There's a bit of messing around with sending Liz a few seconds into the future - something I'm sure they repeat with Jo Grant at some point - and it's quite nice to see the Doctor back (almost) in his natural habitat.

You have to wonder if the reason the Third Doctor is so interested in working on machinery is so that he can tinker with the TARDIS console. Either there's a little voice in his head mid-regeneration that decides it'll be a handy trait to have, or the Time Lords have simply given him that interest to keep him occupied during his exile, safe in the knowledge that he'll never be able to get the ship working again. I'm wondering, though… how did he get the console out from the ship? It's still stuck in the shape of a police box, and those doors aren't very wide…