Format: DVD
Warts & All: You Only Die Twice. Maybe Thrice.
Quote: “It’s all right. I won’t hurt you.”
Review: Wow, it’s kind of odd singing the praises right now of anything that ends with someone who has fought for a given outcome then simply walks away, but this remains one of my all-time favourite DW stories. And that’s in spite of a host of imperfections and – on this occasion – having some stretch of the rewatch spoiled by a mood so thoroughly depressed by real world events going on around me. It takes a lot to ruin a good old bit of classic Doctor Who for me, but conversely it takes a heck of a lot to shake me from my convictions when it’s a story I’ve loved for so long. Ambassadors is, in a sense, a bit before my time, but it does contain my earliest ever DW memory – that of haunting space-suited figures marching along in slow-motion. As a result, my affection for this is pretty deep-seated, although I am fully aware of its faults. What lets it down most in the visual stakes is some hammy fight sequences and (certainly when watched at an episode a day) being able to spot the same guys die more than once. Oops.
Ah well, as with Silurians, it defies the format imposed upon it somewhat, managing to come up with an interesting variation on alien invasion – the aliens are peaceful, but are exploited by a misguided and vengeful general hoping to turn the world against them. John Abinieri is great as General Carrington, lending great sympathy (“It’s my moral duty.”) to a role that always puts me in mind of General Williams in Malcolm Hulke’s later Frontier In Space.
There are a number of other guest roles that invest this one a lot of appeal: Cyril Shaps (last seen in Tomb Of The Cybermen) as a professor Liz Shaw recognises from her Cambridge days, Ronald Allen (of Crossroads!) as Ralph Cornish and the mighty Michael Wisher provides some soft-spoken David Attenborough style commentary as the news reporter on site. Some aspects of the adventure make no sense – for example, the baddies build devices to communicate with and control the alien Ambassadors, but they’re shown to only transmit simple instructions and yet they manage to pull off robberies and the like using them. It’s like trying to control sentient beings with an early programming language like LOGO. And one of the mercenaries is busted out of prison, as though he’s a key member of Carrington’s force – and he has a presence about him to suggest he’s a major player among the bad guys – but he’s never seen again, replaced it seems by the character of Reegan. Who is almost but not quite on a par with Scorby in the Seeds Of Doom: ie. a nasty piece of work who you actually almost but not quite like.
There are contrivances and convolutions to draw out the adventure to a full seven episodes, with multiple inventive attempts on the Doctor’s life and at times the pace lags, but the action sequences give it a bit of a small screen blockbuster feel and the unique cliffhanger reprise within a title sequence break injects an added sting of drama and excitement into proceedings.
The mystery surrounding the missing astronauts and the faceless visors of the figures striding around in their spacesuits really sells the menace and personally I would have preferred never to have seen what the aliens looked like under those helmets. Pertwee is fab as is Courtney’s Brigadier, but for me Liz steals the show somewhat in her scenes – even involving herself in a slice of the action, with the help of a stuntman. The quote above is from her, when she is grabbed by one of the thugs holding her prisoner and it’s an absolute gem of a moment. What firmly cements this as something special though is that ending. It’s beautifully understated – and brave. Not least because the Doctor is handing over actual peace negotiations to humans who, quite recently, blew up some caves housing another alien race. Quatermass meets Bond meets The Avengers.
Quite the cocktail and somewhat messily shaken and stirred, but downed one glass at a time it hits the spot.
