Creepy and Suspenseful Dr. Who!
The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) is now working hand-in-hand with Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT. So he's on the scene when the Brigadier investigates why the astronauts on Mars Probe 7 have not communicated with Space Control since they started the trip back to Earth seven months before. Professor Ralph Cornish, head of the program, sent a recovery space capsule to investigate, and now they're having the same problem with the rescue mission.
When, finally, the rescue mission lands on Earth, the three astronauts in it are kidnapped in a daring raid. Not only that, but scientist Liz Shaw notices that the Geiger counter is showing maximum radiation. What is going on? Who has kidnapped the astronauts, if indeed, these creatures able to kill with a touch are actually our astronauts.
This episode sends delicious shivers up my spine. I think it does an excellent job of stringing the viewer along, trying to figure out what is happening and why. As the Doctor says, "I...
The Ambassadors... OF DEATH!
VHS... How quaint.
I've never really understood the bad rap that AMBASSADORS OF DEATH gets. Sure, it's in the middle of a good season, but I've never felt it was the weakest of Pertwee's first year. I'd much rather watch this again than view THE SILURIANS (I like the idea of SILURIANS much more than the actual story itself). AMBASSADORS is a straightforward romp that I found very enjoyable. When my copy arrived, I planned to watch the first tape one night, saving the second for the next evening. But I was having such a blast, I viewed the whole thing in one long sitting.
A lot of the time we fans find ourselves laughing at the show as often as we laugh with it. Time has not always been kind, and aspects of this serial show their age. Television and film were still new to the idea of portraying space travel realistically; it's amusing to see the production crew simulating weightlessness by turning the camera upside-down and running everything in slowmo. Gender...
Why don't they put THIS on DVD?
Ambassadors of Death is an old favorite of mine.
One can tell it was made at the same time as Inferno,
both have longish running times and offer these strangely subdued yet thoroughly effective atmospheres: Lots of stark and empty landscapes stretching under cloudy skies mixed with the eerily quiet "ground control".
And lets face it, a key strength of any Doctor Who episode is its power to convey mood and setting, even if a ton of money for effects was unavailable.
Ambassadors (like uber-classic "Inferno") also feature that gem of an underused companion, Liz Shaw. Only the hard-core Whovian knows why she left so early on, but I always felt that in her all too brief (four episodes) run, that both Pertwee and Pertwee's Doctor where fond of her abilities; she left an indelible impression on Pertwee's first episodes.
Ambassadors is a movie to sit back and settle into; it's more of a mystery than action (Inferno had a lot of action in comparison) and the joy is...
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