Day 270: The Ambassadors of Death Episode 6

The story of how this episode came together is quite interesting. Essentially, it was decided that the story as delivered by the original writer, David Whitaker, was unsuitable, meaning that it would have to be heavily rewritten and edited by Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke. In this regard, it's interesting to compare this to The War Games, and the way in which that story progresses, due to both being by the same writing team. The War Games was a success due to the way in which the story progressed. Each episode brought a new development to how the story is unfolding, so that it could keep to the same plot, but make each episode feel different enough such that viewers don't get bored. To compare this to Ambassadors is interesting. There's development of the plot, however the majority of the storyline is hidden, left to be revealed at a slower rate. This has two effects. On the one hand, it's frustrating, as the viewer is being kept in the dark and it's only around episode 6 that you begin to get the whole plot spelt oht to you. But on the other hand, it's engaging because it keeps a strong amount of mystery to the story. The viewer is engaged because they need to discover what has been going on, and that is what makes this story so enjoyable.