Day 271: The Ambassadors of Death Episode 7

"I had to do what I did. It was my moral duty. You do understand, don't you?"

These are the last words said by General Carrington, the villain of this serial, before he is taken away into custody. Villain is perhaps too harsh a word, given that he is very misguided, and did everything in this story for the wrong reason. He was placed in a scenario where he made first contact with an alien race. They killed one of his crewmembers and so he swore revenge, believeing them to be a hostile force. He captured some of them and used them for his own purposes, hoping to reveal to the world that these creatures are dangerous, and to implore for help in dealing with them, by destroying them all completely.

But he was wrong. The aliens came in peace. They were unaware of the fact that when they touched people, they caused them to die. Carrington was catastrophically misguided, seeking war instead of a peacful solution. In this regard, the story makes for a perfect duo with Doctor Who and the Silurians. The conclusion of both stories is about the misguided nature of humanity, how we can occasionally jump to conclusions and cause widespread destruction. But where Silurians ended with the Brigadier doing the wrong thing, this time it is quite clearly averted. Everyone from UNIT soldiers to Carrington's henchmen are standing against him. Because they all realise what harm they could do, and that sometimes peace is the only option.

But in response to Carrington's question, he was somewhat in the right. It's not hard to ser how he came to the conclusions that he did, and it's quite clear that he began to realise his mistakes at the end of the serial. But the fact still remains that it wasn't an alien species that caused all of the havoc this serial. It was a misguided man.

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.

Day 269: The Ambassadors of Death Episode 5

Sometimes, when you watch a Doctor Who story, there's a character that jumps out at you as interesting, above everyone else. Most of the time, it's a regular. Sometimes it's the villain. Sometimes it's the Doctor's primary ally. And sometimes it's just a side character. We get such a case here in the character of Lennox. He's a scientist who has been forced to work for the villainous group who are using the titular ambassadors, in order to find a way to control them. He's an excellent character because of his opinions, but also in the way in which he chooses to put these opinions across. He's a man who is opposed to the nature of the work that he is doing, and desperately wishes to get help to escape, however he is trapped by the fact that there is nowhere else for him to go. He expresses this not as much through dialogue, but through his neuroticism which comes across remarkably well from Cyril Shaps, the actor who plays him. This creates a memorable character for whom the audience can easily feel empathy for, and it means that the story feels better because we can care about more of the characters. This, in turn, is possibly due to Malcolm Hulke who, as previously mentioned, is a wonderful writer of character and can make things instantly memorable.

Day 268: The Ambassadors of Death Episode 4

Have I praised Michael Ferguson here before? It's because he clearly stands out as an excellent director here (although all across Jon Pertwee's first series are excellent, and we'll certainly mention direction for the next serial). But let's talk about why he's an excellent director. Aside from the obvious thongs, like getting strong performances and choosing camera position to fully utilise everything in shot, he's also masterful at editing. Take, for instance, a scene wherein a man has been given a bomb to explode the Doctor with. The scene is edited in such a way to emphasise the stress on his end, frequently cutting back to him above the Doctor, who remains calm, unaware of what is due to happen. The bomb unexpectedly explodes, and Ferguson decides to cut away two seconds after the explosion. We get an explosion, a scream and then another scene. This sudden moment allows for a far more effective piece and a genuine feeling of surprise on the viewer's part. It also means that we are spared the annoyance of having a man screaming for too long, as this is something that could appear a bit hammy and take the viewer out of the mostly realistic serial so far. All in all, it's a well directed story and Ferguson is certainly a director to admire across the series.

Day 267: The Ambassadors of Death Episode 3

I bumped into a friend of mine yesterday whilst having lunch, and during our conversation, I mentioned that I was due to watch The Ambassadors of Death over the course of that day. He praised the story, and pointed out to me that the image of malevolent spacesuits is one that has appeared in Doctor Who on a couple of occasions, most notably in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead and The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon. So what actually makes these things scary? It's not that we have some sort of cultural mistrust of astronauts, far from it. We acknowledge them as pioneers and travellers to the stars, who go forth and discover a whole new world up there in the sky. Personally, I think that it's in the face. Or to be more precise, the lack of a face. We can't see the inside of the helmets, leading mistrust as we don't have the basic human ability to see the familiar. Instead, we see a suit, with no sense of familiarity attached. This can be compared with the Library two parter, where the unfamiliar is made more so by the addition of a skeleton inside, revealing the bitter truth of what lies beneath. Or indeed, we can compare to the Impossible Astronaut two parter, where the unfamiliar is made suddenly familiar by the addition of a small girl within the suit, allowing for the juxtaposition of the two presences to make for a more creepy experience. But the major thing to take away from this is that The Ambassadors of Death is providing us with a remarkably creepy monster, showing us that this new series is certainly able to bring us a strong ability to terrify children.

Day 266: The Ambassadors of Death Episode 2

Once again, this episode is wonderfully action packed. This time, instead of being a warehouse shoot-out we have a hold-up of a truck carrying a spaceship. The major thing that I took away from it was a sudden realisation that I actually have no idea what is going to happen in this episode. This has two meanings. One is that I have never seen this episode before, hence I don't have an idea of the plot and so on. The other is a consequence of the longer serial length. Due to having a longer serial, it means that we need to stretch out the plot, leave key revelations of things such as motivation of the villains until later, such that the writers don't run out of story by episode 5. It's similar to The War Games in this regard, and it's a truly fascinating experience to get to experience this story for what is essentially the first time, and have no idea of what is ahead of us...

Day 265: The Ambassadors of Death Episode 1

Today's entry is the convolution of so many things. Some of you may notice that it's remarkably close in time to yesterday's entry, and there's a reason for that. My general technique for watching episodes is to go about my day to day business, then at 10 o'clock pm (Australian Time) I'll go to the TV and put on the episode. I'll spend some time writing the blog entry and then post it by 11 o'clock. Sometimes, however, I will be aware that I won't be at home late at night, and so I have to watch the episode during the day. And sometimes I'll be equally busy during the day, so I'll have to watch it at night. Today, the Venn diagram of business reached the point when I was at a loss, and considering getting up early in the morning to sit down for some Pertwee fun. Until I realised that I had given myself a 24 hour period to watch each episode. So it came to pass that at midnight, I went across and put on The Ambassadors of Death Episode 1 and sat down for some 1970's action.

Action is the key word here, in particular Action by HAVOC. They're the new stuntmen for Doctor Who and they represent the new era that the series is going into. It's no longer acceptable to just have monsters bursting into rooms or ray guns pointing at people to intimidate them. Audiences need to be satiated with properly set-out action. It has to be exciting and packed full of danger. HAVOC are more than able to provide in this regard. Their scene about halfway through this episode consisting of UNIT performing a raid on a warehouse is remarkably well set out. Each moment is filled with tension as we, the audience, truly believe this both to be realistic, but also exciting. Guns being fired and people falling into boxes may not seem like much, but compared to what's come before and cpupled with some excellent direction from Michael Ferguson, then we've got a remarkably exciting scene, hopefully the first of many.

Day 209: The Wheel In Space Episode 6

And at the conclusion of this story, the TARDIS gains a new crewmember, in the form of Zoe Heriot. Already, I instantly prefer her to Victoria, due to the way in which her character has been presented. Zoe is a futuristic character, who takes no nonsense from either Jamie or the Doctor. She looks down on Jamie due to his poor knowledge, and yet she is able to defer to him in times when more basic human feelings are needed, such as having trust in the Doctor, or alternatively in the things for which Jamie knwos but Zoe doesn't. Already, an interesting dynamic has been set up between these two characters that allows them to be in conflict and still have a strong mutual respect for each other. Likewise, Zoe fails to see the playfulness within the Doctor, and yet she knows thta he is te more intelligent of the two. And we know that by starting this character as someone who is fond of logic, we're going to be able to see their character develop as they break out from the dull world of The Wheel in Space and move onto more exciting times.

Day 208: The Wheel In Space Episode 5

Not much of note happens in this episode, so I'm going to cheat. Big Finish Productions is a company that produces licensed audio adventures about a vast array of series, including Doctor Who. Some of their plays deal with the world of The Wheel In Space, because it's actually an incredibly depressing world. There's a young character, Zoe, who is a genius, created to have perfect recall and a completely mathematical mind. And she's been brainwashed to do this, taken at a young age for the good of the world. A young child has been forced into this life, having pieces of their mind like emotion and irreverence replaced with logic. Big Finish deals with this sort of thing in plays such as The Uncertainty Principle or The Memory Cheats, both of which deal with Zoe trying to fight the world that she has been brought up in, as she has long since realised that this is no way to run a society. To tie this back into The Wheel In Space, we can see that this is a world which has been constructed well, and whilst it's not as well done as Whitaker's previous efforts, such as The Power of the Daleks, it still has hints of something lurking behind the scenes, ideas that were never fully realised. Whitaker remains a good writer, it's just that the good writer is slowly fading away, so we need some more writers to take his place

Day 207: The Wheel In Space Episode 4

Let's have a talk about Jarvis, the Wheel's neurotic controller. He's such an interesting character because of what he isn't, rather than what he could be. He's a small man, who wanders about shouting and generally being suspicious of everything that's happening, yet stubbornly refusing to believe anything that falls outside of the realm of the laws of Physics, meaning that he doesn't believe that there is a Cyber-invasion, choosing instead to spend his time in opposition to the Doctor and all of his new allies whom he has gathered to fight the Cyber-Force. What's interesting though is the fact that he is an anti-Captain Kirk. Captain Kirk represents your stereotypical hero, a man who is intelligent, caring and more than willing to fight if needs must. He's what you think of when you consider a spaceship captain, which indicates that Jarvis has been written such that all of the stereotypical captain traits have been chucked out of the window and replaced with their opposites, to show the differences between what normal writers for television series would do, and what Doctor Who writers can do.

And it is at this exact moment that I suddenly realised: in over half of the stories this series, we've dealt with slightly insane leaders of scientific groups. It's a testament to how well defined each of them are that I didn't realise this sooner, but also worth pointing out that I generally write these quite late at night, showing that my mental faculties aren't really up to scratch at this time...

Day 206: The Wheel In Space Episode 3

Aww, it's destroyed everything that you hold
dear in the cutest way possible

The Cybermen make a return appearance in this story, as do their little friends, the Cybermats. The Cybermats somehow escaped my attention when we first met them in The Tomb of the Cybermen, so I should probably mention them here. They are fundamentally cute creatures, and it's clear that they have been written in this way, in order to create a new sense of horror as these cute little things attack you and kill you horribly. Except they don't really look that cute, instead they look like a toy (almost as if they were created to be toys...). Nor do they look particularly menacing either, meaning that the monsters tend to fail. That said, they're reasonably well directed in this story, or they would be if one of the crew members who was killed by them wasn't one of the hammiest actors that the series has had to date. but it's hard to get past these creatures who were probably just created to act as toys.

Day 205: The Wheel In Space Episode 2

Of note in this episode is the first occasion where the pseudonym Dr John Smith is used to cover the fact that the Doctor's name is not generally told to people. It's used in a hurried fashion, as Jamie has to quickly come up with a solution to the problem that has arisen, and brings up the fact that this whole thing about the Doctor having the pseudonym of John Smith is not an idea that has been meticulously prepared. Instead, it's an idea that's been made up on the fly, to just answer someone as quickly as possible. What's also noticeable is how quickly this idea took off, as it becomes the go-to pseudonym, and given that the previous serial brought the sonic screwdriver, it's becoming apparent that the things that will become pure facts of Doctor Who at the moment are not going to be the monsters as much as they're going to be little details that flesh out the universe that is inhabited by the intrepid crew of the TARDIS.

Day 204: The Wheel In Space Episode 1

It's a return of David Whitaker to the writing fold, and a realisation of just how much Doctor Who has changed since Whitaker first wrote for the series. It's because he's writing it very much in the traditional sense of how Doctor Who used to be, a first episode that consists of the regular cast (in this case the Doctor and Jamie) exploring their surroundings, with not much else in it. And back in those days, it was OK, because we were able to appreciate that it takes time to tell a story and that we need to set the scene before we can begin. But now, we've realised that there are other ways of doing this. We can, for instance, allow for the situation to be discovered through taking part in the situation and using this as a springboard to meeting characters and discussing the problems that are occurring. This can be seen in 'The Ice Warriors', which begins with the Doctor meeting the crew members, and discovering about the world that he's landed himself in through expository dialogue. Here, on the other hand, we're treated to the Doctor and Jamie landing on a ship, and then exploring the empty sip for 15 minutes. There's a brief stab at action when a pitifully slow robot attacks them, and Troughton begins to fall unconscious towards the end, but aside from that, it comes across as a very dull piece of work. But the odd thing is, that this wouldn't have seemed as dull 200 episodes ago, giving us a concrete example of just how much the show has developed over the course of the five or so years that it's been on the air. It's an interesting to think about, but not so much to watch.

Day 191: The Enemy of the World Episode 6

And as this serial comes to an end, the Doctor and Salamander finally come face to face. It's an encounter that takes place in the TARDIS, something which feels inherently wrong as, and I'm fairly sure that I'm right about this, no other character that wasn't either the Doctor or a companion has fully entered the TARDIS before (although a Zarbi did walk through the doors, it was forced out again rather quickly). This is able to show just how serious things have become with this villain, that they have been placed in a position that only the good guys have previously had, being in control of the TARDIS.

It doesn't last long though, as there's a brief punch-up between the Doctor and Salamander culmunitating in Salamander being thrown out of the TARDIS doors whilst the ship is in flight. A lesser director would have handled this badly, but Barry Letts has an eye for action, using some impressive quick cuts to keep things pacy and ensure that it feels like no other episode before it. Letts is a name that we will definitely return to in the future, and it's wonderful to see that his first impact on Doctor Who came off so well, being a wonderfully directed action thriller that clearly shows him as a name to keep an eye on.

And someone making their last impact on Doctor Who is the producer of this serial, Innes Lloyd. He brought with him a serious science fiction style to the series, moving it away from the fantastical adventures that the Doctor would have into the enthralling and slightly more realistic adventures that he encounters. As well as that, he cast Patrick Troughton, who has quickly made the role his own, to such an extent that it's hard to imagine anyone else being the Doctor besides him. Lloyd also had a good eye for finding things that people would be interested in, bringing us terrifying monsters such as Cybermen and Ice Warriors to frighten small children so that people had a reason to watch the program beyond it being a nice little story, it was also a nice little story that would send you running behind the sofa. When he came into the series, I will admit that I was skeptical of his work, because I had quite enjoyed the fantasy that had been brought by his predecessors in the role, but he proved me wrong by showing that serious science fiction can be just as enthralling, and although some lightness of touch was required to make everything bearable, it still comes across as a wonderful piece of work that is definitely worth checking out. So this blog says thank you to Innes Lloyd for giving us so much to the history of Doctor Who.

Day 190: The Enemy of the World Episode 5

It's worth talking about some of the other supporting characters within this story, as they're all really very interesting. Astrid Ferrier, for instance, is your typical Emma Peel style action woman, but what makes her interesting is watching the effect that the Doctor has on her. I'm going to skip ahead to tomorrow's episode (mainly because I've already got a lot to discuss tomorrow), because there we see that she chooses to solve a problem through using her wits, instead of just resorting to violence, showing that the Doctor has made an impact on how this character goes forth into the world.

Also of note is Benik, Salamander's deputy, purely because of how insanely sadistic he is. There's a scene in the previous episode that I didn't get around to mentioning wherein a woman is shot, and he goes over to her and tortures her to get the information that he requires. He knows that she's already dead, but he also knows that he can cause her pain and make her last moments as painful as possible, just because he can. Even though he's not the main villain of this piece, he's still a remarkably nasty piece of work.

Day 189: The Enemy of the World Episode 4

Around this point, your traditional 6 part story would begin to lag. Things take on a slower pace and padding takes charge, making things duller and duller by the minute. Fortunately, Whitaker has come up with the perfect way to fight this, by introducing one of the single most bonkers and beautiful twists in the history of the series. It's so amazing that I recommend that you go out now and watch the story itself, it's spectacular, and this episode has an amazing scene about halfway through that shows some incredibly powerful acting from the supporting cast. But the twist is so beautifully unpredictable that I don't want to spoil it for you, so go and seek this story out, if you don't want to be spoiled about what happens.

SPOILERS AHEAD

It turns out that Salamander, in his spare time, is a leader of a post apocalyptic colony. Whitaker has been able to introduce a completely new story running parallel to the one that we've been watching for the past while, and this new story changes everything. Suddenly Salamander's motives become more complex, and we get to see another side to this character. And the audience is now forced to sit up and pay attention, because now things have developed to a point where it is no longer as predictable as before. Previously the audience was expecting a generic near future run around with some gritty action set pieces and a 'double' plot. But now, things are completely different to how people could imagine this story playing out, meaning that the curse of a lull in a 6 part story has been beaten, by changing the story entirely, everything becomes absolutely wonderful.

Day 188: The Enemy of the World Episode 3

This episode has one of my absolyte favourite supporting characters to appear in Doctor Who: Griffin the Chef. He's a depressive Australian chef, who constantly finds things wrong with the world. He's such a good character because he's able to effectively tell the background to his character and the world that he lives in without going into exposition. He shows that the world has gone badly for him, that Salamander leads an oppressive rule and that people don't necessarily work for him with any degree of choice, by which I mean being forced to choose between a paying job and living on the streets. But the best thing about him is the way in which he deals with the concepts that he's dealt with. A soup that isn't up to scratch leads him to consider that he might be fired, or better yet, shot. But he can't get his hopes up, for they'll probably miss him. It's a fun character and makes this story yet more interesting to see play out.

Day 187: The Enemy of the World Episode 2

Now that we've got over the fact that this episode actually exists, let's have a look at the basic premise of the plot. It's a simple idea: the Doctor happens to bear a striking resemblance to the enemy of the week, and so one side wishes for him to impersonate the enemy, a man called Salamander, in order to save the world, or something like that. It's an idea that's been covered before, as we saw in The Massacre, where William Hartnell played the villain as well. But there, the story was based around the audience not knowing whether this was the Doctor or not, whereas now the distinction is clear. This allows for the story to become more of a thriller rather than a contemplative piece, and so the story is able to continue moving without having any annoying scenes of doubt of who is who. And while this idea is a cliché, it's still being dealt with in a really interesting way, and so the audience just wants to see how this story will unfold.

Day 186: The Enemy of the World Episode 1

I remember the day well. I'd been hearing rumours for some time, but never quite believed that they were true. Events escalated and I discovered that the rumours were, in some form, true. And as I walked into my French class, I quietly opened up Google Chrome and searched for what was found. Because a man called Phil Morris had found 9 episodes of Doctor Who, not seen since the 1960's. The Enemy of the World was now completed, and The Web of Fear was almost complete. I spent the rest of the day in ecstasy. All I could do when I was with my friends was giggle with glee at fianally getting a chance to see these once lost episodes, now found for all to view. And with good reason, because there are so many elements of this story that just wouldn't translate to the audio version. Troughton is full of little moments, his face is able to find so many subtelties within the script, and he is also able to act as two completely different characters within a short space of time, but they are so distinct that you don't actually notice that they're being played by the same actor. There's also some wonderful direction from Barry Letts, who has one of my favourite camera movements of all time as he attaches the camera to the back of a helicopter and then films the action packed scene from which the Doctor and co. need to be rescued from disappearing out of sight. It's difficult to describe, but it's easy to see now. And that fills me with all sorts of happiness 9 days out of 10

Day 169: The Evil of the Daleks Episode 7

The ending of this episode is quite big, featuring lots of destruction as the Daleks rebel against each other, half of them being pure Dalek and the other half having the Human Factor implanted within them. And as it ends, we realise that this is it, the Daleks have finally been destroyed for the last time. And to an extent that's true, it'll be years before we encounter them again, and so we have to realise how interesting this move in the series is. It's because the Daleks have been intrinsically linked with Doctor Who, ensuring that the series remained reasonably popular over the past couple of years, and by taking them away, the series is going to have to resort to other means to draw viewers in. Fortunately, it's got Patrick Troughton, who over the course of his first year in the role, has made the show more interesting, making him into a more mercurial figure and thus giving the show a new life. Also, the writing has remained strong, and there are probably other methods that the show will go down in order to ensure its survival. We'll just have to wait and see what comes up.