Serial Title: Ambassadors of Death
Series: 7
Episodes: 7
Doctor: Jon Pertwee
Companions: Liz Shaw (Caroline John), Brigadier
Alistair Lethbridge
Synopsis:
The capsule, Recovery 7, returns to Earth, and UNIT escorts it back to
the center when they discover that it’s locked from the inside and they cannot
get in. However, a military raid by more of the plainclothes troops steals the
capsule away. The Doctor gives chase to the truck (lorry) in Bessie and manages
to get the capsule back. However, when the capsule is opened, it is revealed to
be empty, save for a tape recorder playing back faked recordings of the
astronaut’s voices over the radio. The interior is also highly irradiated…
Army General Carrington has the three space-suited figures, removed
during the raid (he’s been responsible for the military actions thus far) and
are irradiating them further; as per him, they need radiation to survive. Sir
James Quinlan, Minister for Technology (FOR Technology, mind you, not ‘of’-
clearly his job is to represent the province of ‘Technology’ in parliament and
govern it wisely) introduces the Doctor to Carrington, who feeds him a false
story about a contagious form of radiation that the astronauts had been
infected with, necessitating their enforced quarantine.
However, the three suited figures are abducted by a violent criminal
that kills the scientists attending them- and he himself is found, dead and
irradiated, in a gravel pit sometime later. Someone has abducted the astronauts
without a trace and killed all the witnesses! In fact, this man is Lennox , a disgraced Cambridge Lennox . Taltalian also
works for him, and sets a bomb to kill the Doctor- but is himself killed by it,
the timer having been set to ‘0,’ despite what he’d been told- another witness
eliminated.
One of the astronauts appears at the space center, demonstrating a
deadly and lethal explosive touch. Quinlan is killed, and when the Brigadier
tries to intervene, the astronaut is proved to be bulletproof. It escapes… and
so does Lennox , back at the secret holding cell. These
astronauts are not astronauts, but alien beings who have taken their place. Liz
and Lennox have built a device capable of
communicating with them (though not understanding them) and forced one of them
into this raid under threat of cutting off the radiation… they themselves under
threat from Reegan to accomplish this. Now, Lennox ’s conscience has
got the better of him, and he defects to UNIT for protective custody… but there
are agents on the inside, and one slips a radioactive canister into Lennox ’s cell, killing
him in a fit of poetic justice before he can testify.
The Doctor decides that the answer to all of this madness must lie with
the other capsule (the one Recovery 7 was initially sent to rendezvous with)
still up in orbit, having been towed there by the recovered capsule. Recovery 7
is fitted to a new rocket, and the Doctor decides to take it up using the new
M3 variant fuel, a powerful accelerator. Reegan attempts to sabotage the launch
by flooding the tanks with M3 variant (instead of a small additive amount as
planned), making the launch far more powerful than anticipated and killing the
Doctor with the increased G-forces. The Brigadier manages to drive Reegan off
before he can finish (though he gets away); the launch is rough, but the
Doctor survives.
As he maneuvers to investigate the other capsule, however, both ships
are dwarfed by a gigantic alien craft that takes him aboard. There, he finds
the three missing astronauts, in hypnosis to believe that they’re simply in
post-mission quarantine back on Earth. The aliens of the craft demand the return
of their ambassadors on Earth within one day, or they will destroy the planet.
These ambassadors (the three in the suits) were sent to Earth to broker a
treaty between this unnamed race and mankind, but their abduction has seriously
jeopardized this agreement.
Immediately upon landing, the Doctor is abducted by Reegan (WHAT
NINCOMPOOP IS OVERSEEING SECURITY FOR UNIT?!?!?!) and taken to Liz, and to his
employer- Reegan is working for Carrington. As it turns out, Carrington was an
astronaut on the first Mars mission, where they met this alien race- not native
to Mars, but likewise exploring the planet. (Lucky for him he didn’t run into
any Ice Warriors…). In what was meant to be a peaceful contact, one of the
aliens returned the handshake of Carrington’s partner, Jim Daniels- and the
unexpected explosive touch killed Daniels instantly and gruesomely. The
traumatized Carrignton, convinced that these beings were of the purest evil,
then falsely accepted their sincere apologies and made arrangements for them
to travel to Earth and sign a treaty (the second capsule’s mission all along,
which only seemed to go haywire because only Carrington knew about the planned
loss of communication and astronaut-swap) all under false pretense; believing
this treaty to only be a prelude to invasion, Carrington laid these plans to
capture the ambassadors and coerce them into violence (what he believes to be
their true nature anyway), revealing their ‘hostile intentions’ to the world at
large and allowing him to wage war against the aliens, rather than letting the
world be ‘duped’ by their peaceful intentions.
Carrington takes one of the Ambassadors to wreak havoc at mission
control on live television, planning to unmask their hideous appearance and
galvanize the world against them. The Doctor and Liz (kept on as replacements
for Lennox ) are put to work on an improved
communications device- the Doctor instead rigs up a morse code transmitter and
sends an SOS to UNIT under the guise of testing the alien translation device.
The Brigadier- arrested by Carrington for opposing his insane agenda- pulls off
an impressive escape, and frees a handful of his UNIT men. Short on transport,
they ride to the rescue in Bessie and shoot their way in, arresting Reegan and
freeing the Doctor and Liz. The entire group races to mission control with the
Ambassadors, where the Doctor uses their impervious nature to smash through
Carrington’s troops and demolish his defenses. Carrington is forced to stand
down, and is taken under arrest. The last ambassador is rescued, and the three
are returned to their people in exchange for the astronauts- the Doctor
remembering NOT to shake their hands as they depart.
Review:
The Ambassadors of Death was, perhaps, slower than it ought to be. Don’t
get me wrong; it was a good conspiracy/spy/mystery story, with plenty of
espionage, and the space program junkie in me simultaneously laughed and lauded
the portrayal of a British Mars Landing Benton
Though, to be fair, it wasn’t bad UNIT tactics, just bad scriptwriting
and filming. UNIT soldiers were behind cover, with machine guns, and military
training- losing against a mongrel mutt squad comprised of street-clothes soldier and
petty crooks, firing hand guns from behind… nothing. They were standing right out
in the open. Yet half a dozen UNIT men fall- mostly from suddenly standing up
and running straight at the enemy, chest thrust forward and gun pointed at the
ground, until they were killed, in the standard movie nonsensical soldier-death
move- before a single one of their enemies is brought down. If they’d just
staged things in the reverse- UNIT with no cover, the mongrel-mix behind boxes
with superior weapons, it might’ve been believable. Likewise, the ridiculous
bungling of the Mexican standoff between the Brigadier and an enemy leader- in
which a soldier sneaks up behind him with a heavy swinging weight, and somehow
in the ensuing scuffle manages to hit and knock over the Brigadier, disarming
him of his pistol, while the barely winged enemy holds onto his with ease,
putting both of them at his mercy, is just plain SAD. Yes, it’s necessary for
the surprise moment where he drops his gun and surrenders to them despite
having both of them unarmed and at his mercy, but this surprise turnabout
could’ve been set up with much better staging that doesn’t make UNIT look like
the squad drilled out of the Three Stooges for being too clumsy. All that said-
and the major complaint (other than the pacing) for the serial now aside, the
Brigadier almost singlehandedly makes up for this with an awesome stalwart
display of fighting machismo and skill (if I used the term Bada… errr… Bad-bum,
then it would most certainly apply here)- firing his pistol thrice- straight
out to his left, forward, and out to his right, and apparently felling one man
with each shot, sending the first tumbling down the stairs in-frame behind him.
Likewise, his escape from armed guards and fighting prowess in the final
episode’s combat really suggests that the rest of UNIT is just slowing him
down. So, a bad episode for UNIT’s competency, but a great one for the Brig.
There are a lot of little bits and notes, so forgive me if I jump around
a bit more than usual. Let’s start with the visuals…
The models are all very good. Nicely detailed, Apollo-mission looking
(not sure if they’re originals, kit-bashes, or just straight-up builds of an
off-the-shelf-but-somewhat-inaccurate Apollo command/service module model),
which is a major plus to me.
That said… the capsule wobble visibly on their strings in space,
something that there’s no excuse for in 1970. The rocket liftoff has a terrible
animated flame and really stiff, fake-looking 70s bluescreening that was
roughly on par with the Star Wars Holiday Special- it somehow manages not just
to be fake, but ultra-fake. (Though it’s an awesome sequence and they did a
great job with the Doctor in G-forces) The main screen in mission control,
though nicely done, suffers from major blue screen fringing and breaking up
around the railings, giving it away rather plainly. On the plus side, the mini
pop-up screen with a venetian blind transition on is executed flawlessly. Also
excellent is the alien spaceraft model (if a bit
2D-cutout-moving-around-the-screen looking, it’s still a very cool design that
reminds me of a cousin of the later Sycorax ship in the New Series Christmas
Invasion) and the model of the interior was very, very well realized. The
bluescreening of the Doctor walking along the corridor was flawlessly done for
the time, and while obvious as bluescreening to modern eyes, it holds up
incredibly well for a period effect, and the angle of plane-matching up to the
floor is spot-on. This is easily the best effect I’ve seen in Classic Who thus
far, and creates a fantastic, expansive alien environment.
Not so fantastic? The alien’s killer touch, which is just a flash-frame of red using that paintbrush from MS Paint that has pixelly starburst coming off the sides, like it’s supposed to be a spray or something. Except, you know… done long before MS Paint was around. Still, it looks cheap. Practical effects for the aliens are FAR better- excellent (only occasionally glimpsed, heightening the alien feeling) makeup, practical explosions well-timed and well-filmed, a seamless telekinetically-lifting-the-gate effect at the end… these are all pulled off fantastically, and really sell the alien ambassadors. And one last practical effect, the James-Bond-ish cargo truck (errr… Lorry) that changes it’s plates and then it’s sidewalls… doesn’t come off quite so well, as the jump-cut transition tricks also have significant background changes that ruin the effect. (Plus, it’s never explained in the end… is this army technology…? Alien…? How did they change the appearance of the truck instantaneously? Do they have holograms in this world, and we’re never told about it?) Much better jump-cut effects accompany the Liz/Doctor time displacement scene, and the near-perfect ‘displacement’ scene with the tape recording, which looks FANTASTIC- a testament to Pertwee’s miming ability, it really creates a believable effect of Pertwee simply pulling the disc out of the air. Major kudos. Likewise, good miming work for Bessie’s ‘Anti-theft device’ (a fun and very whimsical Doctor scene, as detailed below).
Not so fantastic? The alien’s killer touch, which is just a flash-frame of red using that paintbrush from MS Paint that has pixelly starburst coming off the sides, like it’s supposed to be a spray or something. Except, you know… done long before MS Paint was around. Still, it looks cheap. Practical effects for the aliens are FAR better- excellent (only occasionally glimpsed, heightening the alien feeling) makeup, practical explosions well-timed and well-filmed, a seamless telekinetically-lifting-the-gate effect at the end… these are all pulled off fantastically, and really sell the alien ambassadors. And one last practical effect, the James-Bond-ish cargo truck (errr… Lorry) that changes it’s plates and then it’s sidewalls… doesn’t come off quite so well, as the jump-cut transition tricks also have significant background changes that ruin the effect. (Plus, it’s never explained in the end… is this army technology…? Alien…? How did they change the appearance of the truck instantaneously? Do they have holograms in this world, and we’re never told about it?) Much better jump-cut effects accompany the Liz/Doctor time displacement scene, and the near-perfect ‘displacement’ scene with the tape recording, which looks FANTASTIC- a testament to Pertwee’s miming ability, it really creates a believable effect of Pertwee simply pulling the disc out of the air. Major kudos. Likewise, good miming work for Bessie’s ‘Anti-theft device’ (a fun and very whimsical Doctor scene, as detailed below).
And lastly, on a visual note of another kind… this is the first of Third
Doctor lost episodes. However, unlike the Hartnell and Troughton missing
episodes in which all video is lost, only the color prints were lost for some
Third Doctor stories. This means that the serial fluctuates back and forth from
black and white to color, sometimes fading mid-scene, often cutting
disorientingly along with a change of location- we just pop from a black and
white scene in a field to a sudden color interior; it makes for a very odd
viewing experience. It doesn’t affect the watchability, just makes things
slightly surreal. (And just this month, the new colorized version is being released on DVD at long last!)
This was also a strong episode for the audio… sort of. It premieres the
‘rising whine’ sound that any viewers of the New Series will know always leads
into the opening credits and ending credits, a high-pitch piercing… I don’t
know, it’s too sharp a sound to call a whine. Let’s call it a… ‘Pirr.’ You
know, like Christopher Eccleston regenerates into David Tennant, and he says a
great line about new teeth, and then: “Where were we? Ah, yes… Barcelona.”
Pirrrrrrrrr… bad-dur-um-dum, Dun-dun-duh-duh-duh, dun-dun-duh-duh-duh,
dun-dun-duh-duh-duh, DUN-dun-duh-duh-duh… whooooo-eeeee-ooooooo,
weeee-ooooo-oooo… dum dum dum, DUMMMMMM-dum dum… you know, the ending credits
music? Yeah, it’s that sound. That totally starts here. (Who fans call it 'the scream.') Unless they changed it
for the DVD or something. The next serial will tell. As does the clever
practice of cutting straight to the credits, no fade (We’ve gone from ‘Hold
awkwardly on a long shot while next episode’s title is superimposed over the
actors holding position for way too long’ to ‘hold the shot for too long and
fade out on it’ to ‘run end credits over the last shot and fade it out pretty
quickly’ to ‘awkward half-second fade to black, then fade in the credits’, and
now ‘jump cut from cliffhanger moment directly to credit title card’, which is
very effective at increasing the cliffhanger tension.) And the practice of
doing the opening credits, showing the cliffhanger recap, then cutting to the
serial title, and finally to the resolution- a nice solution for the format.
(Sadly, retrospect has demonstrated that this was a one-time experiment in this
serial- a pity, as I like this format best of all! Still, the next serial will
go right back to the ‘opening sequence followed by a long title card and
credits showing the serial title and then finally cut back into the cliffhanger
from last week and its resolution’ format. Rats!)
(Speaking of the aforementioned cliffhangers, they have these down pat-
the Third Doctor serials have had some of the best cliffhangers I’ve seen. The
end of Episode Two, as the Doctor spouts nonsense phrases into the radio and
receives the same static replies from the astronauts, the camera dollying in on
his face, his expression growing more tense, the music building in a slow, low
rumble, until his head snaps up and he tersely announces “All right, cut it
open!” in almost a cold fury, is a sight to behold- magnificent in that it’s
not a cliffhanger from danger or a sudden revelation, but simply from the
tension of the situation and fantastic acting. A description is guaranteed not
to do it justice- do yourself a favor and go see it in-context! I literally
exclaimed out loud when I saw it. (Note from Future Andrew: And essentially a cliffhanger unrivaled until Colin Baker almost 20 seasons later- and even then, more or less a tie! This is one of the best cliffhangers of all time!))
Also, this serial is notable for its music. Sometimes good… and
sometimes utterly horrible. What’s with the jaunty organ music for all of the
space capsule shots during a tense rendezvous? Seriously, what is UP with that?
Tonally inept, to say the least, but unintentionally hilarious in its
juxtaposition. Most of the score falls into this so-good-it’s-bad category;
it’s not bad music, just bad music for the scene it’s attached to. Still, parts of it are quite good, such as
the aforementioned ethereal ET/Mac and Me/etc. theme for the aliens, which is
otherworldly and slightly magical- the perfect ‘aliens with incredible powers
walk among us’ wonderment for this story.
Then, there are stunts and performances:
During the bizarre assault on UNIT, we are treated to a truly cool
helicopter sequence (the Jihad has ended! Hoorah!) in which a UNIT man tries to
break inside, riding on the strut before being thrown off- something I can’t
see BWW accomplishing on its budget!
The Time Displacement bit at the beginning, though a little silly, is a
fun little bit to remind us that Time/Space travel haven’t left us for good,
just taken a little vacation. Nice touch!
The Liz chase in a water treatment plant… or park… or something… was
well done, if a little clumsily choreographed. It was fun. Likewise, while
there’s nothing especially standout about the assault on the fuel depot, it was
nicely executed with some good stunts and a solid ending chase/finale.
Whether intentional ironic humor or unintentional bad writing humor, I
liked the running gag that the order to shut the gates always comes to the
checkpoint seconds after they’ve waved the vehicle-to-be-stopped through.
And the best bits were definitely in the last episode- the Doctor’s
gambit of pretending to build an alien comm. device and building an SOS
telegraph instead (a signal my lovely wife recognized immediately) was
intelligent and funny, a deftly written twist subtly conveyed and brimming with
humor; major kudos. And in the much less subtle, brazenly comedic vein, the
notion of having all of the transport seized, followed by the suggestion “Well,
sir, there’s always the Doctor’s car…” The expression on Lethbridge-Stewart’s
face, followed by the immediate jump cut to armed UNIT cavalry riding to the
rescue in Bessie, was absolutely and utterly priceless. (Secondary kudos to
acknowledging the fact that having your car all shot up in the escape might
adversely affect its performance!)
And last in the potpourri, a few conceptual complaints…
So, this is UK Mission Control. Because England has always had such
great space ambitions. Now, I know we find out this is hardly their first
launch- 3rd at least heading to Mars- but, really? Three people in
one room is their mission control? If you watch Apollo 13 or From the Earth To
The Moon, you see row after row of technicians at computer stations- 3-4 banks
of them, each with a different section to monitor… and what you don’t see is
the entire rooms of people receiving the same telemetry, working for each of
those men and communicating by radio. Each of the dozens of controllers at
Houston is like the Electoral College member for a US state- one person
representing many, many more. It takes hundreds to man a rocket flight, and
here they have… like, 3? Then again, perhaps that’s how it works when it’s
modeled after a Parliamentary system?
And they’re even more short-staffed, because one of the three is a
certified IDIOT- he continues to insist that the SPECIFIC SIGNAL WITH
PICTOGRAPHIC DATA ENCODED IN IT THAT REPEATS EXACTLY AT SPECIFIC INTERVALS is
random static. So, not exactly a rocket scientist, then… which is precisely
whom you would want to have staffing mission control.
Oh, and they only have one computer? A singular one, so that sabotaging
it will put a serious dent in the investigation? I know at the time computers
were rare, but this is MISSION CONTROL FOR A MARS MISSION. Surely there must be
more than one computer? It’s certainly too technologically early for a virus to
be on the network…
They also decided to go Russian-style and have the capsule land on land,
out in the middle of a field. Not really a complaint, just an interesting note.
And they did remember the Service module/capsule difference, showing a Service
module in orbit, but just a capsule on land, implying an orbital jettison. So,
points for that. That the hatch was sealed and couldn’t be opened without
cutting through with a welding torch? And they just had to put it on a truck
(tumbling around the astronauts inside who-knows-how-badly) and haul it back to
base (Mission control, the launch facility, forensics, and astronaut training
seem to be all combined into one facility- they weren’t in real life) to do
anything with it? This is almost as poor design as the controls (see below); in
real life, capsule hatches were sealed from the outside, and I’m pretty sure
designed to be opened from the outside in case of emergency. You know, in case
the astronauts are incapacitated, you’d kind of want help to be able to get to
them? Unless they’re saying the aliens sealed it in a way it wasn’t designed to
be?
Finally, the interior design of the capsule as the Doctor is preparing
to go is simply atrocious; the astronaut cannot physically reach the controls
without unbuckling, getting up, and walking over to them- they are far out of
arm’s reach, and impossible to get to while on their back. This is the
equivalent of making your airline cockpit out of a stretch limo cabin, with the
pilot seated at the back, and the control stick on the front wall, so that
while seated, the pilot cannot actually fly the plane. It’s so absurd that
words fail me on how absurd it is. Oh, wait… as absurd as UNIT’s combat skills
in the first few episodes. Yep, that about describes it.
Anyhow, gripes aside, we did have a wide cast of memorable characters.
They range from the minor (the three hypnotized astronauts who can’t see
their true surroundings are effectively creepy just for how normal they’re
acting in bizarre surroundings), to small (the crazy bearded guy who sabotages
the computer and threatens the Doctor at gunpoint- and then meets a pretty
impressive explosive end, and the poor incompetently-handled defecting scientist
who knew Liz, who more or less dies from UNIT neglect) to major… like our crazy
general.
While a bit of a cliché, he works as a character- someone who saw a best
friend killed instantly and brutally by a single touch of an alien being, who
now wants to defend Earth from them. His methods get a little over-the-top and
start to fly in the face of all logic, but that’s what obsession does, and his
motivation for that obsession seems reasonable (I think this is what the Doctor
says he ‘understands’ at the end). What makes him so unhingedly-disturbing
toward the end is just how normal he can act sometimes; there’s no clue to his
madness until he completely wigs out. He makes a good villain, feeling only
slightly stale in ‘stock character’ terms, but having fairly good presence for
the series. His thugs are a little more bland and unremarkable, antagonistic
enough that you’re glad to see them get their comeuppance, but not terribly
memorable.
The Brigadier has little to do until the last chapter or two, bungling
things pretty badly near the start (okay, he was up against a conspiracy, but
he shouldn’t have neglected a defecting prisoner with valuable information so
long, especially when potential informants have been getting assassinated so
commonly in the last day or two). Still, he proves to be the ONLY competent
UNIT soldier in the first battle, saves the Doctor’s rocket (partially), and
really takes charge, putting on an impressive one-man show of a daring escape
and strong combat in the final chapter. Not so much character development in
this one, unfortunately- something badly needed after his character was run
into the ground in the Silurian serial. Hopefully some needed character development
will come his way soon. Regardless, he seems mostly back to his Spearhead-self;
if a little less open-minded yet again, he is at least fully behind the Doctor.
Liz is likewise well-served in ‘moments,’ but not as much in character;
however, her dynamic varies by having about 1/5 character development, 2/5
action, and 2/5… absence. In other words, a greater proportion of
character-moments-to-memorable-scenes, but at the cost of having less time in
the serial overall. Regardless, in addition to a good chase, some decent
‘convict the bad guy you used to know who has a conscience and just needs a
little nudge to return to the side of good so play on his conscience with
repeated pleas while you’re both captured and working under the nose of the bad
guys’ scenes (a cinematic convention first designed by a Sir Lawrence
Wicktenshire in 1653 whilst out pheasant hunting, passed on to his heirs in the
hope that cinema would one day be invented to employ his idea to proper usage,
and imported to the Americas from the Wicketnshire estate by Charlie Chaplain
in 1909, for the sum of $32.97, the modern equivalent of 1.7 Billion dollars.),
Liz also has a number of good moments with the Doctor. Aside from the slightly
silly slapstick time-displacement bit, there’s a really sweet moment near the
beginning, when the Doctor is glued to the TV despite himself, watching the
Martian-orbit rendezvous, when Liz brings him over something to drink and joins
him, very much like a parent or sibling looking out for his health. It’s a little
thing, but implies a great depth of relationship (that we haven’t really seen
evidenced or warranted based on only 2 previous serials, but let’s not let that
quibble stand in the way of sentiment) that really nuances this
Doctor-companion (or, in this case, Doctor-assistant) relationship.
And, of course, the Doctor himself. He is a jack-of-all-trades in this
one; brave, confident, gallant, diplomatic, authoritative, clever- a
well-rounded action hero. He is in-control (with a fantastic scene involving Bessie’s
anti-theft device in which he single-handedly thwarts the bad guys, leaves them
helpless, rescues the space capsule, and saves the day- when an entire UNIT
battalion couldn’t accomplish the same), canny (with his disappearing tape
trick, for instance, as well as his masterful SOS gambit), funny (zooming in
with Bessie right under a closing security gate, and arriving into the control
room insisting to someone off-screen “Well, I simply don’t HAVE a pass, my good
man- I don’t believe in them!”), brave (action-hero-ing it up by becoming an
astronaut), investigative, cautious, and friendly (in his investigation of the
alien craft and handling of its passengers), compassionate (not only to the
captured ambassadors, but also to the soldiers he warns out of their way during
the ending siege, and even to the poor, deluded villain at the end), and has
several powerful acting moments- especially the intensity of the aforementioned
tour-de-force cliffhanger “Cut it open!”
Overall, Ambassadors of Death (a great title) is a lot of fun and good
moments stretched out just a little too long. I can’t point to any particular
elements as extraneous- perhaps all of the cuts back to the villains before Liz
joins them?- it just felt a little padded. Not to War Games levels, certainly;
I just felt the pacing could be a bit tighter. That said, it has a number of
great set pieces, and plenty of elements that make it worth watching.
Great moments:
The launch and alien spacecraft, the improvised SOS, the Brig’s escape,
Bessie to the rescue, the Brig’s pistol-prowess, the ending assault on mission
control, and UNIT to the rescue… in Bessie.
Rating:
3.75 (or three and three-quarters) out of 5 “Shoes!” for this serial (I
am fairly sure that most of my shoes for the last decade have been worn to the
point of being ‘three-quarter shoes’ before I replaced them), which contains a
number of 4-star pieces, it’s just a little… slow. Even so, the cliffhangers
alone make it well worth checking out.
Dating:
No concrete numbers for this serial, but the presence of a UK space
program and the antiquity of Morse Code suggests a more futuristic ‘1980s’ time
period far more than it does a contemporary 1970 setting. So, this is the first
that really supports a ‘near future’ date in tone- though perhaps it simply
takes place a decade after the last one, explaining why the events of the
wretched Silurians serial have so little impact in this story.
the anbassadors of death, 10/10
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