OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 266
STORY NUMBER: 053
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 28 March 1970
WRITER: David Whitaker (and Malcolm Hulke - Uncredited)
DIRECTOR: Michael Ferguson
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.6 million viewers
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who-Ambassadors of Death
EPISODE FORMAT: 16mm b&w film recording recoloured using 525 off air video & chroma dot recovery
"There has been another extraordinary development in the mystery of Mars Probe 7. The two space capsules, Mars Probe 7 and Recovery 7, which have been locked together in radio silence, have now separated. But there is still no communication from Charles Van Lyden, nor from astronauts Michaels and Lefee."
Doctor Taltalian escapes from the room leaving Liz & The Doctor behind. When Recovery 7 undocks from Mars Probe 7 it's tracked to Earth. UNIT recovers it and transports it to the space centre but they are ambushed by men led by the suited gentleman from the warehouse and the spaceship is seized. The Doctor recovers it and returns it to the space centre but the men escape. The Astronauts are trying to communicate but the Doctor realises the same things are being repeated and orders the capsule opened....
An episode dominated by the fight scene as the UNIT convoy is ambushed. My wife Liz said "How do the guns just knock them over?" I think the clue is the cylinder on the troops back: They're compressed air guns.
Apparently the fight scene caused the production to hideously overspend: Terrance Dicks had got Malcolm Hulke to write something simple involving the lorry being directed the wrong way to save money but director Michael Ferguson embellished it to include motor cyclists, the entire Havoc stunt team and what looks to be the same helicopter we saw in The Invasion and The Silurians.
The fight scene was recorded at the Royal Engineers Driving Circuit at Farnborough Airport in Aldershot, Hampshire. The sequence didn't go exactly as planned: director's assistant Pauline Silcock was hit by a motorcycle and had to be taken to hospital by assistant floor manager Margaret Hayhoe. Both women will achieve on-screen fame in the next episode....
The Recovery 7 capsule was loaded onto the trailer at the nearby Clay Cart Bottom.
All the other locations are also nearby: Clay Cart Bridge and Fleet Road, both seen in the transport sequence ...
... and Eel Moor Road where the Doctor recovers the capsule. All the location recording for this episode was done on the 30th January 1971 save for the hijack which was filmed the following day.
Several of the UNIT Soldiers in the sequence. Geoff Brighty, Keith Simons, Roger Minnis and Crawford Lyle return from episode one and they're joined by Roy Brent, who was a Control Room Assistant in episode 1, and Joe Santo. Santo was previously a Resistance Men in The War Games, a UNIT Soldier in The Ambassadors of Death, the Exit guard in the Mutants, a Skonnan Guard in Horns of the Nimon, a Tharil in Warrior's Gate and an Alphan Servant in Trial of a Timelord: Mindwarp. He was in Doomwatch as a Man in The Islanders, In the Dark, High Mountain & Enquiry, Moonbase 3 as José in View of a Dead Planet, Blake's 7 as a Scavenger in Deliverance and Fawlty Towers as the Laundry Van Driver's Mate in The Kipper and the Corpse.
Their Jeep drivers were also in episode 1: Bruce Cox, Richard Pickford and B G Heath. The Low-loader Driver is Michael Duggan and the Helicopter Pilot is a J W Peckowski who I can't find elsewhere.
We mentioned that Derek Ware's Stunt Team Havoc feature in this episode, and Ware himself can be seen as the UNIT Sergeant hanging off the helicopter. In this episode ALL The UNIT Motorcyclists are Stuntmen all making their Doctor Who debuts!
Roy Scammell he makes the most of it playing 4 different roles! In addition to the UNIT Motorcyclist this episode, he's Peterson in the next, the Stunt Double for Liz Shaw in the next two and a Technician in episode 7. He returns as an RSF Sentry, UNIT Soldier, RSF Soldier, Double for RSF Private Wyatt & a Technician in Inferno, during which he set a record for the world's highest Stunt Fall, a Stuntmen (UNIT Soldier/Auton Daffodil Man/Technician) in Terror of the Autons, a Motor Cyclist/UNIT Soldier in Mind of Evil, the Stunt Arranger on Paradise Towers and the Stunt Double for Gavrok on Delta & The Bannermen. In Space: 1999 he was Astronaut Jim Nordstrom in Breakaway, the Space Animal in The Bringers of Wonder part 1 and the Maya Space Animal in The Dorcons. He did stunts for The Italian Job, Carry On... Follow That Camel, stunt doubling for Kenneth Williams, A Clockwork Orange (film), stunt doubling for Malcolm McDowell, Alien and Saturn 3. He also did Stunt Work on the following James Bond films featuring in From Russia with Love, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, GoldenEye and the first Casino Royale.
Roy Street returns as a UNIT Soldier, RSF Soldier & a Technician in Inferno, the Motorcyclist & a Stuntmen (UNIT Soldier/Auton Daffodil Man/Technician) in Terror of the Autons, a Stuntman/Guard on Curse of Peladon and a Stuntman/Soldier, a Stuntmen/Brethren Member, Stuntman/Pikeman & Stunt Double for Doctor Who on Masque of Mandragora. In Carry On Cowboy he's a Horse Rider and he's acted as Horse Master for several films. He did stunt-work for the James Bond films appearing in Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, A View to a Kill, Skyfall and Never Say Never Again, and also worked on Superman, Krull, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Marc Boyle also plays a Policemen in episode 7. He returns as an extra & a Stuntmen (UNIT Soldier/Auton Daffodil Man/Technician) in Terror of the Autons, a Prisoner & a Motor Cyclist/UNIT Soldier in Mind of Evil, an Axon Monster in Claws of Axos, a Castle/Château Guards, Sailor & Stuntmen/Sea Devil in the Sea Devils, Kronos in The Time Monster, one of Irongron's Men and the Fight Arranger on The Time Warrior and a Stuntmen/Exxilon on Death to The Daleks. He appears in Superman II as a C.R.S. Man, The Professionals as Donatti in Kickback and The Living Daylights as a Blayden Grounds MI6 Man. He did stunt-work on Space: 1999 Space Brain, according to IMDB, and doubling for Martin Landau in Bringers Of Wonder, according to catacombs.space1999.net. He has a full house of original Star Wars films appearing in Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi as well as The Italian Job, the James Bond films You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me, Octopussy, Never Say Never Again & Licence to Kill, Superman & Superman III, An American Werewolf in London and Alien'
Stan Hollingsworth returns as the Coach-driver & a Stuntmen (UNIT Soldier/Auton Daffodil Man/Technician) in Terror of the Autons. In Adam Adamant Lives! he's the 1st S.S. Driver in A Sinister Sort of Service and in Blake's 7 he's a Stunt Driver in Bounty.
When we watched this episode for my Episode A Day Blog it was mostly in Black & White, unlike the first episode of this story, and all twelve previous Pertwee episodes. This episode and the remaining five episodes of this story existed as both black & white film recordings, found at BBC Enterprises, and off air colour video tapes recorded in the USA just like Doctor Who & the Silurians. Attempts had been made to recolour the story previously by applying the colour signal from the video tapes to the higher definition film recording. Episode 5 was successfully recoloured in early 1990s at the same time of the initial recolourings of other stories such as The Dæmons, Terror of the Autons & The Silurians. However the remaining episodes were unable to be properly restored due to an odd rainbow patterning effect seen on the videotape. For the 2002 video release additional sections of stable colour were reinstated in episodes 2, 3, 6 & 7.
It was hoped that a complete recolourisation could be achieved for a DVD release, and indeed Ambassadors of Death was originally scheduled to be part of a 2-pack with The Sun Makers (I do worry about the themes of some of that year's 2 packs. Did someone pin the remaining titles to the wall and thrown darts at it to pair them up?). However rising costs from the firm that helped recolour Planet of the Daleks 3 plus a bad UK Pound to US Dollar exchange rate put a halt to that plan.
It is at this point we need to introduce as nutty a piece of technical necromancy as you'll ever come across: the Chroma Dot Colour Recovery Process. Some years ago BBC Engineer James Insell was at home watching an episode of Jon Pertwee Doctor Who that only existed in black & white when it was transmitted on UK Gold. He noticed that occasionally there would be little flashes of colour in the picture. At the time the black & white film prints of the Doctor Who episodes were made engineers had been meant to apply a filter to the process to remove the colour information, stored as a series of coloured dots in your TV picture, from the film recording. In practice this rarely happened. And what James Insell was seeing was his television attempting to read colour information embedded in the black & white film! Insell then set about developing a process to attempt to read the dots from the pictures and decode them and, with the help of other engineers, they incredibly managed it: see The Restoration Team Dalek War article for more detail. The technique has now been used on episodes of Doctor Who, Dad's Army & Are You Being Served?
Dr Taltalian's Chief Assistant Dobson is played by John Moreno, working here under his birth name Juan Moreno. in his only credited Doctor Who appearance. Director Michael Fergusson had used him previously on his 1969 third season Out of the Unknown 1+1=1.5 as a Reporter. He's later in Moonbase 3 as Juan Benavente in Outsiders & Behemoth and The Sweeney as Doad in Hearts and Minds. On the big screen he plays Ferrara in the Roger Moore James Bond film For Your Eyes Only and Douglas Camfield uses him as Maris in 3 episodes of Beau Geste.
James Haswell plays the briefly seen Corporal Champion, who's guarding the captive Collinson. He'd previously been a Guard in the Massacre, a Technician in Seeds of Death, a Pirate Guard (Thrace) in The Space Pirates and a Prison Sentry & Prisoner in The War Games and returns as the P.C. at the Waterside and an Audience Member/Stagehand/Doorman (Fred) in The Talons of Weng-Chiang and a Mute in The Armageddon Factor. He has two episodes of Blake's 7 on his CV appearing in The Harvest of Kairos as a Labourer and Children of Auron as an Auron Technician. He too was in a Michael Fergusson Season 3 Out of the Unknown episodes playing the Plain clothes Man in The Yellow Pill and Fergusson also uses him in Pegasus (see Robert Cawdron in Ambassadors of Death episode 1) as a Sailor aboard the 'Relentless' in the first episode.
Some more Control Room Assistants/Technicians for us, replacing all those seen in episode 1! Keith Simon, also in the same role in episode 6, & Roger Minnis were UNIT Soldiers in the first two episodes. Stella Conway had been in Adam Adamant Lives! as an Old Woman / Woman in Theatre in The Deadly Bullet. Sally Avory plays a Control Room Assistant/Technician again in episode 5.
When we left episode 1 Taltalian was hiding behind the door with a computer UNIT we'd seen in The Invasion.
I was encouraged by comments on Twitter to look further and it's a good job I did because come episode 2 it's been replaced behind the door by a similar unit with lights in the top half but with doors over black tape spools/mounts in the lower half, identical to the one in Out of the Unknown Lambda 1/The Prisoner Arrival!
To it's right is a unit with dials in the top half and red tape spools/mounts covered by doors in the bottom half.
Charitably this could be the same one on the right in Adam Adamant Lives! D for Destruction/The Avengers Mission: Highly Improbable if they've changed the tape spools.
And to it's right there's the unit we saw in episode one/The Invasion.
Besides the one behind the door in episode one, there's three more visible in the set photos, two more on the same wall and a further unit opposite the door. It looks like the two at either end of the walls have swapped positions between recordings!
Two days after this episode was broadcast the eighth Doomwatch episode The Red Sky was shown on BBC1.
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