269 The Ambassadors of Death: Episode Five

EPISODE: The Ambassadors of Death: Episode Five
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 269
STORY NUMBER: 053
TRANSMITTED: Saturday 18 April 1970
WRITER: David Whitaker (and Malcolm Hulke - Uncredited)
DIRECTOR: Michael Ferguson
SCRIPT EDITOR: Terrance Dicks
PRODUCER: Barry Letts
RATINGS: 7.1 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

"Doctor, a large unidentified object is approaching you on collision course!"

The Brigadier shoots at the alien but the bullets have no effect and it escapes. Liz Shaw helps Lennox to escape and sends him to the Brigadier, where he's put into protective custody by Sgt Benton. With all the astronauts suddenly unavailable, The Doctor decides to pilot Cornish's planned flight back to Mars Probe 7. Reegan infiltrates the Space Centre sabotaging the fuel mix to the rocket and Lennox is killed with a Radioactive isotope. Carrington forcibly objects to the rocket's flight but Cornish reminds him he has no power to stop it. On launch the Doctor experiences difficulties but brings the capsule under control. He docks with the Mars Probe, but the ship is then approached by a much larger alien ship.

The last episode opened with the Doctor disagreeing with General Charrington and there's more of the same here:

CARRINGTON: I understand you're going ahead with launching this rocket.
CORNISH: Yes.
CARRINGTON: I absolutely forbid it.
CORNISH: You haven't the authority to forbid it, General.
DOCTOR: What have you got against it?
CARRINGTON: Sir James Quinlan murdered, alien creatures attacking the Space Centre, the sudden death of Doctor Taltalian. This is obviously just the beginning.
CORNISH: The beginning of what?
CARRINGTON: An alien invasion with the collaboration of a foreign power.
DOCTOR: All the more reason for me to go up in that rocket and find out what's happened up there.
CARRINGTON: Are you a trained astronaut, sir?
CORNISH: He's perfectly capable of making the trip. I have his medical report here.
CARRINGTON: You haven't answered my question, Doctor.
DOCTOR: You haven't answered mine. Why are you opposed to this launch?
CARRINGTON: Could this rocket carry a nuclear warhead?
CORNISH: Yes.
CARRINGTON: Then that's what it should be used for.
DOCTOR: Since we don't know what's up there, wouldn't it be more intelligent to carry a man rather than a bomb?
CARRINGTON: I might remind you, gentlemen, that I am responsible for Space Security.
CORNISH: And I am responsible for this Space Centre.
CARRINGTON: This launch was against the expressed wishes of Sir James Quinlan.
DOCTOR: Then I suggest you take the matter up with his successor, when he's been appointed.
CARRINGTON: I shall go to the highest authority to have you stopped.
CORNISH: Then you'd better get on with it, General. We blast off in two hours time.

Just before the Doctor leaves there's a lovely scene between him & The Brigadier:

DOCTOR: Hello, Brigadier. What are you doing here?
BRIGADIER: I thought I'd see you off. They told me to wait here.
DOCTOR: What is this place?
BRIGADIER: Some sort of waiting room, I imagine, in case there's any hold-up for the astronauts.
DOCTOR: Not very impressive for one's last sight of Earth, is it?

WOMAN: Astronaut to proceed now to capsule.
BRIGADIER: Well, goodbye, Doctor. Good luck.
DOCTOR: Goodbye, Brigadier. And thank you.

They've had some differences recently, notably when the Brigadier destroyed the Silurian base but they seem to be settling into a real friendship here which in turn nicely sets up what follows next story.

There's some nice location filming here, shot at Southall Gas Works which very effectively substitutes for the Space Centre Fuel Plant.

We saw the nearby road White Street in Southall during episode 1 that's part of accommodation for workers built round the gas works.

Doctor Who returns here in Invasion of the Dinosaurs but it's also used in The New Avengers: The Midas Touch, Blake's 7: Death-Watch, and several episodes of The Sweeney & The Professionals.

James Clayton appears in this episode only as Private Parker, the UNIT soldier who tries to check Reegan's pass. It's his only Doctor Who appearance. All his other credits on IMDB are Policemen!

Roy Scammell is credited as a Technician in this episode. He was a stunt man, specialising in falls, and a member of the HAVOK stunt agency, so I think we can be sure he's the technician that Reegan pushes off the gantry at the Fuel Plant. He plays an SF Sentry in the next story Inferno, and gets a far bigger fall. Much later he was also the Stunt Arranger for Delta and the Bannermen.

Reegan's latest heavy is Tony Flynn - what happened to John Lord's Masters from episode 4? Flynn is played by Tony Harwood had a long history of being a monster in Doctor Who starting with a Cyberman in The Tomb of the Cybermen, a Yeti in The Abominable Snowmen, Rintan, an Ice Warrior in The Ice Warriors, as well as doubling for Varga in the same story, anther Cyberman in Wheel in Space and another Ice Warrior in The Seeds of Death, Director Michael Ferguson's immediately previous Doctor Who story. He's also the Ice Warrior seen briefly in The War Games. This is the only time he's seen outside an alien's costume!

Carl Conway, the speaking male Control Room Assistant, had appeared as the US Correspondent in The War Machines which was a previous Doctor Who story directed directed by Michael Ferguson. Ferguson also used him on one of his Z-Cars episodes, where Conway plays a Norwegian Sailor in Sheena: Part 1, again on one of his Out of the Unknown episodes, The Yellow Pill, where Conway is the Radio voice, and again on Pegasus where Conway is a Sailor in Devon in The Safety of This Nation.

Conway's female counterpart in the same scene is Joanna Ross is rather odd, delivering her lines in a flat monotone during a stressful situation! There's cool under pressure but that's maybe taking it a bit too far. Ferguson uses her again in his fourth season Out of the Unknown The Last Witness where she plays Barbara. She also appears in the Moonbase 3 episode Achilles Heel playing Jane and seems to have been almost a regular in Up Pompeii! appearing in all 7 episodes of the first series albeit in different roles!

They're joined by a number of Control Room Assistants. Sally Avory, from episode 2, returns alongside Barbara Faye, who doesn't reappear in Doctor Who, Paul Gilman, who also doesn't reappear and has no IMDB entry that I can find, and Dennis Hayward. He was a Scotsmen in Hold/Highlander in The Highlanders and an Auton/Display Mannequin in Spearhead from Space. He returns as one of the Peasants in the Village Centre in State of Decay. He's in Blake's 7 as a Federation Trooper in Warlord and Doomwatch as a Man in The Islanders.

Alan Chuntz, previously one of the Stuntmen/Collinson's Men in episode 1 has swapped sides and now is a Stuntman/UNIT Soldier! Also appearing as a UNIT Soldier this episode, and in episode 7 is David Aldridge who returns as a Humanoid Axon Man in Claws of Axos. In Monty Python's Flying Circus he was a Deviant / Cricketer in The Attila the Hun Show. The other UNIT soldiers in this episode, Doug Roe, Clive Rogers, Keith Simon and Geoff Brighty were all in episode 1:

There's some more Pertwee gurning during this episode as he's trapped in the out of control space capsule:

This is the second time the Doctor has taken a rocket into space after the Second Doctor's efforts in Seeds of Death, also directed by Michael Ferguson.

The big casting highlight here can be found near the start of the episode: Liz and I cheered when he turned up! Rejoining the cast in this episode is John Levene as the promoted Sergeant Benton! Levene had been a Yeti in The Web of Fear before playing Benton, then a Corporal, in the Invasion. He had reprised his Yeti role in The War Games part 10.

In the planning stages for the following story Inferno the director of that story Douglas Camfield decided to employ John Levene as the same character he played in Camfield's previous story The Invasion. Once that decision was made the production team decided to replace the role of the scripted sergeant, whose surname was apparently West, with John Levene's character which provides a nice bit of continuity for the following story and helps to strengthen it's themes. Levene would appear in every Earth bound UNIT story from here till The Android Invasion.

Which brings us to one of the big mysteries of Doctor Who which casts a shadow over one of it's longest serving characters. Only Benton seems to know where Lennox was being held. Surely it isn't him who delivers Lennox's radioactive dinner? And if it wasn't, who did?

This is the only episode of this story that was completely recoloured for the VHS release.

Two day after this episode was broadcast the eleventh Doomwatch episode The Battery People was shown on BBC1.