The Axos of Evil. Doctor Who Story 056: The Claws of Axos

STORY 056: THE CLAWS OF AXOS

Before Greeks bearing gifts is the old saying.  What then when it is aliens who come and present offerings? The Claws of Axos does away with the ugly alien (mostly) by presenting a group of beautiful golden beings.  It doesn't do away with The Master, but at least here, despite having escaped The Doctor and UNIT's clutches, his presence does at least have a note of logic to it (which sadly would not always be the case in future Master stories). 

A strange vessel is headed to Earth.  The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) has to convince Minister Chinn (Peter Bathurst) that it might not be hostile, the idea of firing first and asking questions later so angering him.  The Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney) is caught in between: fearing that the ship is hostile but knowing the Doctor's got a pretty good track record on these sort of things.  The ship proves its worth when rockets Chinn orders fired fail, putting the Earth in danger.

The ship lands near a power plant, and while the landing and 'crew' don't appear to pose any real threat, a hobo that had been taken into the ship prior to UNIT and Chinn's arrival might disprove that idea.  Inside, however, we get strange goings-on: the American UNIT delegate Filer (Paul Grist), who has a mutual affection for the Doctor's Companion Jo Grant (Katy Manning), goes into the ship but is spared, being examined to have high intelligence that could serve useful.  When UNIT, the Doctor, and Chinn go in, the ship finds that the Doctor is alien too.

We also get another surprise.  Being held aboard the ship is none other than The Master (Roger Delgado).  This, however, is not know at the onset. 

The Axons offer UNIT a gift in exchange for taking some of Earth's energy supply to fly off: Axonite, a 'thinking molecule' that can reproduce anything.  It could end world hunger by increasing the size of animals among other things.  Chinn, always seeking a UK advantage, wants exclusive rights but the Axons want it spread worldwide.  The Doctor, however, is not convinced that this is all purely benevolent.

His theories and suspicions are proven correct.  While the other scientists are thrilled with Axonite, he finds that the ship, the beings within it, and the Axonite itself is all part of one giant entity.  When he tested the Axonite to see if it would do wonders, he accidentally triggered Axos' plan: to spread itself over the whole world and drain the life force of everything (and everyone) on Earth.  For Axos to succeed it needed 72 hours to spread everywhere, but the Doctor's test brought a controlled released over that part of England.

Meanwhile, the Master (who traded his services in exchange for his life), attempts a long game: he will get his revenge on the Doctor while also dump Axos and make his escape in the Doctor's TARDIS (given that Axos is holding his for insurance against such duplicity).  However, the Master is caught trying to use the power plants energy to power the TARDIS (oddly, I think the Doctor was planning this to get out of his forced exile) but he holds one ace up his sleeve: he is the only one who can stop the explosion Axos is going to unleash in the power plant, but it does mean destroying Axos itself, where the Doctor has been taken prisoner.  The Master gives the Brigadier a choice: save the Doctor and Jo or save the world?

The Doctor and Jo do manage to escape, and the Doctor learns that Axos wants to use his knowledge of time travel to now go and devour through space AND time.  It is here that the Doctor appears to join forces with The Master, telling him they could escape Earth together.  The Master helps him make the repairs to the TARDIS, and they materialize inside Axos.  Here, the Doctor tells them he will join both TARDI but instead traps Axos in a time loop.  The Master escapes to his own TARDIS in the chaos, and while the Doctor manages to free himself from the time loop he finds that his escape is short-lived: the Time Lords have programmed the TARDIS to always return to 20th Century Earth to his great frustration.

"It seems I'm some type of galactic yo-yo," the Doctor retorts to a clearly-pleased Jo and Brig.

I can't say that The Claws of Axos is my favorite Third Doctor story so far, but I can say that despite some obvious limitations it is lifted by some of Pertwee's best moments as the Third Doctor.

A big problem was both the sets and the effects.  In regards to the former they made me think of all things, an Ed Wood movie.  When I saw the Doctor struggle against the actual claws of Axos I could only think of poor Bela Lugosi trying so hard (and failing so spectacularly) to convince anyone that the monster in Bride of the Monster was real.  Just as Lugosi clearly was moving the tentacles himself, so anyone caught in 'the claws of Axos' appeared to be operating them (or that there were people flailing their arms to attempt to simulate movement).  Even what was suppose to be offices looked a little fake, and the actual Axos itself, while a good try, looked like a set.

The special effects similarly have not worn well.  The opening shot of the ship sailing towards Earth looks so rubbish and the actual aliens when unmasked looked like spaghetti come to life.  It is clear also when Axonite grows a frog that it is just an image being expanded or shrunk based on the plot's necessity. 

However, credit should be given where it's due, and Michael Ferguson's direction did manage to do great things with the story and the budget limitations.  Certain montages are creepy in their psychedelic weirdness, and when the hobo's body melted, what we saw was quite effective overall.  Ferguson also brought great performances out of everyone. 

Pertwee's performance in The Claws of Axos is I think the best so far of his tenure.  Pertwee was so convincing in Episodes Three and Four that I was never sure if he was playing a long game himself to deceive the Master and Axos (even if it meant misleading Jo and UNIT) or if he really did want to take advantage of the situation to try and escape his exile.  Pertwee managed to make us believe that he would work with the Master, that he might want to leave UNIT, and that maybe he was doing it all to save Earth. 

Manning also shows that Jo was fiercely loyal to the Doctor, and while the subplot of Filer and Grant maybe wasn't as explored as it might have been, both Manning and Grist communicated that they were interested in each other.  Comic relief of sorts was provided by Bathurst, who as Chinn (I imagine a pun on his weight and his double chin) clearly made the minister a total idiot.

Here is where Bob Baker and Dave Martin's screenplay allows for great subtle humor to show up.  In Episode Two Chinn communicates with his superior.  "Minister, will you scramble or shall I, sir?" he says.  The voice on the other line says, "Just your report, Chinn.  I'm sure that will be quite garbled enough."  Chinn does not get the meaning behind the message.  As we go through The Claws of Axos, we see he (and government officials in general) are shown as dunderheads. 

Delgado is equally brilliant as the Master, that mixture of menace and charm working to full effect.  In some ways, his naivete of joining forces with the Doctor and believing that perhaps they could escape is almost sweet.  However, when he threatened the Brigadier to either save the world or save the Doctor, there is a coldness to him that says it might be logical, but it wouldn't pain him to see his nemesis killed.     

We also see Courtney's Brigadier to hold his own, his frustration with bureaucratic blundering clear, and also his hesitancy to allow the Master to try to destroy Axos with the Doctor and Jo within.  The Brigadier genuinely struggles with this, albeit briefly, but for a man who blew up the Silurians without batting an eye this moment is an evolution for him.  He's not the singularly military mind at all, but one who is weighing the costs of his decisions.  I'd say that the Doctor too is taking some notes from the Brig, for he suspects something sinister in something that appears so benign.

The Claws of Axos suffers from some weak-looking sets and effects, but it moves fast and has great performances.  I think that if it had been a six-part story, it would have been disastrous. However, at four it works well, has witty moments, and have a few twists and turns that make it if not as good as it could have been, certainly a story worth clutching.   

The very best of enemies

9/10 

Next Story: Colony in Space

You've Got To Change Your Evil Mind. Doctor Who Story 056: The Mind of Evil

STORY 056: THE MIND OF EVIL

The tricks of the mind are nothing new to The Doctor.  In The Mind Robber the whole story was built around how one being, The Master of Fiction, manipulated the space travelers to build up his universe.  In The Mind of Evil, we see another Master attempting world conquest by appealing to humanity's desire to 'improve' the mind.  The Mind of Evil does a wonderful job of integrating the Master into the story to where we believe it is possible to have him behind the machinations and not just a convenient villain to use, and while I quibble at a few aspects on the whole I was surprisingly pleased how well The Mind of Evil worked both visually and storywise.

The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and his Companion Jo Grant (Katy Manning) go to Strangmoor Prison to see the Keller Process.  Through a machine, criminals can have all their negative impulses removed, making them docile but functional members of society.  Barnham (Neil McCarthy) is the latest criminal to undergo the Keller Process.  This time, some things remain the same: the prisoners are in an uproar whenever the Keller Machine is used.  Some things, however, are different: under the eye of Professor Kettering (Simon Lack) the Keller Process creates a particularly painful reaction to Barnham.  The Doctor is fiercely opposed to the Process and insists the machine be destroyed.  Needless to say, he is ignored, even after two people end up dead near the machine, including Kettering, who died by drowning in a dry room.

In a seemingly unrelated story, UNIT Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) has his hands full with a World Peace Conference.  The Chinese delegate's security detail, headed by Captain Chin Lee (Pik-Sem Lim) comes to the Brigadier with various complaints.  The Chinese delegate's room has been robbed, despite round-the-clock surveillance from UNIT.  However, she herself has stolen the papers, under some form of mind control.  The Chinese delegate now turns up dead, and despite his objections the Doctor is forced back to UNIT HQ by Captain Yates (Richard Franklin), with Jo staying behind.  The Doctor puts things together when he learns that a Chinese girl (Captain Lee) is missing, because a 'Chinese girl' had assisted the mysterious Professor Keller in installing the machine.

Professor Keller unmasks himself (literally).  It is The Master (Roger Delgado), plotting a wild scheme for world domination.  UNIT has been placed in charge of destroying The Thunderbolt, a missile so dangerous it has been universally banned and will be destroyed.  He will take it and use it for blackmail, and failing that, launch it at the Peace Conference and start a world war.  The Master takes advantage of a situation at Strangmoor: a riot where the next person up for the Keller Process, Mailer (William Marlowe) attempts an escape but only manages to take over the prison, taking Jo as a hostage.

The Master offers Mailer a chance to escape with a fortune if he helps him use the prisoners as a private army to seize the Thunderbolt and use it against his enemies, especially the Doctor.  The prison changes hands repeatedly: Jo manages to start a counter-revolution and the guards briefly retake Strangmoor until the Master leads the counter-counter-revolution.  The Doctor is now forced to help the Master, especially since the Keller Machine (which contains a parasite that uses a person's greatest fear to kill them) is growing out of control.  It soon takes a life of its own, moving at will and apparently killing at will too.

The Brigadier learns the Thunderbolt has been taken and mistakenly believes the Master took it to Strangmoor.  Leading a daring raid, he retakes the prison (saving the Doctor and Jo in the process) but discovers through Captain Yates, who was taken prisoner, that it is being stored in a warehouse not far.  The Doctor makes a bargain with the Master: the missile in exchange for the dematerialization unit he took from the Master's TARDIS in their last encounter.  The Master agrees.  Barnham is brought along with the machine because he no longer has evil impulses and thus the machine has no power over him.  However, in the chaos of the confrontation between the Master and the Doctor the machine, the Thunderbolt, and Barnham are all destroyed.

Worse still, the Master has managed to recover his dematerializing unit, while the Doctor is still stuck on Earth in his forced exile on orders of the Time Lords.

The Mind of Evil is a rarity in that it is one of a handful of non-Dalek stories where at six episodes, it does not feel stretched out.  In fact, every ending works, leading to a more and more exciting conclusion.  Even the fact that we had few settings (Strangmoor dominated the story) and that the Peace Conference was basically forgotten by Episode Three does not hamper The Mind of Evil one bit.

Screenwriter Doug Houghton had some brilliant ideas within the story.  Chief among them was to keep the Doctor, the Master, and Jo basically separated for almost half of the story.  It allows for the Doctor to solve this mystery of who is behind the Keller Process and the attacks at the delegates, for the Master's scheme to be exposed, and for Jo to take a more proactive stance.

Certainly Katy Manning is in top for in The Mind of Evil.  She is not the sweet-but-dim Companion she was in danger of becoming.  Instead, she comes across as a kind person (she is hit especially hard by Barnham's death) but we also see that she is unafraid.  Without the Doctor to help her in any way, she uses her wits and inner strength to literally kick-start the short-lived retaking of Strangmoor from Mailer and his lot.  What we see in Jo Grant is a girl who is strong, brave, and endearing. 

It is also a great showcase for Courtney, who is allowed a bit of humor when in Episode Five he goes for a Cockney accent when masquerading as a lorry driver.  Courtney and Pertwee work so well together, allowing for great humor to lighten up a series of killings.  When the Doctor is taken to see the Chinese delegate, someone mentions the delegate speaks a specific Chinese language.  Referring to the ethnic group, the Doctor says, "So he's Hokkien," the Doctor states.  "No, he's Chinese," the Brigadier replies.  As usual, the Brigadier missed the point of the Doctor's comment, making him both a bit thickheaded but endearing.

Courtney and Pertwee show how great a duo they make when in a tense opening to Episode Six, we find it is the Brigadier who saves the Doctor from Mailer's gun.  "Thank you very much, Brigadier," the Doctor says, then adds snappishly, "but do you think for once you can come BEFORE the nick of time?"  The unflappable Brigadier merely looks on and says, "Good to see you again, Doctor."  Here we see how strong and deep their relationship is.

As for the Doctor and the Master, we get a master class in performing.  Pertwee gives the Doctor a full range of emotions: he is light when arriving at the prison, serious when he sees what he believes to be wrong, terror when the machine attacks him, respect when speaking to the Chinese, and a whiff of anger when he realizes the Master can get away while he can't.  Delgado makes the Master a calm, cool, elegant figure, a worthy adversary to the Doctor.  However, we are allowed to see under the veneer of suave calm there is a deeply frightened figure. 

Nothing captures this more than when we are shown the Master's greatest fear.  Each person who has come under the power of the Keller Machine dies by what they fear the most.  For one, it was rats, and another, water.  The Doctor is almost killed when he relives the horror of an exploding world (flashbacks to Inferno).  As for the Master?  His greatest horror is The Doctor Laughing Triumphantly over him. 

Director Timothy Combe has some simply brilliant moments in Mind of Evil.  Granted, the special effects on Classic Doctor Who were never the most avant-garde or lavish, but Combe did wonders with what he had.  The Keller Machine's power of disorientation is done with distorted images and twisted camera work.  There is a beautiful transition from the Doctor to the Master in Episode Four that is astonishing.  Dudley Simpson's score is in turns chilling and exciting.

If there were anything to quibble over it is that yes, some of the special effects are noticeably bad.  The Thunderbolt's appearance is so patently blue/green screen it doesn't even match.  The 'Dragon' that appears in Episode Three is similarly laughable, so much so that its appearance is cut down considerably so as to not draw attention to how fake it is. 

I would also argue that the whole 'parasite inside the machine' bit never worked for me.  It didn't go anywhere and I would have preferred that the Keller Machine just be the Master's own creation that spun wildly out of his control. 

Finally, it should be mentioned that the restoration work on The Mind of Evil is simply brilliant.  The Mind of Evil was virtually lost, and while filmed in color only black-and-white copies existed.  However, the colorization process was worth the wait and release delay, as I was completely unaware that it was not the original print I was watching, but instead a painstaking restoration.  The story simply never looked better.

Minus a few hiccups The Mind of Evil gives one a worthy villain, an exciting series of episodes, and some fine bits of acting and action.  Combining this with great music and camera work we find that in the final analysis, this is indeed a beautiful Mind. 

Honestly, Jo, who'd think I'D "talk Baby" or 'Horse',
let alone hop up and down
screaming about a 'Golden Ticket'?

9/10

Next Story: The Claws of Axos

The Genesis of The Master. Doctor Who Story 055: Terror of the Autons

STORY 055: TERROR OF THE AUTONS

Terror of the Autons, the first story of the Third Doctor's second season, has so much new in it.  It has a new Companion; it has a new menace who will become iconic.  It also has the return of the Autons, who were the first monsters the Third Doctor faced off in his first story.  Terror of the Autons has one or two flaws (and they're a bit hard to look past): the special effects that now make it look rather clumsy and cheap and it suffers in comparison to its predecessor.  Minus that though, the four part story holds up beautifully and introduces both the very good and the very evil into the Doctor Who mythos.

The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) is still in exile on Earth, and though he's doing the best he can by being the 'scientific advisor' to UNIT, he still yearns to fix his dematerializing unit and use his TARDIS to travel through time and space again.  Between his last adventure and now, Liz Shaw has elected to go back to Cambridge.  In conversation about her departure, The Doctor's friend/irritant Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney), repeats what she supposedly said, that the Doctor only wanted someone who would hand him his test tubes and tell him how great he was.   The Brigadier has arranged for a new Assistant, a pleasant and cheerful girl who is a member of UNIT, Miss Josephine 'Jo' Grant (Katy Manning).  The Doctor is highly displeased that someone who isn't as bright as Shaw has taken her place, but despite himself the Doctor doesn't have the hearts to fire her.

Meanwhile, strange things are occurring in a circus.  A strange figure dressed in a black Nehru jacket has materialized.  He introduces himself as The Master (Roger Delgado), and with his powers of hypnosis soon takes control of the circus.  However, he isn't there to be the ringmaster of the greatest show on Earth.  He's there to use it as part of a nefarious plan to take over the world.   He steals the translucent polyhedron unit that UNIT so foolishly loaned to a museum.  This technology was from the battle against the Nestenes taken after the events of Spearhead From Space.



Nothing says 'evil' like a black Nehru jacket...

The Doctor is angered by UNIT's casual manner with this technology, but he isn't alarmed when a Time Lord appears warning him that The Master is on Earth.  "An unimaginative plodder," the Doctor says dismissively.  However, since 'their last encounter' (indicating they have a past), the Master has grown more dangerous. 

The Master now has taken over a plastics factory, pushing the weak-willed Rex Farrell (Michael Wisher) into making a new type of plastic.  The Master will now create his new Auton Army, joining him in an alliance with the Nestene to take over the world.  Anything made out of plastic can now be a weapon in the Master's arsenal, including chairs and telephone cords.  The Master has temporarily hypnotized Jo, almost getting her to kill the Doctor, UNIT Sergeant Benton (John Levene) and new UNIT member Captain Mike Yates (Richard Franklin).  However, with the Doctor's help, she recovers.  He also takes the Master's dematerialization unit from his TARDIS, but it won't work on the Doctor's model.  However, it does (unknown to the Master) force the Master to remain on Earth since now HIS TARDIS won't work either.

The Doctor now is on the hunt for The Master, and the Master is one step ahead.  The Master eliminates Rex's father via a monstrous troll doll that can come alive, and now plans to aid in the Auton invasion by bringing chaos to the world via plastic daffodils that will kill thousands.  The nation, so thrown into confusion over these 'random' deaths, will not be prepared to handle the invasion. 

The Doctor, with Jo's help, has gotten wind of this plan, forcing the Master to move the invasion forward.  However, in the end the Doctor makes the Master realize that to an Auton, they will see no difference between human and Time Lord.   They make a last-minute alliance to reverse the invasion, but the Master escapes in the battle between UNIT and the Auton army. 

In the end, the Doctor is not displeased that his old nemesis has escaped.  Far from it.  He's actually looking forward to it. 



The Dangers of 'Flower Power'

In any ranking of the best Doctor Who stories of all time, you will always find Robert Holmes' name on at least one in the Top Ten.  Holmes, who created the Autons, brings them back for another brilliant turn (though sadly, they were not to be seen again until, curiously enough, NuWho's very first episode, Rose).   The Autons themselves are among the Great Doctor Who monsters, so it is extraordinary that even someone as brilliant as Robert Holmes managed to top himself by creating The Master, always a perennial in any Greatest Doctor Who Villains/Monsters List.

The Master came about when script editor Terrance Dicks and producer Barry Letts noted that the Doctor and the Brigadier were much in the mold of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.  That being the case, they needed a Moriarty, and they could not have come up with both a better villain and better actor to play the role.  With apologies to Anthony Ainley, Eric Roberts, and/or John Simm, as far as I am concerned there will be only ONE Master, and that is Roger Delgado.   The others work very much in Delgado's shadow, for he gave the best performance of everyone in Terror of the Autons. 

I joke that he needed only a black Nehru jacket to show he was evil, but there was more to that in Delgado's turn.  Delgado's Master was suave, sophisticated, and most importantly never hysterical.  He had a calm and cool demeanor that allowed him to easily control and manipulate almost everyone that came his way.  Even when the Master and the Doctor finally meet in Episode Four, we see that Delgado can play at a traditional villain motif (the out-of-control ego) and make it believable.  "You are my intellectual equal," the Master taunts his fellow Time Lord before adding, "well, almost."   Even when dispatching people to their deaths (and the Master certainly kills people) with his tissue compression eliminator (a parody of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver which shrinks people to death rather than heals as the Doctor's device does) or even by pushing them off high towers, Delgado never hams it up.  Instead, in his cool and rational demeanor, Delgado shows that the Master is an extremely efficient but dangerous being.

Pertwee appears to be the complete opposite to Delgado's suave and detached manner.  He's short with people, prone to snap at those who either do things wrong in his eyes or get in his way with bureaucratic bungling.  However, underneath that Pertwee shows the Doctor as also kind and protective.  We see him build rapport with his new Companion in Terror of the Autons, where we go from the formal "Miss Grant" to the endearing "Jo" by the end.  We see that the Doctor is a good guy in Episode One, where after ranting about how the new girl (who inadvertently had ruined an experiment when she stopped a fire) was not up to snuff, he falters and welcomes her softly when presented with the terrible prospect of having to fire her himself. 

Similarly, Katy Manning's Jo Grant proves instantly successful and endearing as the new Companion.  She is a very kind, sweet, loyal, and brave girl.  Her genuinely caring and gentle disposition should not be thought of as making her either dumb or weak.  Far from it: despite orders to remain at UNIT HQ, she goes and follows the Doctor to the circus and was able to help rescue him.  She is sweet but not dumb, more naïve, eager to help and eager to learn.

The other actors: regular, new cast members, and guest stars were all brilliant.  Courtney owns the role of the Brigadier, as does Levene as Sergeant Benton (although sadly he wasn't as much in the story).  The more dominant part was for Franklin and Captain Yates (pulling rank, perhaps).  The script appears to be attempting to build a budding romance between Yates and Jo,

Robert Holmes also came up with some wonderfully witty lines.  In Episode One the Master tells the weak Mr. Farrell, "Don't worry about him.  You're under a new thumb now."  When he is asked who he is, The Master replies, "I am many things," which brings to mind (wittingly or not) the idea of the Devil, who also goes by many names.  Holmes even allows for moments of humor to come in.  In Episode Four the Doctor calls out desperately for the Brigadier as the Master has manipulated the plastic telephone cord to start strangling the Doctor.  The Brigadier yanks the cord from the wall, eliminating the Master's control over it.  "Afraid I cut your connection," the Brigadier tells an astounded Doctor with a perfectly straight face and not a drop of irony.  It is clear the Brigadier clearly missed the joke and was completely unaware of how it sounded.

In terms of plot Terror of the Autons holds up very well: the story builds slowly and gives us moments of great fright.  A man being smothered to death by a plastic chair has to rank among the most gruesome deaths on Doctor Who.  In fact, the story was quite controversial.  Police objected to when a couple of police officers, who appeared to come to the rescue, turned out to be Autons coming to kill Jo and the Doctor.  Police feared that children would not seek their help, fearing that the police officers too were actually alien invaders.  As part of the plot, an ugly troll doll is activated to kill.  Dicks, Letts, and Holmes (according to Dicks) made every effort to make it clear that this was not a nice doll, but Dicks tells how, after Terror of the Autons' broadcast, children refused to sleep with their teddy bears, terrified that they would come to life and strangle them while they slept. 

About the only flaw in the story is how it ends rather quickly, a mere suggestion that the Autons might not be as friendly to The Master as he thinks they might be sends him switching sides almost immediately. 

In terms of other aspects, it is clear that the special effects do not hold up as well as the story itself.  Certain scenes are immediately apparent that they took place in front of a green screen.  Bits with the ugly troll doll (in particular an embarrassing moment in Episode Three when the doll is suppose to be 'attacking' Jo but was clearly just tossed at Manning) now look almost amateurish.  One bad aspect that isn't special-effects related is the appearance of a Time Lord dressed like an upper-class English gentleman (complete with derby).  His literal popping in has to be among the worst intros in the series' history both Classic and NuWho).  It comes across as almost comical (the Doctor certainly saw it that way) and is a bit bungled in my view.

Apart from these small missteps that date the story, Terror of the Autons holds up well, and introduces both a charming new Companion and one of the most legendary Doctor Who villains in the series' history.  It almost makes the Autons irrelevant, but it is obvious that this plastic will be preserved as among the best of the lot. 

All right, I'll say it...this life in plastic, it's fantastic!

Grant It, She's HOT!

9/10

Next Story: The Mind of Evil

A Tale of Two Seventh Seasons

CLASSIC DOCTOR WHO SEASON SEVEN VS.
NUWHO SEASON SEVEN: A COMPARISON


By happy coincidence I finished reviewing the seventh season of Classic Doctor Who at the same time the seventh season of the revived Doctor Who finished.  In another curious twist, I also reviewed the first time both Classic and NuWho tackled parallel universes in Inferno and Rise of the Cybermen Parts 1 & 2 respectively.  On another post I will tackle how the Classic and Revived Who worked with that premise, but for now I will turn my eyes to Season Seven.

Classic Who's Seventh Season, which was Third Doctor Jon Pertwee's debut season, consisted of four stories: Spearhead From Space, Doctor Who & The Silurians, The Ambassadors of Death, and Inferno.  With the exception of Spearhead From Space at four episodes of twenty-five minutes (or around an hour and forty minutes), all other stories were seven episodes long (or almost three hours long).

Here are the scores for Classic Doctor Who Season Seven:

Spearhead From Space: 10/10
Doctor Who & The Silurians: 10/10
The Ambassadors of Death: 9/10
Inferno: 10/10

Average Score: 9.75

Now let us look at the Seventh Season of NuWho, which is Matt Smith's third and final season.  Going by the official count, including the Christmas Special, we have fifteen episodes, ranging from forty-five to sixty minutes.

Here are the scores for Revived Doctor Who Season Seven:

The Doctor, The Widow, and The Wardrobe: 4/10
Asylum of the Daleks: 3/10
Dinosaurs on A Spaceship: 4/10
A Town Called Mercy: 3/10
The Power of Three: 3/10
The Angels Take Manhattan: 3/10
The Snowmen: 2/10
The Bells of Saint John: 2/10
The Rings of Akhaten: 4/10
Cold War: 2/10
Hide: 3/10
Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS: 2/10
The Crimson Horror: 3/10
Nightmare in Silver: 1/10
The Name of the Doctor: 3/10

Average Score: 2.8

What could account for such wild discrepancy between these two Season/Series Sevens?  There are some factors to take into consideration.  First off, Classic Who was not dependent on having story arcs.  We go from the Autons to the Silurians to the Ambassadors to the parallel universe with nothing apart from the characters themselves to tie any of the stories together.  NuWho, conversely, revels in long story arcs which sometimes don't end up making sense or are hammered into the stories.  We've seen long story arcs since Doctor Who was revived, from "Bad Wolf" in Season One to last year's "Death and Transfiguration of River Song" and this season's "The Impossible Girl" storyline.  That's just how NuWho is working now.  It now has to have season-long story arcs, rather than an independent series of adventures. I may not care for it but there it is.

Second, Classic Who had much longer to work with stories.  If one attempted to work a Classic Who story to Revived Who's standard operating procedure, we would have three-episode stories.  Though plausible, it would be difficult to put in everything in The Silurians into a one-episode story.  It also might have made something like Cold War or Nightmare in Silver better if it had been allowed to go beyond the rapid pace of a fifty-odd minute show (though personally, I highly doubt something as abysmal as Nightmare in Silver could have been improved if it were given the running time of Lawrence of Arabia).  As an addendum to that, we should remember that this is the first NuWho season that had no two-part stories, so we have to take that into consideration.

Still, there has to be a reason why no Revived Who Season Seven story managed to get even a 5 (which would make it average) while Classic Who Season Seven failed to make it a Perfect 10 only once (and that was by the thinnest of hairs). 

He wore bow ties
before bow ties were cool.

I think the first reason Classic Who Series Seven succeeded while Revived Who Series Seven collapsed is due to the Doctors themselves.  Classic Who had a lot riding on its seventh season.  As the debut season for a new Doctor, the Third Doctor was starting fresh.  Pertwee could shape the Doctor any way he wanted, and in fact the producers had hired him in part because pre-Who, he was known as a light comic actor (or as one DVD special feature put it, as "an eccentric cabaret performer").  Who producers hoped that Pertwee would work in the funny voices he was known for in the radio show The Navy Lark, and make the Third Doctor even lighter than Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor (the Cosmic Hobo, as he was nicknamed) had been.

Jon Pertwee, however, immediately rejected this idea.  Instead, he shaped the Third Doctor as a man of action, one who faced dangers head-on and was above all else, serious.  Many times Pertwee spoke of his costume, in particular of the cape with which he wanted to convey to children the image of the wings of a mother hen protecting her chicks.  Pertwee was always conscious of the Doctor being a hero, not through use of force but through the use of the mind.  He also said that one could never 'send it up' or spoof Doctor Who within an episode (MAYBE during rehearsals, but not on-camera).  There could be humor in Doctor Who, but the Doctor himself must never be an object of ridicule.  If one sees the Third Doctor and/or his stories, you always see that both were playing it straight; never dull, just with seriousness.

This is something that I can't say about Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor.  Any Doctor who 'lays down backing vocals' in a rap song for no discernible reason stands to make fun of the character, to not take things seriously, to turn him into a joke.  Smith's Eleventh Doctor has been described to me as 'child-like', but the more I see of him the more I don't think of him as 'child-like'.  I think of him more as 'imbecile', barely able to function in society, a danger to himself and others.

His costume was the subject of endless fascination...with him and him alone.  "Bow ties are cool."  "Fezzes are cool."  Wandering around with a bow tie, a fez, and a mop...these aren't the actions of someone I would consider rational, let alone heroic.

Side note: on a couple of occasions the Third Doctor DID have to dress up in a silly costume (once as a cleaning lady I believe) but it was made perfectly clear that he did it for a perfectly logical reason (to disguise himself and get inside someplace undetected), and both the Third Doctor and Pertwee always hated when he had to dress up in these guises, feeling it made the Doctor look slightly ridiculous.  One can only imagine what he would think of 'fezzes and Stetsons'...



What an ugly face,
I mean, fez...

Eleven's goofy dance at Amy and Rory's wedding in The Big Bang Part 2, his perpetual befuddlement at just about anything, his calling Rory's father "Mr. Pond" (which eliminates the oft-heard excuse that he thought Rory took on Amy's name because he thought she was the dominant one...so dominant that Rory's DAD took his daughter-in-law's name too? I think not), his jumping on the table and declaring himself "Mr. Clever" in Nightmare in Silver...these actions look like those of either a clown or a flat-out bonkers figure, not someone I could rally around or look on as 'heroic'.



You'd never catch Jon Pertwee/The Third Doctor 'talking Baby', going on about his fezzes, jumping up and down screaming about his 'Golden Ticket', or asking for same-sex marriage equality for horses...

Even worse, Eleven is quick to defer to others: he defers to River in the piloting of the TARDIS (a particularly sore point w/me, given that the 'whooshing' sound exists for all TARDISes despite the foolish 'joke' about 'the parking brake'), he lets Madame Vastra and Jenny take on a greater role in their stories to where, in The Crimson Horror, THEY rescued HIM rather than vice-versa. 

Third would never have allowed his Companions this kind of leeway.  In fact, many conflicts emerged between the Doctor and The Brigadier BECAUSE didn't see eye to eye.  The respect was there, but their different worldviews were what gave the show drama.  Conversely, it's Eleventh's willingness to let others take charge (to coin a phrase, let the Doctor 'leads from behind') that makes his stories rather daft.

The Third Doctor had a strong antiestablishment streak, a bit of a rebel, but one who cared about his Companions and friends.  The Eleventh Doctor is mentally unstable, unaware of basics of human existence (such as how marriages work), but he cared about his Companions and friends.  Some things never change...



She's smart.
He's smarter.
No flirting.

One thing that IS different in the relationship between Doctor and Companion.  Pertwee was very clear: in one of his last interviews he said there was never any hint of romance between the Doctor and his Companion(s).  The Doctor was very fond of his Companions, but fondness, Pertwee said, was quite different from desire.  Smith, on the other hand, has almost ALL of his Companions in fits of erotic mania.  Granted, this is a carry-over from David Tennant: Rose was in love with him, Martha was in love with him, Captain Jack was in lust for him, and with Smith, Amy tried to rape him, and River...that's a whole other topic.

In Classic Who's Season Seven, Companion Liz Shaw expressed no sexual yearnings for The Doctor, only respect for his abilities (a respect that was mutual).  In NuWho's Season Seven, can we say the same about Clara? 

When you are with the Third Doctor, you knew he was the smartest person in the room.
When you are with the Eleventh Doctor, you knew he was the dumbest person in the room.


Second, it is the stories themselves.  The Third Doctor stories tackled very deep subjects, such as the fear of 'the other' in The Silurians and The Ambassadors of Death, and the dangers of preemptive strikes in the former.  The stories they told were not just fantasy/adventure/science-fiction stories (although they were all that).  They could be read as allegory, speaking of greater concerns that could not be addressed openly. 

I look at Spearhead From Space.  It's a fast-paced story that builds beautifully and is filmed with the brilliance of a feature film (since it was filmed by a film crew owing to a television strike, it does have that cinematic quality).  However, if one sees Episode Four during the actual Auton invasion, we can see that although money was spared, what one can imagine can be quite terrifying in and of itself.  When the Autons are killing bystanders in the streets, it can be read as almost prescient about random acts of violence or even terrorist acts.  Though not graphic it is still a terrifying sequence.

Eleventh's stories, conversely, are hampered by their fixation on A.) the Companions being the primary focus, and B.) the story arcs from which there can be little to no deviation.  If you look at every NuWho Series Seven story, there is nothing there that can be called 'deep' or allegorical. 

I suppose if you want goofy adventure stories a la Dinosaurs on a Spaceship that's fine.  There is nothing wrong with fun, goofy adventures.  However, even within the stories themselves, there is little internal logic to them, let alone a logic that can hold the long story arcs NuWho goes for.



He's stupid.
She's trigger-happy.
Twenty year age gap in real life.
A Love Story for the Ages...

Take Cold War for example.  From the Troughton story The Ice Warriors onwards, it was established that the Ice Warriors were basically what you saw...'Martians' who spoke with elongated 's' sounds and looked like somewhat lumbering figures.  Now, we not only get the 'last of their kind' tripe (something we've seen far too often) but they are really tortoise-like, their shells covering something that looks like a shallow rip-off of Alien. 

Even worse, we get more pleas to 'feel' for the Ice Warrior because he's sad he's all alone, and a remarkably lazy Deus Ex Machina (a group of hereto unknown Ice Warriors can sweep the lost Ice Warrior away at the last moment).  And WHO exactly was taking pictures aboard a secret Soviet submarine which could find their way from the vast Russian archives to a website to allow those annoying kids to discover their nanny Clara was a time traveler? 

TEARS defeated the Snowmen? 
The Doctor managed to ignore River Song (or her hologram) until he managed to stop said hologram from slapping him?
The Doctor manages to ride a motorcycle up on the OUTSIDE of a building?
The Doctor keeps saying, "Doctor Who?" when the Dalek Oswin erases all their memories of him?

Adventure stories are one thing.  Insulting the audience's intelligence (in particular those who know the show pre-Rose) is another.

I think that for me the reason Classic Who Series Seven is brilliant and Revived Who Series Seven is abysmal is due to a few factors.  Classic Who took things seriously.  Revived Who does not.  Classic Who had an intelligent hero.  Revived Who has a certifiably insane man.

Above all else, Classic Who Series Seven has well-written stories that are deep and (special effects aside) still hold up.  NuWho Series Seven has a massive budget but allows its visual wizardry to drown out anything cohesive or logical.  In short, Revived Who's Seventh Season is the Seinfeld of Doctor Who: they are episodes about nothing.  This, above all, is why I think Classic Doctor Who Season Seven was a smashing success, and Revived Doctor Who Season Seven was a complete disaster.

River Song a Sex Symbol?
Don't make me laugh...

The Fire This And Next Time. Doctor Who Story 054: Inferno

STORY 054: INFERNO

The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) has a terrible dilemma: he is stuck on Earth with no way out.  He is now in the unenviable position of having to wait for things to happen rather than take charge.  However, he is making the best of it, working as the 'scientific advisor' to the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (aka UNIT) with his newest Companion, Dr. Liz Shaw (Caroline John) and under the protective (and at times, antagonistic) gaze of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) who can be called something akin to the Doctor's friend.  So far things are going rather well, but what if everything the Doctor knew about those around him was thrown in disarray?  What if he found himself in a world both similar and unfamiliar, where those closest to him turned to be the most dangerous?

Inferno, the first Doctor Who story that dealt with paralle universes, is at seven episodes (or around three and a half-hours) a long story to which conclude Series/Season Seven, but it that time it is a breathless and wild run, filled with action, adventure, suspense, some astonishing acting, a thoughtful plot, and even a few moments of romance and comedy.

The Doctor is asked to come look at the Inferno Project, an effort to drill straight on through to the Earth's core, which in theory should provide vast supplies of cheap energy.  The project, overseen by UNIT, is headed up by Professor Stahlmann (Olaf Pooley) a cranky, short-tempered, cantankerous man who will bridge no dissent.  Over his objections, project director Sir Keith Gold (Christopher Benjamin) insists on bringing in Greg Sutton (Derek Newark), an oil rig expert.  Sutton warns against going in further, and while Stahlmann's assistant Petra Williams (Sheila Dunn) slowly sees his side the bad professor will not budge.

The Doctor is also interested in Inferno, or particularly the nuclear power it is using, as a way to get the TARDIS to dematerialize and allow him to overcome the time/space travel embargo the Time Lords have imposed on him since he was exiled to Earth at the end of The War Games.   The Doctor still gives out warnings as to the potential danger of the Inferno Project, but no one will listen.  However, the Doctor has problems of his own.  In a desire to regain control of the TARDIS, something has gone horribly wrong and he travels 'sideways' in time (as a side note, we see that Doctor Who beat Lost in the 'sideways' department by a good thirty years), forcing him to enter a parallel world where he meets people who are similar to those he knows but who are not like them either.

For example, the Brigade Leader Lethbridge-Stewart is a fascist ultra-militaristic figure who stamps out all opposition.  Section Leader Shaw, while still highly intelligent, is also a brute who believes might makes right.  The biggest change is that of Platoon Under Leader Benton.  On our world, Sergeant Benton (John Levene) is a very nice, sweet, almost innocent fellow who despite being in the military never seemed capable of harming anyone.  That isn't the case with the Platoon Under Leader, who is ruthless, uncaring, and extremely violent.

On this Earth, the Inferno project is much further along.  The Doctor desperately warns them of the danger, but again he is not only refused but seen with suspicion by everyone else except a growingly curious Liz. The parallel Stahlmann is determined to stop the parallel Sir Keith from interrupting the work.  Here, it involves getting Sir Keith extremely lost, but tragically is killed off screen.   Here, we do reach the Earth's core, and disaster strikes.  Reaching the Earth's core unleashes all the volcanic fury, which means the Earth becomes a molten mass which would destroy the world.

While the parallel world is collapsing, things on our world are going along as scheduled, so we know what is going to happen unless the Doctor can manage to go back to our Earth AND get there before it was too late.

Will he be able to do both?  He's the Doctor, what do you think?

As it so happens, when he does manage to escape the collapsing parallel world and return to ours, the Doctor finds that things are not exactly like on the other world.  Sir Keith for example, IS involved in a car accident, but he survives.  With this, the Doctor realizes that history is not inevitable.  The Doctor is able to stop the Inferno project, while even in this reality it is too late to save Professor Stahlmann by being turned into a monster as a result of the ooze emerging from the Earth's core.  At least it isn't as bad as on parallel Earth where Stahlmann turns many to monsters, including Platoon Under Leader Benton.

Inferno ends with Petra and Greg, who have formed a bond, going off together and the Doctor managing to move the TARDIS console a few seconds into the future and a few yards outside his garage.  Despite having called the Brigadier a pompous idiot, he humbly has to ask for help in retrieving the console from the rubbish heap its landed on.

Inferno was stretched because the original Don Houghton script dealt only with the drilling story and it was felt that it would not be enough to sustain a seven part story.  As such, we got the parallel storyline, which to be honest never felt thrown in but was integrated beautifully.  By giving us a parallel universe we get two things that a more direct story would not:  first, we would have seen that what happened in that world could happen in ours (giving us a frightening sense of foreshadowing) and two, we had a chance to see the regular cast go out of their comfort zones and give us a range that had not been tapped.

Because we have gotten to know the Brigadier, Liz Shaw, and Sergeant Benton in the preceding stories, seeing them in Inferno is quite a shock.  Rather than the pleasant and kind figures we've been with, almost a family to The Doctor, we see cold, ruthless, murderous figures.  Of the three, it is Levene's Benton who shines the strongest.  Inferno is John Levene's finest hour as an actor on Doctor Who up to now (and perhaps in all of his time on the show).  His transformation from the pleasant, genial sergeant to the brutal Under Platoon Leader is a revelation, one where he slips into both characters so brilliantly one can see either of them as real.  Levene has a third transformation, into a Primord (the Wolfman-like monsters), and when he is taken down by the other Primords is a terrifying sequence.

Courtney and John in the dual roles are also top-notch, the former more brutal than his counterpart, and in the case of the latter, her growing shift from mindless military cog to one who questions whether what is going on is right is, in her final Who story, a wonder to watch.

As for the guest stars, I thought Newark and Dunn played their parts excellently, where the growing affection in our world matched the more established romance in the parallel world.  They didn't have to play as if they were lovers or falling in love, but with pauses, glances, and the dialogue, we learn all there is to learn.  Pooley's Professor Stahlmann (how many times are professor the villains on Doctor Who?) was curt and unpleasant, which was correct, making him unlikeable and thus perfect for the part. 

In regards to Pertwee, he proved in his debut season of which Inferno was the conclusion that he basically now OWNED the part.  He managed to rattle off some amusing lines, such as in Episode Two where Stalhlmann dismisses the one computer that warns of danger with the line, "That computer is oversensitive.  Its data is unreliable."  To which Pertwee's Doctor retorts, "You talk abou that thing as though it was your maiden aunt."  Pertwee brought a sense of seriousness to Inferno in both worlds, of a figure who knew what he was talking about and grew impatient when those who didn't kept getting in his way of saving them all.  Pertwee manages to be funny, clever, and rational.  He can be funny without being ridiculous (something which sadly not all his successors managed...Smith...).  Throughout Inferno, Pertwee never makes light of the situations and remains totally convincing as the Doctor, showing he does have compassion for even those who haven't. 

In Episode Five, he shouts, "Don't touch him, Brigadier," momentarily forgetting that he is NOT the Brigadier he (and we) know, but the cold and ruthless Brigade Leader.  This gives us a glimpse into the humanity of the Doctor.    When he does return in Episode Seven, he snaps at whom he calls "Brigade Leader", and I continue to marvel at how good Jon Pertwee was as The Doctor.

Houghton's script not only manages to take wild turns with the alternate universe storyline, but even manages to poke some fun at some Who conventions.  When in Episode Four the Doctor is brought into the Brigade Leader's office for questioning (and the sight of the Brigade Leader/Brigadier swiveling to reveal an eye-patch is stunning) he demands to know who he is.  He replies "The Doctor."   I'll bet a million pounds someone like a Steven Moffat would have jumped at the chance for a "Doctor Who?" bit, but Houghton instead has the Brigade Leader say, "Doctor.  Doctor WHAT?" which is much more clever.  Upon informing the Brigade Leader that he doesn't have a counterpart in this world with, "But I don't exist in your world," Lethbridge-Stewart replies, "Then you won't feel the bullets when we shoot you." 

What remarkably clever writing, both in terms of story and dialogue.



Oh, Really?

One thing I would like to point out here is how Inferno contradicts long-established NuWho thinking with regards to "Rule Number One: The Doctor Lies."  In Episode Four he attempts to convince Section Leader Shaw of who he is.  She doesn't believe him.

"If you told us the truth, there might be some hope for you."

The Doctor replies, and I quote,

"Your counterpart in the other world would tell you that I'm not in the habit of telling lies, Elizabeth." (Emphasis mine).

He certainly wasn't lying when he was telling those in the parallel world who he was, so we can establish that he wasn't lying about not lying.  This might be one of the reasons why NuWho, in particular the Smith Era, has been such a let-down.  MY Doctor doesn't lie, but a whole generation repeats the mantra, "The Doctor Lies.  The Doctor Lies."  No, he doesn't, and any suggestion that he does has to be erased.  I reject it because A.) it's not true and B.) it serves no purpose.  Yet I digress.

What also works with Inferno are the special effects (the sequence of the parallel Earth being destroyed being quite effective and terrifying), the music, the stunt-work...it's more for a search in what DIDN'T work, which is impossible. 

Inferno is a brilliant close to what has to be the best Classic Doctor Who season so far.  A story that is remarkably fresh after over thirty years (think fracking), great performances by the cast, a thrilling adventure, a parallel storyline played with intelligence, and even moments of romance and comedy all make Inferno one of the best Third Doctor stories so far.  Inferno is in a word, brilliant. 

One might say, even, illuminating....

10/10

Next Story: Terror of the Autons

Radiating Success. Doctor Who Story 053: The Ambassadors of Death

STORY 053: THE AMBASSADORS OF DEATH

The Ambassadors of Death is another long story (seven episodes long) and one that has a twist on the 'invasion from outer space story' which Doctor Who was caught in now with The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) stranded on Earth and no way to leave on the TARDIS.  Again I think that at seven episodes it is a bit too long, which makes the wrap-up of the story even more strange given how quickly it went.  However, The Ambassadors of Death had a great deal of action and carried the plot remarkably well to make it another excellent addition to a very impressive debut season for Pertwee's Doctor.

Recovery 7 has been sent off from the British Space Programme to find out what happened to Mars Probe 7.  The latter ship was carrying two astronauts back from the red planet but nothing's been heard from them for seven months.  Astronaut Van Lyden (Rick Felgate), having reached Mars Probe 7, has locked the ships together, but then an ominous sound emanates from the ship, and Recovery 7 similarly goes off line.

The linking up of Mars Probe and Recovery 7 was being broadcast live, and among the viewers is The Doctor and his Companion Liz Shaw (Caroline John).  The Doctor isn't all that interested in the actual space travel (though the missing astronauts safety does concern him).  Rather, he's still tinkering with the TARDIS, still trying to get it to work even after the Time Lords disabled it after forcing his regeneration at the end of The War Games.   That sound alarms the Doctor.  He's heard it before and he fears for everyone.  He and Liz rush to the BSP, which has been under UNIT's protection.

Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) convinces Professor Ralph Cornish (Robert Allen) to use the Doctor's help.  At first Professor Cornish isn't eager for the Doctor's help but quickly sees his importance.  That sound the Doctor tells them is a message, with someone on Earth is sending replies.  Now the question is who and why.

After a battle at the warehouse where the messages were being sent we find that General Carrington (John Abineri), who had been on the Mars Probe 6 expedition, has been sending the messages.  There are more machinations in this tale: Dr. Taltalian (Robert Cawdron), part of the BSP, is involved in trying to cover up the goings-on regarding the missing astronauts.  The Recovery 7 does return, but in a strange twist there is an attempt to steal it, which is foiled by the Doctor.  However, once the capsule is forced open it is empty.

There were three figures inside, but they were taken by a group of common criminals.  These figures, presumed to be the missing astronauts, are a strange group.  They won't remove their space suits and require radiation levels that would kill people.  The criminals have Lennox (Cyril Shaps), a former colleague of Liz's to help with the radiation, and they soon take Liz herself to help them in this nefarious scheme.

The astronauts also are able to kill just by touching someone.  The Doctor tells everyone that they are wrong in this respect: the figures in the spacesuits are NOT the missing astronauts.  Eventually the Doctor has to do something he had not done on the series: fly a spaceship to get to Mars and find out what has happened to the three astronauts.   He does find them, alive and well, but they believe they have returned to Earth and have been held in quarantine for a very long time. 

The Doctor discovers the three spacemen are ambassadors who are being held prisoner by someone who fears them.  The Doctor promises to return the Ambassadors unharmed in exchange for the astronauts.  However, the Ambassadors are being used to provoke a war.  General Carrington has feared these creatures and will unveil them to the world, hoping that they inspire such panic that the world will have a 'preemptive strike'.  The Doctor and the rescued Liz arrive in time to stop him, and with Carrington arrested, and the promise is kept: the Ambassadors will be returned with the astronauts in exchange.

The Ambassadors of Death is the result of many hands working on it.  While sole writing credit went to David Whitaker, it was written by Trevor Ray, Malcolm Hulke, and script editor Terrance Dicks with Whitaker's story serving as a springboard.  Perhaps that is why it is both so long and a bit sprawling.  For example, the idea that Carrington is involved in all this is pretty clear from Episode One, but this plot thread is not really picked up until Episode Seven and rather rushed through.

However, despite the length and vastness of Ambassadors of Death holds together remarkably well.  The story provides great twists and excellent cliffhangers.  Each one of the endings is thrilling and filled with tension.  In fact, Ambassadors of Death plays less than a science-fiction story and more of a spy thriller, particularly in Episode Three when Liz is chased and captured. 

As a viewer I never sensed that the story lagged or wore out its welcome.  Instead, it kept building on each episode and flowed extremely well.    

    
What was incredible about Ambassadors of Death is that the special effects are on the whole quite advanced.  In particular are when the truck transporting the ambassadors changes appearance.  It's done so smoothly that one would think it was done today.  Sometimes the effects didn't work (whenever the Ambassadors struck down someone the big splotch that appeared was slightly comical). 

Ambassadors of Death also had a great series of action pieces that makes it more thrilling.  Episode Two in particular had an extended action scene involving helicopters and aerial assaults that seem to be almost from a movie rather than a television series.  In Episode Three, when Liz is attempting to outrun the thugs sent out to capture or kill her (while wearing a very 60s outfit), we get quite a tense and exciting sequence.

Moreover, The Ambassadors of Death has a great intelligence to it.  In fact, it's almost prescient to how fear and paranoia of 'the other' leads people to do irrational acts.  Carrington isn't evil: his actions aren't motivated by hatred towards the aliens but by fear of them, especially since he saw a fellow astronaut killed by them (even if he refuses to accept that it was an accidental killing since the ambassadors didn't realize their touch was deadly to humans).  In short, the ethical questions Ambassadors of Death asks about whether Carrington's plan was evil is one that makes audiences think as well as keeping them entertained.

We should remember that General Carrington and Sir James Quinlan (Dallas Cavell) were not acting out of hatred towards them.  They truly believed the ambassadors were harbingers of doom and their actions were motivated by a sense of 'moral duty' as Carrington often stated.  They thought they were doing what was best for the planet, so they cannot really be called evil.  However, they were basically using the Ambassadors to start some war, so they were not good.

One of the highlights of Ambassadors of Death was Dudley Simpson's score and the cinematography.  Certain shots (such as when the Ambassadors appear to be coming out of the sunlight itself) are remarkably beautiful.  However, an oddity in the score was in Episode One: the music when Recovery 7 is linking up to Mars Prove 7 sounds almost oddly romantic.

One thing that does make Ambassadors of Death slightly comical is the actual title cards.  It was great to play around with the title sequence, but seeing "The Ambassadors" appear, then "OF DEATH" not only be larger font but accompanied by slightly more dramatic music within the Doctor Who theme makes it almost comical.  Ambassadors of Death also has a slight disadvantage of keeping poor Liz Shaw in mini-skirts and an awfully large hat, as well as slightly pushing her off to the side.  Granted she is shown as being capable of understanding a lot of what the Doctor was doing (and doing some of it in French no less) but one wonders why she had to wear something almost skimpy to show she was a brilliant scientist.  Finally, the actual leader of these ambassadors was clearly the work of make-up artists working with a limited budget; while not awful, not the most convincing either.

Still, these really are quibbles to a story that while long flowed well and kept building a sense of excitement throughout its seven episodes.  We got great treats (at one point Pertwee's Doctor used one of the 'funny voices' Pertwee was known for), and a great performance by both Pertwee as the daring and dashing Doctor of action and Courtney as the loyal right-hand man Lethbridge-Stewart.  We even saw briefly John Levene go from Corporal to Sargent Benton.  The Ambassadors of Death had twist upon twist that keeps on riveted, and on the whole is a fantastic story in what appears to be the Dawn of A Golden Age for Doctor Who.

These Ambassadors will always receive a full welcome in any Doctor Who fan's home.

9/10

Next Story: Inferno