May 16: The Ambassadors of Death Episodes 6 & 7

The Doctor enters the alien spaceship. (The Ambassadors of
Death Episode 6) ©BBC

After spending so much of this story as a conspiracy thriller, with agents moving against our heroes for unknown reasons, episode 6 finally supplies some answers.  The Doctor is taken aboard a trippy alien spaceship, where the three human astronauts are waiting around, apparently under the belief they're watching a football match.  Soon the Doctor is confronted by an alien dressed like a mummy: "Why have you not returned our ambassadors?" the alien demands, finally explaining the title of the serial in the process.  "An agreement was made.  You have betrayed us.  Unless our ambassadors are returned, we shall destroy your world."

And down on planet Earth, tensions at Space HQ remain high.  "The American space agency are now preparing to launch an unmanned capsule to observe the unidentified object," says one of the technicians, glancing repeatedly at the camera every time she has a close-up.  When the Doctor finally returns, he refuses to tell anyone about what happened while in orbit until he's face-to-face with them -- which ends up being a problem when he's gassed by Reegan and taken back to where the ambassadors are being held.  General Carrington then insists, bizarrely, that the Doctor might have staged his kidnapping: "[The gas] could be a blind to make us think he'd been kidnapped."  He also states that they should blow the alien spaceship out of the skies, insisting it's their "moral duty".  "I think the General's a bit overwrought," the Brigadier comments.  "I think he's insane," Cornish replies, and it's growing increasingly harder to disagree with him.

And then no sooner is the Doctor brought back to consciousness in Reegan's bunker when General Carrington appears; it turns out he's Reegan's boss.  "You're not surprised to see me?" Carrington asks the Doctor.  "Not particularly, no," the Doctor replies.  Carrington then pulls a gun on the Doctor, ready to kill him and once again claiming it to be his "moral duty".

It's only Reegan's insistence that the Doctor could still be useful, combined with the Doctor's sweet-talking of Carrington, that saves the Doctor's life.  Carrington's rabidly xenophobic plan, and his reasoning behind it, are finally revealed: when Carrington was on Mars Probe 6, they made contact with the aliens, and one of the aliens accidentally killed his fellow astronaut Jim Daniels (an incident which apparently escaped the attention of anyone in the British space programme).  Now Carrington intends to unmask one of the ambassadors on live television as a pretext for declaring war on the aliens, to prevent, in his eyes, an alien invasion of Earth.

General Carrington places the Brigadier under arrest. (The
Ambassadors of Death Episode 7) ©BBC

Carrington's plan gets pretty far too; he arrests all of the UNIT troops, including the Brigadier himself, and brings one of the ambassadors to the Space Centre, ready to unmask him and cause a world panic.  Fortunately the Brigadier escapes, rounds up his few remaining troops, and heads off to rescue the Doctor (thanks to an SOS signal the Doctor's been transmitting).  There's a rather limp battle (certainly not up to the standards of the fights in episodes 1 and 2), and then the Brigadier bursts into the bunker to rescue the Doctor.  "What kept you?" the Doctor asks ungratefully.  Fortunately Reegan isn't killed in the battle; he's become so charmingly slimy that you do root for him a little, and so it's good to see him survive.  He's also the one to suggest taking the two remaining ambassadors to Space HQ to stop Carrington's broadcast.  And that's in fact what UNIT does, thus stopping Carrington and therefore saving the Earth by freeing the ambassadors.  Touchingly, the Doctor allows Carrington to keep his dignity as he's led away.  "I had to do what I did.  It was my moral duty.  You do understand, don't you?" Carrington asks the Doctor.  "Yes, General.  I understand," the Doctor replies, and it sounds like he really does.

So that's two Earthbound stories in a row that aren't about mad scientists or alien invasions -- in fact, this is a story about a friendly alien encounter gone wrong because of narrow-minded humans, rather than about alien monsters come to enslave us all.  In that sense it turns the idea of an alien invasion on its head, with the aliens among us explicitly identified as ambassadors, with all the connotations of the word, and it's only the actions of one xenophobic man that lead to the derailment of an official first contact between these aliens and humanity (even if, admittedly, this element is pretty far down in the mix, with lots of action sequences and standard thriller moments given more prominence).  The Ambassadors of Death is another success: an exciting, well-paced thriller with space travel, action-packed battles, and lots of memorable images.

So that's two seven-part stories in a row that have more than justified their length.  Can the production team keep it up?