May 22: Terror of the Autons Episode Four / The Mind of Evil Episode One

It doesn't take the Doctor long to be freed from the telephone cord the Master trapped him in last time; the Brigadier comes in and pulls the cord from the wall and the signal is cut.  It takes a little longer, though, to figure out how the daffodils are activated and how they kill people.  And yet when the Doctor does figure it out (via the near-asphyxiation of Jo), that plot is curiously abandoned.  Oh sure, the Master refers to it as part of the invasion plan, but beyond that, nothing.  We certainly don't see people around the nation being killed by plastic-squirting daffodils, which is really what this plot needs.

The Autons attack the UNIT forces. (Terror of the Autons
Episode Four) ©BBC

The main draw to this episode though isn't killer daffodils but rather an actual meeting between the Doctor and the Master.  Before they've been dancing around each other but never in the same room together; this episode fixes that.  Of course, it seems like the Master has the upper hand for most of the time: holding the Doctor and Jo at gunpoint, leading them to the coach where the Autons are waiting so as to prevent an air strike, preparing the radio telescopes for the arrival of the main Nestene force...really, it's only the fact that the Doctor convinces the Master that the Nestene will kill him too, leading the Master to (briefly) switch sides to send the Nestene packing, that ends up thwarting the invasion plan.  And then the Master escapes, leading the Doctor to callously say how much he's looking forward to their next meeting of death and destruction.  The git.

As a four-part introduction to the Master, Terror of the Autons works quite well; placing him at the center of a known threat and putting him in control of that threat is a good move.  Yet I find that this is a story that's easier to admire than it is to actually like.  There are lots of memorable and effective scenes, with some fun one-liners (such as the Master on McDermott's death: "He sat down in this chair here and just slipped away"), but it doesn't quite cohere into something substantial -- there's nothing really to sink one's teeth into. About Time described it as "the visual equivalent of four packets of Skittles", which is probably the best summation of this tale.  It's fun while it lasts, but there's not much beyond that.

But now we turn to the first episode of The Mind of Evil (or The Mind of Evul, if you're looking at the spine of the region 1 DVD).   Unlike, say, The Silurians or Terror of the Autons, there are no existing off-air color copies of The Mind of Evil.  Now, episodes two through six have been color recovered in the same manner as parts of The Ambassadors of Death, but when they made the black-and-white film copy of The Mind of Evil Episode One, they added a filter that got rid of the color pattern.  Consequently, this first episode has been manually colorized by Stuart "Babelcolour" Humphryes, who's done an absolutely sterling job.

We move from shenanigans with Autons and radio telescopes to a fortress prison, where a brand-new method of execution is being performed.  Except the condemned isn't killed; instead all the "evil" impulses in his mind⁵⁹ are drained away into something called the Keller Machine (after its inventor, Emil Keller), leaving the person with only good thoughts.  The Doctor seems rather worried about this idea (not to mention condescending; his constant asides to Jo during Professor Kettering's explanation are awfully rude, even if they are entertaining), and it would seem he's right to be.  People start dying around the machine, apparently based on their greatest fears; so a man who's afraid of rats dies from a heart attack, yet with claw marks all over his face and neck, while Professor Kettering himself, who's afraid of water, drowns to death in a completely dry room.

Meanwhile it seems that UNIT is handling both security for the World Peace Conference going on in London and transportation for some sort of missile.  Clearly they've got their hands full, so when the Chinese delegation, in the form of Captain Chin Lee, keep raising a fuss, it doesn't help matters any.  It seems that important papers have been stolen and Chin Lee is holding UNIT personally responsible.  "More trouble," the Brigadier says as she leaves.  "Mmm, pity," Yates replies.  "She's quite a dolly."  Sigh... Mike Yates, ladies and gentlemen.  But then we learn that Chin Lee is under some form of control, and she in fact took the papers.  It's therefore extra-suspicious that, when she calls UNIT to inform them that the Chinese delegate has been murdered, there seems to be almost a half an hour gap between when she discovered the body and when she called UNIT.

And meanwhile, the Doctor is left in the room with the Keller Machine when it starts to go off, at which point the Doctor appears to be engulfed in flames...







⁵⁹ Given that the idea of evil being an actual, measurable substance tends to go against a lot of what we're told in Doctor Who, some have suggested that "evil" in this case is another word for "testosterone". 

May 21: Terror of the Autons Episodes Two & Three

The Master invites McDermott to try one of the new plastic
chairs. (Terror of the Autons Episode Two) ©BBC

The hyperactive editing continues.  But if the first episode is focused more on introducing all the new characters, this one is focused on defining all the ways plastic is made dangerous in the hands of the Master and his allies the Nestene.  This means that we jump from plastic chairs smothering their occupants to hideous troll dolls strangling people to policemen who are really Autons in disguise (this last part supposedly getting writer Robert Holmes into a bit of trouble with the real police). And we also cut from location to location, with the UNIT lab, the plastics factory, Farrel Senior's home, and a circus all on prominent display.

The storyline itself isn't incredibly exciting -- it's all about the Master's efforts to kill the Doctor and anyone who gets in his way -- but the sense of energy engendered by both the edits and the performances more than makes up for this.  It moves at such a clip, in fact, that it's only in retrospect that you think how odd it is to have a story that takes place at both a plastics factory and a circus -- although the link such a pairing creates is rather tantalizing as one tries to work out what these two settings have in common.  As I said last time, this feels like a comic book with all the extraneous bits stripped out in favor of getting to the absolutely necessary/exciting stuff.  It should also be said that this energetic, comic-book-like feel is helped by the quite lurid color palette on display (an effect which might be exacerbated by the color restoration process, but I rather doubt it -- note how the title sequence appears to have been tinted magenta for this story).

Episode three continues in this vein.  We've got a fight in a quarry (with an impressive tumble from Terry Walsh as he's hit by a car), sinister Autons in giant smiling masks handing out plastic daffodils (shown to be dangerous even if we don't know how yet), the return of the killer troll doll, and an extra-long killer telephone cord installed by a telephone engineer who turns out to be the Master in disguise.  Against that we get an outrageous scene where the Doctor chews out a rather combative civil servant, threatening to mention him to his boss at "the club", before both parties end up looking rather sheepish about the whole thing, and Mike Yates trying to make cocoa for himself and Jo in the Doctor's lab.  It must be said, Richard Franklin as Mike Yates looks rather uncomfortable for most of this story, when he's called upon to do anything more than take orders from the Brigadier.

And finally we should note Dudley Simpson's score.  It sounds like he's been asked to deliver a purely synthesized score, which veers from quite effective (the theme that the Master gets, for instance) to weirdly intrusive (as with the bit where the Doctor and Jo hide from the Autons in the quarry).  It's not the first time he's done a score like this (Fury from the Deep features a similar approach to the music), but in this case the combination of the non-organic music and the previously-discussed visual style means that this, too, contributes to the non-natural feel of the serial.  This is a case where all the pieces are working together towards the same goal.  We'll have to see how it finishes up in the final episode.

May 20: Inferno Episode 7 / Terror of the Autons Episode One

Sutton and the Doctor take down the Primordized Professor
Stahlman. (Inferno Episode 7) ©BBC

So.  You've just seen a world destroyed by fire, lava, and earthquakes.  You find yourself back in your own dimension, to find that the drilling that caused the disaster in the other world could still be halted here before it's too late.  Would you stop the drilling not by calmly yet urgently explaining the danger but by raving like a lunatic and smashing random consoles with a wrench?

Still, there's enough going on that the Doctor's odd behavior (even if he has been under a lot of stress) ultimately doesn't matter.  People seem inclined to listen to the Doctor, even if only Professor Stahlman can apparently give the order to actually halt the project.  Fortunately for the planet, he comes out of the drilling room as a Primord, so his opinion doesn't carry much weight anymore.  The Earth is saved (once some last-minute rewiring by the Doctor happens).

But really, this episode succeeds because of the little moments.  Everyone justifiably mentions the "free will" scene ("So not everything runs parallel...  Yes, of course, of course.  An infinity of universes, ergo an infinite number of choices.  So free will is not an illusion after all. The pattern can be changed."), which really is a nice moment (and, fannishly, one might suggest that this is the moment where he really realizes that maybe you can change history, even one line -- compare with his position in The Aztecs back in the first season).  But there are smaller moments that are just as nice: Petra's growing affection for Greg; Sir Keith's reaction upon being told it's "excellent" that he's still alive ("Well, yes, yes, I think so too"); the Brigadier's response to the Doctor's claims of being of sound mind and body ("I'm not sick, I'm not in need of a doctor, and I'm not a raving idiot!") being exactly that of someone humoring a person who is in fact a raving idiot; and the lovely little hug that Liz and the Doctor share after the drilling has been stopped.  Add to that the tension of the clock running in the background before the drilling stops, where we know what will happen if penetration zero is reached, and this is quite a good episode -- not quite the equal of the "disaster movie" of episodes 5 and 6, but still very good.

Inferno is really a game of two halves: the first four episodes are primarily arguments in various forms and in two separate places, which allows some of the arguments to be repeated across episodes.  They're not the most exciting thing ever, and frankly this story is lucky to have Douglas Camfield and Barry Letts directing things, as in lesser hands these episodes would probably fall very flat; as it is, they manage to stay entertaining even if a bit repetitive.  But the second half of Inferno is where things really shine.  The end of the world sequences are very well done, and the tension is ratcheted up to a high level and maintained throughout, to the point that there's a bleed-over of this into episode 7 that also benefits that part, even though there the world is simply in danger of being destroyed rather than past the point.  It's because of these last three episodes, combined with the aforementioned excellent direction, that Inferno ultimately succeeds.  Everything before is simply building up to the moment of penetration zero and the end of the world.

It's also a moment of transition; Inferno is the last story of season 7, which means it's our last look not only at Arabic numerals for episode numbers (they're all spelled out from here on out) but also, more importantly, our final look at Liz Shaw (which may not be apparent, as she doesn't get a leaving scene).  She'll be gone next season, partly because she's pregnant here and so wouldn't have been able to return anyway, but mainly because producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks have decided that they need an assistant for the Doctor who's, to be frank, not very bright -- someone who the Doctor can therefore explain the plot to.  To be honest, they didn't seem to be having any problems doing that during this season, but nevertheless, it's the end of Liz Shaw, one of the smartest companions the Doctor ever had.  She really will be missed.

And so we say goodbye to season 7.  The shiny new color, new Doctor, and new format seems to have largely worked -- certainly they've largely halted the slow ratings slide the series had been experiencing prior to season 7, even if they haven't yet gained ground in this regard.  But more importantly, season 7 has shown that a new direction, with a different focus than before, can still be made to not only work but still be called Doctor Who.  It's not quite the same as it was, obviously, and it won't really be like '60s Who ever again, but that's one of the benefits of Doctor Who's format; even when they're essentially making a series of action-adventure serials in the same time and place instead of adventures throughout space and time, there's still enough there to maintain good faith with the show as it had been, while pointing the way forward for the future.  Season 7 had four strong stories (even if some people might complain that three of them are too long -- those people are wrong, by the way) to successfully relaunch Doctor Who in the 1970s.

But because of the odd number of episodes in season 7, we're not done yet.  Season 8 begins with a shot of a circus and a horsebox that materializes with a "wheezing, groaning sound" (as Terrance Dicks might say).  A black-clad gentleman with slicked-back hair and a salt-and-pepper goatee emerges.  "Who the heck are you?" asks a man who saw the box arrive.  "I am usually referred to as the Master," the other man replies.  Yes, the Master has finally arrived.

Actually, there are quite a few introductions to be made in Terror of the Autons.  We're introduced to not only Captain Yates of UNIT (although the dialogue suggests he was around before -- apparently he was in charge of cleaning up after the Autons after the events of Spearhead from Space), but, more strikingly, to Miss Josephine Grant, who is the Doctor's new assistant -- and about as much the opposite of Liz Shaw as you can get.  Jo is rather clumsy but very perky and eager to help.  Even the Doctor doesn't find her a suitable replacement for Liz at first (Liz having apparently returned to Cambridge between seasons), but he can't bring himself to tell her this, and so her position with UNIT is secure.

But it's the Master who dominates proceedings here, as he hypnotizes people, kills others, breaks into a museum and steals an exhibit, sets up booby traps, and takes over a plastics factory, looking cool and collected all the while.  That said, although we find out a bit by watching his actions, there's a really bizarre bit where a Time Lord appears to give a great big info-dump.  We're sort of used to this now, 43 years after the fact, but it really is astonishingly crass.  Time Lords can apparently transport themselves "29,000 light years" and hover in mid-air before giving huge amounts of exposition to the Doctor about how the Master is a fellow Time Lord, but a renegade who always causes trouble and wants to kill the Doctor.  There's a clear implication that the Doctor already knows the Master, or at least knows of him.  But it's odd how the production team clearly wants to get the backstory of the Master out of the way as quickly as possible.  He's clearly set up as the Moriarty to the Doctor's Sherlock Holmes, albeit without as much thought put into him.  Still, in the hands of Roger Delgado the Master is incredibly watchable.

The other thing to note about this episode is how fast-paced it is.  Barry Letts' direction is fairly workmanlike here (even if there is an incredible abuse of CSO in this first episode alone, with all sorts of backgrounds and camera tricks CSO'ed in), but the editing is extremely frenetic, jumping from scene to scene to scene with barely a chance to catch your breath in-between.  It certainly gives things a tremendous amount of energy and hurries them along impressively, such that by the end of episode 1 we go from Jo Grant being discovered by the Master to being hypnotized to opening a bomb in the Doctor's lab, all in the space of five minutes, and with intervening scenes also included.  So far, Terror of the Autons feels more like a 60s comic book than a typical Doctor Who story -- not that that's a bad thing, mind.

May 19: Inferno Episodes 5 & 6

I'm willing to bet that the high reputation Inferno enjoys rests squarely on the shoulders of these two episodes, because these are the two that see the parallel world destroyed.  This is taut, gripping television.  It's interesting to see how relatively defeatist the Doctor is in these episodes: there's no last minute plan to save the world, because it's already too late.  "The heat and the pressures'll continue to build up until the Earth dissolves in a fury of expanding gases, just as it was billions of years ago," he says.  When asked how long they've got, he replies, "Maybe a few weeks, maybe only a few days."  Which admittedly seems slightly odd (how is the bore hole much different from a volcano?), but in terms of the drama it's very effective.

These two episodes therefore see an increasing sense of tension and desperation as a plan is made not to save this Earth but the one the Doctor is from.  Remember, they're not as advanced with the drilling there, so the Doctor might be able to stop them from penetrating the Earth's crust.  But in order to do so they have to rewire the nuclear reactor and dodge the Primords that are roaming the complex.  And while these two episodes also have quite a few scenes of people arguing with each other, this time it feels like there's a point behind it, and even when the point isn't obvious it still drives home the futility of it all.  Or as Greg Sutton puts it: "It's marvellous, isn't it?  The world's going up in flame and they're still playing at toy soldiers!"

So the world's being destroyed (illustrated by lots of tremors and a pleasing red haze for the scenes outside) and the Primords are closing in -- so the main characters can't even stop to catch their breath without the threat of being rubbed in mutagenic slime and regressing into a savage ape-like creature (as we see happen to Benton at the end of episode 5).  But the most interesting thing is to watch how each character deals with the impending doomsday.  Sutton becomes a lot more dominant, probably because he knows he's got nothing to lose and therefore no reason to toe the party line.  Section Leader Shaw is practical yet increasingly insubordinate -- she's willing to help the Doctor but she has little patience remaining for her superior, the Brigade Leader.  Nicholas Courtney, however, is the standout performer of the group, as his Brigade Leader becomes increasingly cowardly and scared and therefore belligerent and bullying as a result, as if desperate to hold on to some shred of power, even if it's ultimately meaningless.

Elizabeth Shaw, Petra Williams, and Greg Sutton watch the world
end. (Inferno Episode 6) ©BBC

But it's the final moments that demonstrate clearly why this story was worth doing: power has finally been channeled to the TARDIS console, and after a brief confrontation the Doctor is free to escape if he can while the world (or at least this section of it) definitively ends, as a huge flow of lava heads towards the hut that they're all trapped in.  Here we have a world that clearly does end -- all the fascist stuff is there to add to the drama, but the real point of Inferno is to actually show what would happen if the world was going to end.  And by making it a parallel universe they can have their cake and eat it too -- they can be bleak and absolute with their ending (no last-minute saves here) and still have the show continue on next week.  It's the ultimate cliffhanger ending and, because of its finality, it's deeply satisfying as a result.

So there's still one more episode of Inferno to go.  How are they going to top these two?

May 18: Inferno Episodes 3 & 4

The Doctor has disappeared into a strange dimension -- "sideways in time", he says -- which is close to but not quite the same as the world he's just left.  All the characters seem to still be present, but they're all slightly different.  Yes, it's time for the "evil parallel universe" story.

To be fair, it's not like it's an unreasonable idea for a serial, and as it's the first time Doctor Who has done this type of story we can forgive them a bit of indulgence.  And unlike, say, every episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine involving Trek's "Mirror Universe", this isn't simply a chance for the regulars to indulge themselves by playing "bad" versions of themselves.  The parallel universe part of Inferno feels much more dangerous, because everyone's playing it so straight.

Starting by having an extended chase sequence where troops are all shooting at the Doctor as he zooms around the complex on Bessie is a good move; it immediately brings home the danger of this place.  There are lots of troops (well, it seems like there are, at least) and some great location shots of the Doctor high up on the gasometers.  (Oh, and incidentally, I was wrong last time; the world record fall happens in episode 3, not episode 1.  It's still Roy Scammell, though -- twice, in fact, as both the private who falls and the one who shoots him down.)  And then we get to see the people in this world: the Brigadier is now Brigade Leader Lethbridge-Stewart, with an eyepatch and no moustache; Liz is now Section Leader Elizabeth Shaw, with black hair; and Sergeant Benton is Platoon Under-Leader Benton -- he still looks the same but is decidedly nastier as a person ("Are you coming with me quietly, or do I shoot you here and now?" Benton asks the Doctor at the end of episode 3, and it's quite clear which outcome Benton is hoping for).  Meanwhile, Professor Stahlman has become Director Stahlmann -- he's lost the facial hair but is still the same basic person.  The other main difference is that in this parallel world the drilling has been proceeding a bit quicker, so instead of being something like 40 hours away from penetrating the Earth's crust, this world is only a little over 3 hours away.

The Doctor is interrogated by the Republican Security Forces.
(Inferno Episode 4) ©BBC

It's got to be said, though, that these two episodes, much like the first two, consist largely of people rehashing the same points over and over again.  In episodes 1 and 2 it was everyone versus Stahlman; here it's everyone versus the Doctor, as the Brigade Leader tries over and over again to find out which foreign power the Doctor is working for and how he got onto the base in the first place.  They try demanding answers, then they try interrogation, then trying to be nice in an effort to get the truth out of the Doctor.  All the while, the Doctor is trying to convince the people at the base of the danger their project is causing; he repairs the computer so that it can warn them, as well as reasoning with everyone there repeatedly about the dangers (something, it must be said, he didn't seem as willing to do back in his own universe).  Needless to say, no one believes him, and episode 4 ends with Penetration Zero being reached as the drillhead starts making a really nasty noise, while the Doctor yells out, "That's the sound of this planet screaming out its rage!"  It's such a good cliffhanger that it's slightly surprising that the episode carries on a little bit longer, with Stahlmann holding a gun on the Doctor as the actual cliffhanger.

May 17: Inferno Episodes 1 & 2

Standard and special edition DVDs

So we've arrived at another scientific research base out in the middle of nowhere.  The Doctor and UNIT are already settled in at this project; this time it's about drilling deep into the Earth and penetrating the crust, thereby hoping to tap the vast pockets of Stahlman's gas down there.  How anyone knows this gas exists in the first place isn't brought up.  The man the gas is named after, Professor Eric Stahlman, is unashamedly the first mad scientist introduced in the Pertwee era.  Yes, we might cite Dr. Lawrence from Doctor Who and the Silurians as a mad scientist, but he's not remotely in the same league as Professor Stahlman.  Irritable from the get-go ("Our liver playing us up again this morning, is it, Professor?" the Doctor asks pointedly) and completely unwilling to consider the safety of anyone if it risks slowing down the rate of drilling, Stahlman comes across as pig-headed and dangerous at best.  There are no subtleties in Olaf Pooley's performance here: Stahlman is single-minded in his goal to penetrate the Earth's crust, no matter what the cost.

Of course, this causes a problem in that these first two episodes consist largely of various emergencies that Stahlman refuses to take seriously, and so several people argue unsuccessfully with him about slowing down or stopping the drilling, or at least taking some of the warnings seriously.  It works reasonably well in the first episode; after the second it starts to get a little tedious, as the Doctor, Sir Keith Gold (Christopher Benjamin, who'll return in The Talons of Weng-Chiang), and Greg Sutton (who played the caveman Za in An Unearthly Child) all try to get Stahlman to see reason -- or at least not endanger lives unnecessarily.

Still, it's not the only thing going on; there's also a subplot about a strange green goo⁵⁷ that turns anyone who touches it into a regressed ape-like creature (the credits call them "Primords") that emits intense heat and burns anyone and anything it touches.  This leads to some fairly brutal moments, as the first person to be infected, Harry Slocum, starts brutally murdering people (and note the blood spatter on his coveralls when he's inside the nuclear reactor control room).  Then two more people are infected (by Slocum, it seems, so either he smeared some of the green goo on himself or he can turn people into Primords à la werewolves), including a private who falls to his death (in what was at the time the highest fall ever performed by a British stuntman -- nice work, Roy Scammell).  And Professor Stahlman also ends up touching the goo -- not that you'd notice from his behavior, since he's already acting extremely irrational and territorial.  He even tries to sabotage the main computer when it starts warning that the whole place is in danger -- a scene which leads to Jon Pertwee's first use of what he calls here "Venusian karate"⁵⁸, in which a certain pressure point has the ability to paralyze a person (even if the actual effect is Pertwee grabbing someone in a non-dangerous (read: unable to be copied by children) hold).  Here it's used on Stahlman himself, although it doesn't stop him from ultimately destroying the microcircuit he removed from the computer.

The other subplot running through these first couple episodes consists of the Doctor trying to get the TARDIS console (still outside the TARDIS itself, as seen in the opening moments of The Ambassadors of Death) working again.  In episode 1 a power surge sends it and him through an interestingly directed but painful-looking realm that the Doctor later describes as "some sort of limbo", with a "barrier I couldn't break through."  Episode 2 sees him try again, but the power is cut off at a crucial moment and so the cliffhanger has the Doctor, the TARDIS console, and Bessie all dematerialize in front of Liz Shaw and the Brigadier...







⁵⁷ In reality a heavy duty hand cleaner known as Swarfega.
⁵⁸ Fandom tends to refer to it as "Venusian aikido", but this term isn't actually employed until The Green Death.

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?