It is a truth universally acknowledged – as close as you can get to objective fact when discussing Doctor Who – that Jon Pertwee’s first Season, Season 7, is the most consistently good series of them all. Sure, it’s only got 4 stories to pick from, but all 4 of those stories are gold.
The first one, Spearhead From Space, I’ve already discussed1 – it’s a template setting way to introduce a new Doctor & a big slice of Bob Holmes goodness. Following on from this is Doctor Who and the Silurians, which gives us a twist on the alien invasion story – but is also chillingly prescient in the times of Covid-19. And then there’s Inferno, where The Doctor fails to save the world, but luckily it’s a parallel Earth & so he has a spare to try again with. There’s many people who consider Inferno Top 10 material, but for me the stand out of this season – and indeed the whole of the Pertwee era – is the much overlooked Ambassadors of Death.
Season 7 stands alone in terms of tone and style. Moving from script editor to producer at the end of the 60’s, Derrick Sherwin had a clear idea of the Doctor Who he wanted to make. Sherwin had a penchant for Earth bound, contemporary (or as near as damn it) stories which leant into grown up scares & scifi concepts – as shown in Season 5. You can see the bones of Season 7 in The Web of Fear, honed more in The Invasion: aliens invade and the military & scientists team up to stop them. It’s Doctor Who through the lens of Quatermass & Doomwatch but with gadgets and action: Pertwee is the James Bond Doctor, with his stories reflecting the Kung-Fu craze of the time as they went on. So Sherwin took the bold choice to give his new Doctor a totally new start; strand him on Earth, have him work for the army & have him tear-arse around the place in colour.
And then promptly buggered off.
Sherwin had his head turned by his old producer Peter Bryant and let to work on a detective show called Paul Temple straight after completing Spearhead. In came new producer Barry Letts, who stepped in at short notice to complete this series – and the rest, as they say, is history… So the bulk of S7 is Letts & Dicks with their hands tied to Sherwin’s idea for the show and trying to make it work. But if there’s one guy you want in your corner when the chips are down & you’re up against it, it’s Terrance Dicks, who does some of his best work here.
Dicks & Letts have been very vocal about what this disliked about the hand they were dealt. They weren’t happy that The Doctor was left stranded on Earth – a decision it took them a full 3 years to fix, they were that unhappy with it. The lady doth protest to much, methinks…? Terrance Dicks is quoted as saying the problem with making the show Earth bound is that you’re restricted to two basic story types: alien invasion or mad scientist. Which is true to an extent, but as S5 and most of his output with Barry Letts shows, there’s still enough scope here for some really varied & fantastic story telling. Ambassadors of Death is an example of the alien invasion type, but with a twist: the aliens aren’t invading to conquer, they’ve come to make peace, and it’s the humans who are the bad guys. It’s a real neat sidestep and allows for some very sophisticated storytelling; we’re firmly into Bond territory here as The Doctor needs to uncover the conspiracy as much as save the world/the missing astronauts.
One of the great strengths of Season 7 is how sophisticated it is, and the approach it takes to it’s stories and characters. There’s a real drive to make the show grounded and realistic; for example here it’s not just a case of The Doctor jetting up into space to save the day, there needs to be a spare capsule for him, it needs refuelling, there needs to be the right fuel… You’re never going to get a Doctor Who story that gets the science 100% right, purely because that won’t be very entertaining – but there’s a real sense here that they’ve tried as hard as they can. Next season we’ll have particle accelerators that can fit snugly into power stations – vertically! – and accelerate past the speed of light; while that’s not necessarily a deal breaker, the more accurate you get it the happier I will be. Season 7 gives us hard scifi with the sci taken seriously.
Season 7 also gets it’s characters spot on. Nick Courtney was a gifted comedy actor, which is just as well as from S8 onwards Letts & Dicks soften the tone of the military, and The Brig becomes the butt of the jokes – becoming the Wise to Pertwee’s Morecambe. Not here though. Here – and across the Season – he is the proper military commander, but also gets stuck in with the action & fistfights & shoot outs. More importantly though is his relationship with The Doctor: he’s much more of an equal here, and there’s a bigger sense of respect between them. As Joe Ford pointed out when I covered this story on A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife2, if The Master is The Doctor’s Moriarty, then here The Brig is his Watson. You don’t get the camaraderie between them as they sit and sip tea while they talk through the plot again, or scenes where The brig comes to see The Doctor off as he prepares to blast off into space, and wish him luck with a hearty handshake. More’s the pity too, these are all excellent Moments of Charm. And watch how The Brig smooths the waters & reigns The Doctor in when he first barges in on Ralph Cornish; not many other characters can manage that.
This Season also has the best 3rd Doctor characterisation for me as well. Pertwee plays his Doctor as someone who doesn’t take fools gladly; each & every Doctor is the cleverest person in whichever room they walk into, but the 3rd is the only one who automatically expects everyone to know this – the rest work on winning everyone over. In this story he’s exactly that, but knows when he’s overstepped and can bring himself round. The final scene, where he empathises with Carrington rather than sympathising with him, is extraordinarily nuanced for the time. And, of course, he has a chemistry with Caroline John’s Liz Shaw that is different with Katy’s Jo Grant, but no less special: watch how Liz thumps him on the shoulder when bringing him the cup of tea that he ignores in Part 1.
I love Liz Shaw. If it weren’t for Katy Manning coming in & connecting with Pertwee like hand in glove, then I’d be furious that she left after only one season – as it is, I look back on the short time she had with adoration. Liz is clever, strong and capable – if Uncle Terrance thought a character like this wouldn’t work as the companion, then I’m afraid to say that’s a failure on the part of the writing more than anything else. Quite aside from the fact we already had an excellent season with Zoe, a very similar companion, this story – written by Dicks himself, no less – shows exactly what can be done with her. In the scenes where she’s captured and forced into helping Lennox with controlling the aliens, Liz is our eyes & ears: but because of who she is, it’s like having another Doctor there – someone else who can drive the plot forward without having to sit there & be mansplained to for our benefit. Add to that her wonderful car chase and her even more wonderful hat – the single greatest item of paraphernalia to ever appear in Doctor Who – then you have one of the best showings for a companion ever.
If I was to say there’s one thing about The Ambassadors of Death that makes it stand out above it’s peers then it’s Liz Shaw’s hat. It’s really that phenomenal. If I had to pick another, though, it’s Dudley Simpson’s score. You can keep your City of Deaths or whatever, this is Simpson’s best work for Doctor Who. From his shimmering score for the Ambassadors themselves, which adds so much menace as they slowly chase Lennox up the stairs, to his jazz inspired chase music, to the final UNIT theme: this is music that I can just listen to again, and again, and again. If you’re a fan of Dudley Simpson be sure to check out Jess Jurkovic’s YouTube channel and The Dudley Simpson IS Doctor Who Project: https://www.youtube.com/@JessJurkovic/playlists
Of course, I also need to shout out to the direction, with Michael Ferguson doing his best work, all shots silhouetted with a low setting sun & fast cuts – what a talent he was! Ferguson famously filled this story with amazing action set pieces, much to the chagrin of Terrance Dicks – who was promptly told “You do your job and let me do mine…!” And we must celebrate the character of Reegan, who lifts this story into The Sweeney territory and is one of the best, most criminally (and plain criminal!) underrated villains the show has ever had.
The other main quibble Dicks & Letts had with the hand they were dealt in this season is the length of the stories. 7 episodes is perhaps too long for a Doctor Who story, and if there is perhaps one criticism of this story to be made it’s that things do sag a little, and there’s a bit of capture-escape-recapture going on. But that’s the only one, and it’s minor; because of all the writers in the history of Doctor Who who can spin the plates of a plot and pad it out without you even notice it, it’s Terrance Dicks & Malcolm Hulke, who stepped in to finish the script when David Whitaker couldn’t. Full credit to these gentlemen for doing the sterling work they did, but also making sure Whitaker’s name stayed on it, and so therefore the cheque.
The eagle eyed among you will have noticed that I have been pronouncing the title of this story wrong this whole time. It should be “The Ambassadors………………… OF DEATH…!!!!” While the change in opening credits didn’t last – and quite rightly, it adds charm here but wouldn’t be sustainable – the change to the end credits does. The “sting” into the theme adds so much more to all the cliffhangers that follow it; this story itself has an amazing string of cliffhangers that shouldn’t really work, but do because of the way they’re played and directed. So if nothing else we have that to thank this story for.
But it’s also chock full of amazing elements; fantastic characters, thrilling action scenes, a twisty turny plot full of intrigue , all of which come together in a story that’s endlessly rewatchable and utterly amazing.
Oh, and Liz Shaw’s hat :o)
COMING TOMORROW: “Do I have the right…?”
Skies Full of Diamonds 