The Ambassadors of Death - Episode 4

The fourth episode starts off with the weird process of the reprise and then the titles. Then we get to see the full shot of Liz going over. It’s quite an acrobatic stunt that Liz does (or at least Roy Scammell playing Liz). Liz Shaw gets to do a lot more in this episode as she has something to do and its not just a bolted on scene towards the end. It felt like she was in it more than the Doctor. Her scenes were mainly with the astronauts and with Dr Lennox (played by the wonderful Cyril Shaps).

For the first time I feel that some of the characters that we first meet are getting a little bit annoying. By that I mean General Carrington and I don’t know what’s happened but I just feel that the feeble attempts by Carrington to make it look like a foreign person was behind kidnapping the astronauts undermined the character. It’s feeble because I don’t think even Carrington thinks that it will work. It seems that he’s just saying it in the vain hope that it would work.

There is one thing about this story that doesn’t quite make sense. If they know that Taltalian isn’t 100% trustworthy then why are they letting him work in the lab again. All this actually achieves is that he captures Liz after she escapes. The use of Taltalian comes to an end during this episode when he is killed off when his briefcase is primed to go off before he knew it would. It seems that they could have done something far less convoluted to see off the character. However when you read the production notes on the DVD we should be grateful that this is one of the minor things that don’t quite work.

There are certainly some good things that I like about this episode. Firstly there is the scene where one of the astronauts walks towards the camera with the sun behind him is a lovely shot and its one of my favourites from this season. It’s helped by the music and the fact that we cant see his face and the sun makes a silhouette of the astronaut. Another good scene is when Liz manages to escape and goes for a slight wander before being captured by Taltalian.  

The cliffhanger was another good one with the astronauts’ hand very close above the Doctor’s head. This normally wouldn’t have been such a problem but moments before (well when the astronaut first arrived at the space facility), whatever it touches can kill instead of just stun. This is my favourite cliffhanger so far and it shows that the story is getting better with every episode. With just three episodes left it feels like there is plenty of mileage left in the story and there is plenty of time to tell it. My ‘least’ favourite story of the season still a good one and my opinion so far hasn’t changed.