-
I'm not quite sure why they
decided to show us in every episode that General Carrington was the
traitor and then use this revelation as the final cliff-hanger of the
serial.
-
Dr Taltalian has a French
accent in studio but an English one on location filming.
-
He also has the worst glue on
beard in Doctor Who until Anthony Ainley became The Master in 1981.
-
And his scream when he gets
blown up is bizarre and fairly girlie.
-
Britain having a space
programme. You have to chuckle.
-
Pertwee wears a very vulgar
dressing gown. For the king of velvet smoking jackets, frilly shirts and
bow ties to wear something which stands out for its awfulness is quite an
achievement.
-
The moment where the Doctor's
decontamination room is filled with gas, Pertwee croaks "Gath" and then
drops to the floor in like a puppet whose strings have all snapped at
once.
-
Liz is in with the aliens,
sees one of their faces, flees in terror, bangs silently on the window for
ten seconds before simply walking out of the door. Given the choice,
wouldn't you have simply escaped rather than calling on murderous
criminals to assist you in escaping?
-
The disfigured alien appears
to be wearing a wig that Julian Glover would later wear in City of Death.
-
Pertwee gets to gurn. Hurrah.
-
That music. There is so much
funky music over the course of seven episodes. Admittedly most of it is
the same but it is a shame it was never released commercially.
-
There is the contradiction
that they try to portray a fairly "realistic" version of space travel on
the one hand but also have the extremely strange non-science of
"transmigration of objects", the van which changes via stop-go
animation and Liz being set into the future because she's "standing
there".
-
UNIT riding into battle in
Bessie is worth the price of admission on its own.
-
The aliens touch is fatal. But
you watch early on - one of them pushes one of the baddies to the ground
without harming him.
-
When the Doctor asked the
astronauts "What is the capital of Australia?" what would he have done if
they'd gone "Sidney... no no... Melbourne... shit... I know this one..."
-
As a point of personal
significance, watching my Who on UKGold and VHS meant that I wasn't used
to cliffhangers taking a week to be resolved. So when UKG split
Ambassadors over two Sundays I was haunted for a whole week by the
magnificent ending to part four.
-
Such a shame that the video
release shows us that the ending of part four was reshot for part five
with all the danger removed. Bah! What a swizz.
-
The female technician at space
control wears way too much eye makeup. I don't know how she could be
trusted to watch monitors when those eyelashes alone must weigh twenty
pounds.
-
If it had been made today they
would've used Davina McCall instead of John Wakefield for authenticity.
Euww.
-
In episode one's raid on the
warehouse, Carrington tells his men not to harm the UNIT troops unless
absolutely necessary... shortly before he lures them into the room in
which he's just activated a time bomb.
-
A time bomb that appears to be
made out of cardboard.
-
A worldwide triangulation to
find the baddies reveals that they are... seven miles away. Obviously.
-
Ronald Allen is either very
good or very bad - I can't for the life of me work out which.
-
Twenty three points before we
reach Liz Shaw's groovy hat? I must be slipping. Right... Liz Shaw wears a
groovy hat. And a knitted mini dress. And I'm sure Pertwee looks up her
skirt at one point. Mind you, who wouldn't?
