Doctor Who: 5 Monsters That Shouldn't Have Worked (But Did)

4. The Ambassadors Of Death (1970)

ambassadorofdeath Interesting, that two of the monsters that make the least sense on paper come out of the same season, Jon Pertwee's first. It's actually something of a misnomer to call the Ambassadors "monsters" at all, though - you don't find out until Episode Six that they really are ambassadors from an alien race. They just happen to bring a lot of death with them because they thrive on radiation (an impossibility for organic beings) and they generate massive amounts of it on their own (also impossibility). They also spend all but a few seconds of Episode Six enclosed in spacesuits so that you can't see them - and, of course, so the makeup effects crew don't have to redo their makeup for every recording block and thus spend time and money that aren't there. Arguably the most padded story of all four of the Season Seven stories, The Ambassadors of Death (the aliens, not the story) manage to be genuinely terrifying even with these constraints. The idea of a faceless creature in a bulky protective suit that can kill you with a touch doesn't get any less scary when you consider that outrunning these guys would be a snap since they can't see a damn thing. The utter scientific nonsense of the story on paper aside, you can't help wondering what they look like under all of that material, and in Episode Six (where everything of any importance happens in this story, apparently), when the Doctor first meets the captain of the Ambassadors' ship, we get our first glimpse at what they could look like: drwho Oh, you cheaters, you! That's just a guy in a different sort of protective suit gesticulating wildly with some visual effects overlaid on the picture. Still, it's enough that, when Liz is temporarily trapped in a room with the Ambassadors and one of them lifts off his helmet, we're amazingly not disappointed at what we get: drwho Jumping Jehovah on a pogo stick. Mind you, this still image does more to reveal what doesn't work about these guys than what does. Take more than a cursory glance, and you'll find that, just as the DVD tells us, the makeup is nothing more than tissue paper and latex applied to the actor's face, and judging from the scowl on this guy's face, it's uncomfortable as hell. When it comes right down to it, it's a really, really bad makeup, not meant to be seen for more than a few seconds - and so that's exactly what director Michael Ferguson gives us. There's a series of speedy intercuts between the Ambassador's face and Liz's face, and the whole thing lasts literally less than two seconds. Now, had these folks been walking around without helmets throughout the story like that, we'd all probably be going on about how risible that third story in the seventh season is. Instead, while it's not perfect, it's impossible to look back on the Ambassadors without a chill. Just a side note: whatever happened to these aliens, anyway? They made secret first contact with Earth in the early (middle?) 70's; there's every indication in the story that, despite the bad start to things (what with being forced to kill people and steal things and all), they're willing to still make friends with humanity...and then we never hear of them again. Doubt we'll ever see them in the new series because it's really the money-saving device of using those spacesuits that makes this otherwise unworkable idea so creepy.
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Tony Whitt has previously written TV, DVD, and comic reviews for CINESCAPE, NOW PLAYING, and iF MAGAZINE. His weekly COMICSCAPE columns from the early 2000s can still be found archived on Mania.com. He has also written a book of gay-themed short stories titled CRESCENT CITY CONNECTIONS, available on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle format. Whitt currently lives and works in Chicago, Illinois.