Into The Time Vortex - Episode 52 - Doctor Who - The Ambassadors Of Death

Doctor Who 50th Anniversary: The Ambassadors of Death By @Paul_Bowler

Doctor Who:
The Ambassadors of Death
By  David Whitaker
Reviewed by Paul Bowler

"In a few minutes we shall know the answer to the question that has been occupying the minds of everyone here at Space Control since Mars Probe 7 took off on its return journey from the red planet nearly eight months ago. What has happened to astronauts Frank Michaels and Joe Lefee? Communications remained perfect on the long outward journey to the red planet and throughout the difficult landing. For a full twelve hours they sent back pictures and reports from the surface of Mars. Both then seemed in perfect health, then silence."

When contact is lost with three astronauts on board the Mars Probe 7 mission, a second capsule is sent up to investigate, but when Recovery 7 also stops transmitting the Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and Liz (Caroline John) join the Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney), Sgt Benton (John Levene), and the UNIT forces at Space Control to try and help Professor Ralph Cornish (Roland Allen) save the astronauts and discover the truth behind a strange extraterrestrial transmission.

On returning to Earth, UNIT and the Brigadier find themselves pitted against a secret organization who tries to forcibly take possession of Recovery 7, but with the Doctor’s help the capsule is returned safely to Space Control - only for them to discover that the astronauts have been kidnapped. The capsule actually contained a trio of alien ambassadors (Steve Peters, Neville Simons, and Ric Felgate) on a peaceful mission, who took the place of the astronauts, but their captors are only interested in their immense power and force the radiation dependant aliens to work for them.

The Ambassadors of Death - In Color!

Finally, after years of waiting, the BBC will be releasing the Third Doctor story, The Ambassadors of Death, on DVD in color.  Color prints of the story no longer exist apart from episode one.  Only B&W prints exist for the remaining 6 episodes.  Work had been done, using inferior off air color copies to restore episodes 5&6 but technology has finally advanced enough to complete the color restoration.  The DVD is planned for later this year.

Here are some comparisons of the original color prints and the restoration -