Right so here we go its that time where I get back on the computer and do some frantic key clacking to do another review. And this one will cover a classic Doctor Who story, The Ark in Space, a very early Tom Baker story, which saw the beginning of the Philip Hinchcliffe era, which is largely regarded as a golden era in the show. But anyway let's have a look at this story.....
So the story begins with the TARDIS materialising onboard a space station, which appears to be in an inert state. And as the Doctor (Baker) and his two companions, Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen) and Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter) look around they quickly find that there is no air supply, which leaves Sarah almost unconscious. The Doctor then manages to restore power and the air supply just in time however Sarah in the meantime is transported and placed into cryogenic suspension, leaving the Doctor and Harry to explore the station further. As they look around the Doctor and Harry find a large cryogenic chamber, which holds a large number of humans in cryogenic suspension and they soon also find Sarah in one of the pallets. The Doctor suggests they try and find a resuscitation unit which Harry finds in a cupboard along with a large insectoid alien lifeform. Then one of the humans, Vira (Wendy Williams) in cryogenic suspension is awoken and revives herself using the equipment Harry found. Vira, who is a medical technician, then manages to start the revivication process for Sarah and also her leader, Lazar who is nicknamed as Noah (Kenton Moore). The Doctor then tells Vira that they have overslept for thousands of years as the alien insect must have sabotaged their control systems, which the Doctor had earlier repaired.
Once Vira has revived Noah, Noah is immediately suspicous of the Doctor and Harry and as the Doctor investigates the ship's power room, he discovers that an alien larvae and traps it inside the ship's solar stack. Noah soon encounters the Doctor in the control room of the Ark and stuns him with a laser weapon and heads down to the power room where is infected by the alien creature. The Doctor soon recovers and encounters Noah again who hides his hand from him, which has been infected and is starting to change into a green scaly skin. As Vira revives another shipmate, Libri (Christopher Masters) the young shipmate sees Noah and backs away in fear as he thought he saw something horrible in Noah. Noah however while talking to Vira, insisting the reviving process must be halted, starts to exhibit strange behaviour as he feels his mind struggling against the influence of the alien creature and he leaves quickly. The Doctor then convinces Libri to go after him, which Libri does with a gun, but Noah overpowers him and shoots Libri dead and reveals that he is starting metamorphose into the alien creature. Noah then sends out a message to Vira that they are all in great danger and that the alien creatures, named the Wirrn, will overtake and absorb the humans. The Doctor and Vira then decide to pay Noah a visit, who has started to mutate even more into one of the Wirrn and he tells him they don't have much time. The Doctor then decides the best solution now is to find out how to kill the Wirrn by finding their weakness and the Doctor dissects a part of the Wirrn's brain tissue and joins with it through a mental link using the control system and he discovers that electricity killed the dead creature. From here, Noah now advancing into Wirrn form shuts off the system's power and as the Doctor goes to the power room to turn it on again he is attacked by Noah, who fully transforms into a Wirrn and warns Vira, who arrives with Sarah and Harry and the others to leave the ark or die. And from this point on, the Doctor and his companions must find a way to defeat the Wirrn and save the future of the human race.
As the debut story of the golden era in the show of the Hinchcliffe and Holmes years, The Ark in Space is undeniably effective and it shows the series go in a new direction. And with Hinchcliffe and Holmes, the show became a bit more dark and gothic in terms of its approach but at the same time it still retained the show's humour as well but it was a stark contrast to the light hearted jaunty tone of the Jon Pertwee years. And in their debut The Ark in Space is a great example of the approach that Hinchcliffe and Holmes would use so well and here they dared to explore themes, which they would also later look at again in body horror, and transformation (which they do again in The Seeds of Doom) and the story has some strong and fairly shocking moments for its time. The story also even featured a scene that was cut where the mutated Noah begs Vira to kill him, which was cut out by Hinchcliffe as he deemed it as being too frightening and the story would also signal the beginning of Hinchcliffe's battle with Mary Whitehouse, who was strongly opposed to several of the stories of that period due to the horror content of the some of the stories. The story also features another disturbing image where we see Noah finally complete his transformation at the end of the third episode as his human eyes are the last thing to change before he becomes a complete Wirrn. And its moments like this that with Ark in Space it sure signalled that the show was changing and also for the better as Hinchcliffe believed the show should also appealto adults as well as children hence the change in tone.
Performance wise the story is very good and Tom Baker really started to lay the grounds for his potrayal of the Doctor after trying to find his feet in his debut story, Robot, as he plays the Doctor with a good level of seriousness, eccentricity, humour as well as a strong moral sense. Baker has some great moments in the story and the first that comes to mind is the scene in the first episode where he is impressed by Harry's calculations of the Ark and he says "You're improving, Harry! Yes your mind is beginning to work. Entirely my influence of course, you shouldn't take any credit!". There is also the funny moment at the start where he berates the forever clumsy Harry, who had mucked about with the TARDIS controls and he calls him "a clumsy ham-fisted idiot!". Another good moment is where the Doctor tells Sarah and Harry how Vira didn't stop them from going after Noah and the Doctor says "By the 30th century human society had become highly compartmentalised. Vira is only a medtech and I expect we are an executive problem!" before being confronted by Noah. Then there is scene where the Doctor teases Sarah in the last episode, where she pushes herself from a very narrow conduit panel, carrying a power cable behind her and she get's all upset as she get's stuck. And the Doctor says to her "Stop whining girl! You're useless, I knew we couldn't rely on you! Hundreds of lives are at stake and you just sit there blubbing!". And then there is the moment where the Doctor just before he joins his mind with the Wirrn, Vira warns her that if he links up the equipment to his mind it could "burn out a human brain" and the Doctor says "an ordinary brain, yes, but mine is exceptional!". And then there is the hilarious and most likely unintentionally double entendre line where the Doctor explains his medical status and Harry's to Vira by saying "well my doctorate is purely honorary and Harry here is only qualified to work on sailors!" (or maybe it was intentional!). Another good scene is where the Doctor discovers that the missing crewmember, Dune, was used by the Wirrn, who planted eggs inside his body and Vira says "You mean Dune's knowledge??" and the Doctor says "Has been thoroughly digested I'm afraid!". And Sarah frightened by the prospect says "don't make jokes like that, Doctor" and the Doctor says to her "When I say I'm afraid, Sarah, I'm not making jokes".
Elisabeth Sladen is also as good as ever in her part as Sarah Jane Smith and she has some moments in the story such as when she volunteers to take the power cables through the conduits so they rig up the power to electrocute the Wirrn and she says "why can't I take that cable through?" and they look at her and Sarah says "Well I'm about that wide!" as she indicates the width of the conduits. And the story also begins to show the natural chemistry that Tom and Liz had with one another on screen in the scene where the Doctor teases her to get her to move on. And Sarah starts sobbing but the Doctor's teasing remarks get her riled up and she says "You wait until I get out of here!" and as Sarah emerges from the conduit the Doctor takes her hand and she protests "I don't need your help, I can manage thank you!" and as the Doctor tells her he is proud of her she gasps and says "Conned again! You're a brute!". Then there is the scene where Sarah near the start, is starved of oxygen due to the Ark's air supply turned off, but as the Doctor makes his repairs and turns it on again, Harry reassures her calling her "old girl" and Sarah groggily stirs and says "Harry, call me old girl again and I'll spit in your eye!".
Ian Marter also makes a good impression in the story as the bumbling but well meaning Harry Sullivan and also provides some comic relief as well as he is given some possibly unintentionally funny lines to deliver. Marter actually get's some of the best lines in the story such as the scene where Harry says to the Doctor "I always hated sliding doors even since I got my nose caught in one at Pompei barracks!". Another is the scene where the Doctor and the others listened to an automated message of the future prime minister of the Earth (a female voice) and Harry says to Sarah "Well I bet that did your female chauvanist heart a power of good" and Sarah says why and Harry says "Well imagine a member of the fair sex being top of the totem pole!". And then there is the priceless line where the Doctor comments on the Wirrn Queen to Vira and Harry says "We found the queen in the cupboard!". And when Vira says there is a technical fault on the ship, Harry says to her "gremlins can get into anything, old girl, first law of the sea!".
As for the guest cast, Wendy Williams does well enough in her role as Vira, the senior medical technician who revives her crewmates and loyalities are torn between the Doctor and Noah. Wendy has some moments in the story such as the scene where she tries to revive Sarah and the Doctor says that she has changed Sarah's body into a battlefield, and Vira says "Battlefield?! I hypoid in classics by you dawn timers have a language all of your own!". Also there is the moment where the Doctor and Vira confront the rapidly mutating Noah in the corridors of the ark and after the meeting, Vira turns away sadly saying "Noah and I were pair-bonded for the new life". Kenton Moore is also quite effective in his role as Noah, who starts off as a rather arrogant crew leader but is soon consumed by the Wirrn and he starts to become slightly pitiful. Moore also some good moments such as the scene where he reveals his mutated green skinned hand and he pleads with Vira to evacuate the ark and he fights to tell them "You are all in great danger!" and then Wirrn that briefly takes control of him and his voice changes to a lower tone saying "We shall absorb the humans. The Earth shall be ours!".
And lastly Morgan Richardson is great in his role as the Ark crewmember, Rogin, who is somewhat grumpy and he too get's some of the story's best lines. An example is the scene where he has been revived and he says to Vira "I told there has been a snitch up! We should have taken our chances on Earth and went into the thermic shelters! We'd be happily dead by now!". And later he says to other revived friend, Lycett, "We should have stayed on the Earth. I liked the Earth. I like heat!". And lastly there is the line where Rogin and Harry use the transmats to transport between areas in the Ark and Harry after he is arrives says "I say! What a marvelous way to travel!" and Rogin rubs his teeth saying "It always sets my teeth on edge!".
As for the direction, Rodney Bennett does a fine job with the story and along with The Sontaran Experiment, it was the only other story that Bennett would direct for the show as he provides a good deal of tension of suspense throughout the story. The sets are also very noteworthy in the story as future academy award winner, Roger Murray Leach produces some brilliant and imagnitive sets for the Ark space station. And laslty a nod deserves to go out to the show's regular composer at the time, Dudley Simpson who provides another fine dramatic score for the story, which is very well suited and features many atmospheric and dramatic cues.
As for the flaws............... well yeah OK The Ark in Space isn't quite perfect and its main flaw probably lies in the fact that while Noah's transformation into the Wirrn throughout the story is quite effective, the Wirrn themselves are less so and in the end we are subjected to more men in rubber suits shifting about! And after the effectiveness of the story for the first three episodes, when you see the plastic rubber suited Wirrn shift around the studio, it takes away any convincing impact the creatures should make. But I guess given the show's limited budget back then and the limited effects technology of the time they always in the end has to resort to using men in rubber suits for any insectoid alien lifeforms! I also felt the story features one or two superflous characters specifically Libri and Lycett who in the end are just used as fodder for the Wirrn (well Lycett literally as he is consumed by the Wirrn larvae) and actually aren't given enough time to be developed as characters or to contribute to the story itself. Perhaps also the story is a bit slow paced at the start and its not until about halfway into the second episode when things start to pick up, but overall the pacing isn't too much of a problem, but if I'm being picky it does feel a bit sluggish at the start. The lack of budget obviously was clearly a bit of an issue where we see in the scene the Doctor, Sarah and Harry walk down the corridors of the Ark that in fact there is only really one corridor area, which they keep reusing at different angles! But to be fair these were just the time and budget constraints the production staff had to work with at the time.
But those niggles aside The Ark in Space is still one of the early classics from the Baker era and its well worth checking out and it remains for the most part an effective, creepy and entertaining story which if you haven't seen it, I'd recommend giving it a go, if you are a fan of the original series (like me!).
So with that I shall bid yee goodnight.
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