DOCTOR WHO:  THE ARK IN SPACE

Commentary by Judy Harris

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	#2: THE ARK IN SPACE (4 Parts)	ORIGINALLY AIRED: 1/25/75 to 2/15/75
	WRITTEN BY: Robert Holmes	DIRECTED BY: Rodney Bennett
	PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe	SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes

One of the contributing factors to the popularity of DOCTOR WHO is its inventive and eyecatching monster makeups. THE ARK IN SPACE offered an interesting insectoid alien called the Wirrn in three stages--adult, larval and pupal. Not really an evil creature, as with some of the Doctor's enemies, the Wirrn did have the nasty habit of eating people, thereby acquiring their knowledge. Rather disconcerting to be addressed familiarly by a 6-foot wasp! The Wirrn were certainly a much better insect monster than the Zarbi and Menoptera seen in the Hartnell story, THE WEB PLANET.

Another plus was the elaborate space station set, with its multifloor cryogenic chamber. Even Tom Baker was impressed enough with this set to single it out as a favorite ten years later. In fact, the set was so extensive it was not ready in time for filming, so story #3, THE SONTARAN EXPERIMENT went before the cameras first.

THE ARK IN SPACE marks the start of a long list of TARDIS parts that go wrong or are in need of adjustment. In this case, Harry gives the helmic regulator an ill advised twist, so the TARDIS winds up far in the future.

Once again the seemingly bottomless pockets of the Doctor's coat yield up a useful if unlikely scientific apparatus--a yoyo--which he uses to take a gravity reading, concluding he, Sarah and Harry are on an artificial satellite. His pockets are also the source of a cricket ball he tosses at the autoguard--which has been accidentally activated--but the ball is organic and is destroyed by the equipment.

The Doctor offers his hat to decoy this automatic guard; later he tosses his "faithful old scarf" to try to reach the autoguard cutout, after using his sonic screwdriver to unbolt a table for cover. It is in THE ARK IN SPACE we learn the Doctor's scarf was made for him by Madame Nostradamus, whom he calls "a witty little knitter." (In reality the scarf was knitted by Begonia Pope for the BBC wardrobe department. The Doctor's distinctive outfit was jointly developed by designer Jim Acheson and Tom Baker by rummaging through costumes in the weeks before production began.) We also hear about the Doctor's title. He tells Vira, the head medtech, "My doctorate is purely honorary."

Vira is pair bonded to Noah, a nickname for the Ark's commander Lazer. Noah becomes infected and slowly transforms into a Wirrn.

Space station Nerva is a veritable fount of gadgets with futuristic names, including a tranquiller couch with biocryonic vibrations, and a transmat. Transmats are the DOCTOR WHO version of STAR TREK's transporter, without the shimmery special effects. In the Tom Baker stories, transmats are taken very matter of factly, as opposed to the Troughton show, THE SEEDS OF DEATH for example, where transmats have taken over all transportation on Earth and are rather goggled at by the Time Lord and his friends.

When the Doctor discovers the Earth colonists in cryogenic sleep, he soliloquizes: "Homo sapiens, what an inventive, invincible species. It's only a few million years since they crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenseless bipeds! They've survived flood, famine and plague. They've survived cosmic wars and holocausts. Now here they are out among the stars waiting to begin a new life, ready to outsit eternity. They're indomitable, indomitable." Later he confesses, "It may be irrational of me, but human beings are quite my favorite species."

Tom Baker, who--before and after DOCTOR WHO--was a Shakespearean actor with the prestigious National Theatre, is eminently suited to deliver these long, theatrical speeches and--as mentioned elsewhere--is simply the best at speiling off elaborate technical jargon in an absolutely convincing manner. He's also very believable in portraying agony. In THE ARK IN SPACE, his superior Time Lord brain is painfully hooked up with that of a deceased Wirrn via a neural cortex amplifier in order to tap its latent dural impressions to discover potential Wirrn weak points.

Poor Sarah has rather a lot to endure in THE ARK IN SPACE. First she is locked in a room with no oxygen, until she passes out. Then she gets caught up in the cyrogenic process and put in suspended animation. After she is revived, she volunteers to run a cable through a narrow space station conduit, but she gets stuck and panics. And when she emerges from this duct, she is attacked by a Wirrn. For all these reasons, this is one of Lis Sladen's best stories; she looks smashing in the antiseptic space station uniform, and her revulsion at the sight of the Wirrn is very believable.

The special effects in THE ARK IN SPACE are passable, although the puppet Wirrn seen during their space walk are not very convincing and don't look much like the full size creatures. However, when the space station's shuttle takes off, there is no sound, which is an accuracy seldom seen in celluloid science fiction, where the dramatic plus of sound is usually substituted for the reality of silence in the vacuum of space.

Medtech Rogin and the Doctor detach the shuttle's synestic locks. Rogin sacrifices himself, saving the Doctor from being killed in the backblast. After the Wirrn have been disposed of through the last vestige of Noah's humanity, the Doctor offers to repair the space station's matter transmitter, fearing a "spot of corrosion" is making the "diode receptors faulty."

Writing in her posthumously-published autobiography (Aurum 2011), Elisabeth Sladen said "Tom showed himself in an equally gallant light in ARK when [I] had to crawl through a ventilitation shaft.  I don't know what exactly went wrong, but we were going through this pipe and I got stuck.  The script goes out the window for a few moments, as Tom attempts to cajole me out, all in character, and I'm desperately trying not to fall flat on my face.  Somehow he gave me the shove I needed without breaking stride---and without me landing in a heap.  That, for me, was another epiphany moment.  It was a genuine, overwhelming emotion of:  'Oh God, I love you for that."  That was the point when I thought, Oh, I adore working with you."

"Tom was really on fire on ARK.  ...the word on set was that he was the first Doctor who really 'got' the fact that he was an alien.  I would read the script and try to predict how Tom would attack certain lines.  Nine times out of ten, I was wrong.  Whatever I predicted, he would find another way.  And it would be perfect."

Peter Tuddenham, who provides a voice in this story, is also the voice of Mandragora in the 12th Tom Baker story, THE MASK OF MANDRAGORA. He's also the voice behind Zen, Orac and Slave on BLAKE'S 7.

Stuart Fell, who here plays a Wirrn, has played many other monsters; Nick Hobbs, also a Wirrn, played Aggedor twice in both the Pertwee Peladon stories (THE CURSE OF PELADON and THE MONSTER OF PELADON).