DVD Extras include:
Episode One - The Steel Sky
Michael Imison proves what a great and innovative technical
director he is with his masterful opening tracking shot.
Although the camera does pause during the trick dissolve, this
is all done so gracefully that the shot is a better example of
the TARDIS materializing in a motion shot than the much more
advertised example in 1980's
"The Leisure Hive" (story no. 110),
or for that matter, during the
Christopher Eccleston and
David Tennant years with all
their computer effects sophistications. Well done! Let the
competition eat their hearts out!
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Episode One works on the basis of exploration, discovery, and
spectacle, which is played to in the script. Episode Two, however,
sets itself up for certain specific conflicts,
and then wastes much screen time unable to come to grips
with the issues at hand. Xentos's obstructions have little basis
to make them interesting. Exploring good reasons for those
obstructions would have been a much better use of screen time.
At any rate, the botched trust-conflict stage does not waste quite as much time as viewers are lead to anticipate, and we quickly move on to a different challenge which engages William Hartnell's Doctor superbly in a heroic fashion. Nice one! We also get a unique lead up to one of the finest cliffhangers in the Hartnell era. |
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Episode Three - The Return
Episode Four - The Bomb
Many new guest characters are introduced in the second half,
and there are some significant changes in circumstance as well.
I have less to complain about in terms of acting for these
two episodes, but neither is there anything remarkably outstanding.
Generally the acting is okay, perhaps a bit bland, but tells
the story well.
The Monoids come off quite well as interesting alien creatures, at least for this stage in the development of Doctor Who productions. Their constant fiddling with their voice-box collars is somewhat distracting though - it wasn't until I read the Archive feature in Doctor Who Magazine that I understood they were trying to turn a black-dot display on and off to help indicate who was speaking. Not only does this never work to any good effect, it is totally unnecessary. Unlike the boxed-in Daleks, the Monoids have every capability of gesture and easily understood humanoid movement. The one who moves and gestures emphatically is always the one speaking. It's as plain as day without the voice-box dot.
The Doctor continues to get a lot of good things to do, including exploration of the Ark's destination, while many of the visuals continue to outdo those of later stories like "Planet of the Daleks" (story no. 68), both in terms of what we see and what motivates the characters behind it. We also get a well-directed bit of action, wisely shot and edited on film, and even after that a peaceful, moral resolution wraps things up nicely. The conclusion is satisfying and well-done all round.
How "The Ark" tripped up...
Even with all that going for it, this island of excellence within "the dregs" of season three did not manage to improve ratings. What went wrong? The scenes that we actually get are all exceptionally good, but what the story lacks is the ANTICIPATION that it will continue to be good as it unfolds. Episode one spends all its time explaining what situation exists in this era, and projects a largely slow and uneventful voyage for the Ark. There is also nothing to suggest that the Doctor will be able to show us viewers the arrival at Refusis. Not enough questions are raised about Refusis in episodes one and two to make us want to discover the place in episodes three and four, or believe that we will discover the place at all. Episode two also projects the aura that it is artificially creating conflict to fill time, even though it doesn't actually waste much time at all and does move itself forward. The next episode easily creates the sinking feeling that the Doctor and his friends will simply be spending the whole episode in one less-than-exciting spot in a near repeat of their episode two antics. We don't know that we're going to get a cool exploration of the Ark's destination until it happens, thus many viewers did not stay tuned in. One of the biggest conflicts of the story also seems quite one-dimensional at first. Only AFTER it is all over, in the wrap-up, do we get the interesting motivational details that could have drawn and kept audience interest. (In retrospect, perhaps a patronizing, slightly irritating commander Guardian was an appropriate casting decision, but unfortunately this ONLY works in hindsight.) There are significant sources of dramatic conflict in the final episode, but you really can't see them coming from watching the first three episodes.Anticipation is the key ingredient lacking in all of the stories in "the dregs" of season three, and "The Ark" highlights this well because it is so good in almost everything else.
As such, "The Ark" is actually more enjoyable with repeat viewing, when members of the audience can bring along their own sense of anticipation without relying on the narrative to do it for them. It is then that the idea of causing injustice through lack of faith in the intelligence of other beings takes on the slightly horrific twist, where we can wonder if we are doing that in any aspect of our lives now without really realizing it, in parents' view of their children, in management's view of its employees, in the media's view of its audience, in the marketers' view of the consumers, and in government's view of the people it represents.
I wouldn't call "The Ark" a great Doctor Who story,
but it does deserve honourable mention.
This story has become available on DVD and VHS video.
Click on the Amazon symbol for the location nearest you for pricing and availability:
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in Canada
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DVD PAL Region 2
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VHS Video
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in North America
PAL
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