The Ark in Space DVD NTSC Region 1 DVD PAL Region 2 VHS Video NTSC NTSC PAL

(Story No. 76, starring Tom Baker) written by Robert Holmes directed by Rodney Bennett produced by Philip Hinchcliffe music by Dudley Simpson 4 episodes @ 25 minutes each Story: The TARDIS brings the Doctor, Sarah, and Harry to a futuristic space station. Why have the hundreds of occupants all put themselves into a frozen cryogenic sleep, and more importantly, why have they not woken up again on schedule? Detecting signs of sabotage, the Doctor suspects his trio is not alone on the ark....

DVD Extras include:

• Audio commentary by actors Tom Baker (The Doctor), Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith), and producer Philip Hinchcliffe.
• interview with designer Roger Murray-Leach
• interview with Tom Baker filmed during the making of the next story (in production order): "Revenge of the Cybermen"
• new CGI model footage and 3D Ark schematic
• unused title sequence and 16mm model footage
• original BBC trailers and news reports
• Pop-up Production Note Subtitles
• Photo Gallery
• "Who's Who" actor biographies (text only)

This story marks a distinct shift in style for Doctor Who, consciously aimed for by incoming producer Philip Hinchcliffe. The drama is tighter, returning to the level of sophisticatation and seriousness that Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks had originally achieved at the beginning of their era and later forgotten nearer its end. But the show also now has a lonelier, more claustrophobic, more disturbing feel to it. For this story, it works wonderfully, as "The Ark in Space" becomes one of the two stand-out gems of the twelfth season.

Sadly, the audience is denied being able to share in Harry's first experience traveling in the TARDIS. The materialization effect is skimped on quite badly, and the lack of a scene in the TARDIS interior between this story and the last is unforgivable, and bizarre. The subsequent dialogue aims for a kind of attitude humour, but still doesn't inform us as to what exactly has Harry so amazed. As of this point in 1974, Robert Holmes had not yet written a single scene for the TARDIS interior in his entire Doctor Who career. Hmmm..... He seems to have TARDISophobia or something.

The three regular characters proceed to carry the first episode all on their own, and do a remarkably fine job of it. In many ways, it is reminiscent of "The Edge of Destruction" (story no. 3), a pause in the heavily populated adventures to give the regulars time to define their characters and relationships with each other.

The sets by Roger Murray-Leach are really wonderful, helping to set the story apart from the usual outer space boxes seen previously on the program. It's doubly nice that the sets got re-used again in the final story of the season.

Blake's 7 fans like myself will enjoy Peter Tuddenham's voice-overs in the first episode. Even though his roles on Blake's 7 were a few years away, Tuddenham seems quite like "Zen" over Sarah's cryogenic scene, and very like "Orac" in the hall with the Doctor and Harry.

Dudley Simpson continues to be refreshingly creative this season. His cues seem more thematic and more carefully worked out than usual. He does some really excellent atmospheric work for creeping-about scenes, and he does a particularly memorable theme for the story that can serve as both a suspenseful tension builder and a purposeful march. (It's a pity that this bit wasn't included on the Heathcliffe Blair CD that featured music from this story.) Perhaps most important of all are the beginnings of Simpson's incidental theme for Tom Baker's Doctor, which finds its way into two major cues throughout the story. Unfortunately, a lot of Simpson's best work for this story remains masked under a lot of dialogue, where it is forced to remain low key in the mix and perhaps not get the notice that it deserves without many repeat viewings. Some wonderfully soothing classical music by Händel also fits in to become another musical highlight of the story. This story marks a rich day, musically speaking.

Music by Dudley Simpson 5 re-recorded tracks feature on: Audio CD - Pyramids of Mars Classic Music from the Tom Baker Era Heathcliffe Blair More info & buying options Special Sound by Dick Mills "Nerva Beacon Infrastructure & T-Mat Couch" features on: Audio CD - Doctor Who at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop Volume 2 More info & buying options

It's interesting to hear Philip Hinchcliffe's commentary on how he aimed to take the show more solidly into the realm of sci-fi, because his definition of certain genres is different from mine, as everyone's definitions are always at least slightly different. For me, the Barry Letts / Terrance Dicks / Jon Pertwee years were well-rounded, solid sci-fi years in terms of genre, often with social/moral conscience aspects integral to the plot and basic premise. The Hinchcliffe years tip the sci-fi scale in favour of horror in my view. Not slash-fest terror, mind you, because I never was frightened, and never knew anyone who "hid behind the couch", but horror, because disturbing things happen to people, and it shouldn't, and it makes you think afterwards how awful it would be to experience it, and what you might do if you were in the position of this character or that one. The moral compass in the Hinchcliffe years is much more reactionary - it rests more in the characters' responses to the sci-fi/horror concepts they encounter, rather than in the inception of the concepts themselves.

Further on, the Graham Williams years (seasons 15-17) would tip the sci-fi scale in the other direction, more towards humour and fantasy, where one can escape to a fun place with colourful light-hearted effects, and fill the moral commentary on society with irony and satire. To be quite frank, more my own personal cup of tea. And lastly, the John Nathan-Turner years (seasons 18-26) seem to return to the centre of balance in my idea of sci-fi, where an additional push was made to give it all a big blockbuster, sequels-to-outdo-originals type of feel, a push that eventually overshadowed the sci-fi elements altogether but still gave us lots of great fun stuff.

"The Ark in Space" really is a bold statement of the way Hinchcliffe and Holmes wanted to do things, and the change in atmosphere really is quite palpable. It's a riveting bottle-story, well-paced, and superbly delivered by the actors. Tom Baker finds himself in his new role, and Ian Marter finally gets lots of screen time to demonstrate how exceptionally good he is in his role. Elisabeth Sladen has less to do as Sarah, but still does it all extremely well. Richardson Morgan is great as Rogin, the one futuristic "awakened-human" character who seems to still have wit and emotional depth. Morgan was also very entertaining as Corporal Blake in the 1967 Pat Troughton story "The Web of Fear" (story no. 41). Wendy Williams plays Vira with a certain futuristic distance in her mannerisms, aiding that early sense of uncertainty as to whether the chief threat against the Doctor's party will come from the awakened humans themselves, caught in the grip of the automization and purification of their culture, or some other unknown..... As Noah, Kenton Moore has to continue to pull off that dichotomy all the way through, and he does a remarkable job of it. They say Tom Baker was unpredictable in humourous ways, which was probably true, but so were Noah and Vira in dramatic ways as characters, which fuels so much of this story's power.

Many of the effects are limited, but director Rodney Bennett seems extremely expert in knowing what to do with what he gets. The "line-of-fire" visible beams that I always want to see aren't there, but particularly with the battles involving the "heavier artillery" of the fission guns, the fast-editing, close-ups, powerful sound effects, and visuals of sparks around the targets and interesting working props all combine to deliver a wonderful and absolutely essential energy to the drama. I love those sequences. They work, and with a different variety of cinematic ingredients than the usual sci-fi pallette. It's so much better than much of what Doctor Who had been offering us previously in terms of fire-fights. It keeps the drama moving as it should, which Bennett has done a remarkable job on as a whole.

Here comes another big plus for the story: Trans-mat finally comes of age. They may have screwed up with the TARDIS effects, but for the first time in the history of the show, Doctor Who's version of Star Trek's "beam-me-up" transporter is done to satisfaction with a proper trick-dissolve. Trans-mat features quite a bit in this story, and is nicely integral to the link to the next stories. I am disappointed, however that Trans-mat took over from the TARDIS as the main vehicle moving our main characters from one story's setting to the next; I think an interesting move like that would be more appropriate for a new Doctor's second season than his first, again in the interests of "piloting" the show to new audiences and doing the TARDIS right first until it is a better established familiarity.

Ian Marter, God bless him, made a wonderful and critically more logical improvement on it in his novelisation of this story and the next: if the transmat is not working so well, why use it to get to the problem on the other end, when the TARDIS is sitting right there begging to be the hero? Marter's version uses it, and concocts a technical reason for it abandoning the trio on Earth to return to the Ark. This heightens the sense of them being trapped on Earth, because it would show that they're not willing to trust the transmat until after the Doctor has finished fixing it, and it also provides a reason for the TARDIS to be in motion to return to the Ark in the appropriate time period for "Revenge of the Cybermen" (story no. 79), rather than having us believe that after it was just sitting there after "The Ark in Space" it spontaneously decided to get up and shift back through time. So.... three cheers for Ian Marter, and too bad he wasn't quick enough with that one to get it into the filming and taping of the season.

The DVD version of this story gives you the option of watching new computer graphic space exterior shots in place of the original 1974 shots, or alternatively on their own as an extra. While these look nice and are a lot ot fun, they sadly only "fix what ain't broke" with the original. Too bad their efforts weren't applied to a new materialization shot for the TARDIS, or some extra shots to aid the visual literacy of the movements of the antagonists near the end of the story. Oh well.

Bottom line: Ark in Space is a good one! The DVD's got great extras on top. Enjoy!

DVD NTSC Region 1 for the North American market: in the U.S. in Canada	DVD PAL Region 2 for the U.K.	VHS Video NTSC in the U.S. NTSC in Canada PAL for the U.K.

Contact page

LYRATEK.COM

Read the Buyers' Guide Review for the next story: "The Sontaran Experiment" Home Page Site Map Star Trek Sliders Doctor Who Tom Baker Era Episode Guide Catalogue