The Ark in Space
Encyclopedia
The Ark in Space is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 25 January to 15 February 1975.

Plot

The TARDIS
TARDIS
The TARDISGenerally, TARDIS is written in all upper case letters—this convention was popularised by the Target novelisations of the 1970s...

 materialises in a darkened room on board the station. The sealed room does not have much air or heat in it and , and the Fourth Doctor
Fourth Doctor
The Fourth Doctor is the fourth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC British television science-fiction series Doctor Who....

, Sarah Jane Smith
Sarah Jane Smith
Sarah Jane Smith is a fictional character played by Elisabeth Sladen in the long-running British BBC Television science-fiction series Doctor Who and its spin-offs K-9 and Company and The Sarah Jane Adventures....

 and Harry Sullivan
Harry Sullivan
Harry Sullivan is a fictional character from the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who and is a companion of the Fourth Doctor...

 find it hard to breathe. The Doctor manages to turn the lights on, revealing instrumentation on the walls. Harry curiously presses a button that opens an adjacent chamber which Sarah wanders into while the Doctor and Harry's attentions are focused on the controls, only to be trapped as the door slides shut.

The Doctor estimates the construction of the controls dates to the 30th Century, but that the station has been here for several thousand years. As the air grows thinner, Harry and the Doctor notice Sarah is missing and manage to open the door to the control room again. Sarah and Harry grow weaker and the Doctor discovers the life support circuits have been bitten through. He manages to reconnect it with his sonic screwdriver
Sonic screwdriver
The sonic screwdriver is a fictional tool in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its spinoffs. It is a multifunctional tool used by The Doctor. Its most common function is that of a lockpick, but can be used to perform other operations such as performing medical scans,...

 and the rest of the power and oxygen comes up. Harry and the Doctor lay the recovering Sarah on a nearby couch and go exploring, only to run into the reactivated defence system that nearly electrocutes them. While Harry and the Doctor manage to distract the Autoguard and trigger the shut-off control, Sarah is teleported
Teleportation
Teleportation is the fictional or imagined process by which matter is instantaneously transferred from one place to another.Teleportation may also refer to:*Quantum teleportation, a method of transmitting quantum data...

 away by the couch to another part of the station.

Lying half-sedated in the receiving chamber of the matter transmitter, Sarah hears a pre-recorded voice telling her to remain still and prepare for the "final phase" of her processing. Another voice, that of the High Minister, praises her for making the supreme sacrifice that will preserve all their pasts. Cryonic
Cryonics
Cryonics is the low-temperature preservation of humans and animals who can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future. Cryopreservation of people or large animals is not reversible with current technology...

 gas flows over Sarah as she falls asleep. Harry and the Doctor find Sarah missing, and go in search of her. Harry spots something moving in the corridor and they discover a slime trail on the floor, like that left by a giant gastropod
Gastropoda
The Gastropoda or gastropods, more commonly known as snails and slugs, are a large taxonomic class within the phylum Mollusca. The class Gastropoda includes snails and slugs of all kinds and all sizes from microscopic to quite large...

. Passing through a decontamination chamber, the two find the room where Sarah was, containing cryogenically
Cryogenics
In physics, cryogenics is the study of the production of very low temperature and the behavior of materials at those temperatures. A person who studies elements under extremely cold temperature is called a cryogenicist. Rather than the relative temperature scales of Celsius and Fahrenheit,...

 preserved botanical and animal specimens and a wall of containers holding microfilm with the sum total of human knowledge. Harry suggests that the station is a sort of lifeboat, and the Doctor agrees. Some cataclysm must have occurred on Earth, and this Ark is humanity's response.

Another panel slides open, and beyond that are chambers full of human bodies contained in individual compartments and in suspended animation
Suspended animation
Suspended animation is the slowing of life processes by external means without termination. Breathing, heartbeat, and other involuntary functions may still occur, but they can only be detected by artificial means. Extreme cold can be used to precipitate the slowing of an individual's functions; use...

. They then find a slime trail similar to the other one emerging from a vent. Exploring further, they find Sarah in one of the cryogenic pallets, deep in suspension. Harry searches for a resuscitation unit, but as he opens a storage cupboard, a huge insect-like alien nearly falls on him.

The Doctor notes that the alien
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...

 insect has been dead for a long time and is almost mummified. Just then, one of the pallets activates and a woman revives from suspended animation. She introduces herself as Vira, a senior medical officer, and demands to know who the Doctor and Harry are. When they explain what has happened to Sarah, Vira injects her with an agent that will revive her. While that runs its course, she does the same to the Ark's leader, Lazar, nicknamed "Noah". In answer to Vira's questions, Harry says he is from Earth, but Vira says that is impossible as solar flare
Solar flare
A solar flare is a sudden brightening observed over the Sun surface or the solar limb, which is interpreted as a large energy release of up to 6 × 1025 joules of energy . The flare ejects clouds of electrons, ions, and atoms through the corona into space. These clouds typically reach Earth a day...

s destroyed all life and it would have taken 5,000 years for the biosphere
Biosphere
The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed and self-regulating system...

 to be viable again. The Doctor tells Vira that the Ark's inhabitants have overslept by several millennia, thanks to the insect visitor that sabotaged the control systems.

In another part of the station, the larva
Larva
A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...

-like creature Harry saw earlier tampers with a hatch leading to the solar stack
Solar power
Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the sun, has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar radiation, along with secondary solar-powered resources such as wind and wave power, hydroelectricity and biomass, account for most of the available...

 which supplies power to the Ark. This interrupts the power to the revivification process. The Doctor turns on the secondary supply from the control room and goes to check the main stack as Noah and Sarah finally awaken. Noah is aggressive at the sight of Harry and Sarah, concerned that "regressives" could contaminate the Ark's carefully balanced genetic pool, but Vira tries to assure him the travellers are harmless. Noah goes in search of the Doctor. In the meantime, the Doctor reaches the power room and sees, through an observation port, something growing inside the stack. He then proceeds to the control room.

Noah finds the Doctor there trying to deactivate the stack to prevent the creature inside from absorbing more energy. Before the Doctor can convince him of the necessity of preventing the creature's growth, Noah shoots him with a stun gun. Meanwhile, Vira finds that technician Dune's body is missing, and when informed, Noah is convinced that the TARDIS crew are responsible. When Noah investigates the power room himself, the creature there brushes his hand with slime and he collapses. The Doctor awakens, and rushes to find Noah but meets him in the corridor instead. Noah accuses him of sabotage, informing the Doctor that the observation port was broken. The Doctor realises that, whatever the creature was, it has escaped.

Returning to the cryogenic chamber, they find Vira has revived Libri, who at first reacts to Noah with horror, claiming he saw a shape. Noah asks Libri to guard the travellers while he goes to shut down the revivification. When Vira questions him as to why, Noah seems to be struggling with some internal conflict. Noah then claims that he is Dune, or that Dune is "inside" him, before he rushes off. Vira is worried about Noah's outburst and concerned that something might have gone wrong with his revival, as stopping the revivification now could be damaging to the sleepers.

The Doctor suggests that Noah's mind is no longer his own — the alien consciousness was what Libri was reacting to — and convinces Libri to go and stop Noah. While examining Dune's empty pallet, the Doctor finds part of an egg membrane. Closer examination of the insect corpse shows that its egg tube is empty — it had laid its eggs in Dune and the larvae digested his body and knowledge of the Ark's power systems. Libri confronts Noah, but is unable to shoot his commander, and Noah kills him instead. Noah's hand is covered with a green growth where the larva had touched him before, which is mutating him.

The High Minister's voice echoes through the Ark, identifying it as Space Station Nerva, praising the passengers for their efforts and encouraging them to rebuild human civilisation. Noah manages to fight off some of the alien influence and orders Vira via the communications system to expedite the revivification and get everyone off the station before the insect aliens (called the Wirrn), absorb them and take over the Earth. The Doctor and Vira go to find Noah while Harry and Sarah revive the rest of the technical crew.

When they find Noah, the growth has taken most of the left side of his body over. The Doctor tries to get Noah to tell him how long they have before the Wirrn reach maturity, but he runs away. Vira, sadly, tells the Doctor that Noah and her were pair-bonded for their new life on Earth. Lycet and Rogin, the only two left of the technical crew, are awakened and shocked to hear what has transpired since their suspension. The Doctor tells Harry to dissect the Wirrn corpse to see if they can find a weakness. Vira wants to carry out Noah's last orders and continue the revivification, but the Doctor tells her it would take too long, as the Wirrn will have matured from the larval into their imago
Imago
In biology, the imago is the last stage of development of an insect, after the last ecdysis of an incomplete metamorphosis, or after emergence from the pupa where the metamorphosis is complete...

 stage before then. He proposes that they can destroy the Wirrn while they are in their dormant, pupa
Pupa
A pupa is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation. The pupal stage is found only in holometabolous insects, those that undergo a complete metamorphosis, going through four life stages; embryo, larva, pupa and imago...

l stage and Vira agrees.

The dissection of the Wirrn corpse reveals a lung structure than can recycle carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

 back into oxygen
Oxygen
Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...

. This self-contained system suggests the Wirrn live in space and only need to occasionally touch down on planets for food and oxygen. The Doctor tries to hook a neural cortex amplifier and a video screen to the Wirrn retina in order to gain access to what it had seen just before its death. When the signal proves too weak, the Doctor attempts to stimulate it by running it through his own cerebral cortex, despite the others' protests.

The larva breaks through into the adjacent cryogenic chamber, killing Lycet. The others seal the door, but cannot interrupt the Doctor's procedure in case the shock kills him. On the screen, they see the memories of the dead Wirrn (revealed to be a Queen), how she came to the Ark and was fatally wounded by the Autoguard. However, the Queen still managed to cut the power circuits and lay her eggs inside Dune before dying.

Rogin and Harry get fission
Nuclear fission
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts , often producing free neutrons and photons , and releasing a tremendous amount of energy...

 guns from the armoury, encountering Noah, who is now nearly transformed, covered in the green growth. They fire at him, managing to drive him back, and return to the specimen room where the others are. As the larva tries to break through, they fire sustained bursts at it, finally making it retreat back into the vents. The Doctor asks Rogin if they can electrify the infrastructure, electricity being the Wirrn's weakness. Rogin says it can be done from the control room, but Noah is roaming the corridors. The Doctor reverses the transmat chamber in the specimen room to send the others back to the control room, but only manages to send Rogin and Harry before the power fails. As the Wirrn do not need oxygen in their pupal stage, it was safe for them to shut off the systems to suffocate the humans. Knowing that the Wirrn are now at least dormant, the Doctor goes to the power room, where he finds Wirrn pupae. As he tries to reactivate the solar stack, a now fully transformed Noah attacks him.

Vira and Sarah have followed the Doctor. Vira shoots at Noah, allowing the Doctor to reach them. As they back out of the room, Noah tells Vira to leave the station in the transport ship, or else the Wirrn will hunt them down when they emerge. Noah explains that a thousand years ago, the Wirrn were driven from their home, Andromeda, by human space settlers. Since then, they have drifted through space, looking for a new world, and have now claimed the Ark for their own. While the Wirrn can live in space, their breeding colonies are terrestrial, and they need humans as hosts. They intend to absorb all human knowledge, achieving revenge for the loss of their original home and becoming an advanced technological species within a single generation.

Behind Noah, the pupae begin to crack open, and the Doctor and the two humans retreat to the control room. They have to somehow electrify the cryogenic chamber to stop the Wirrn from feeding on the sleepers, but the Wirrn control the solar stack. Sarah suggests using the transport ship, which must have its own power generators. The ship is close by, but they will have to run the cable through conduits or else the Wirrn will simply cut it. The conduits are narrow, and without a mechanical cable runner, only Sarah is small enough to fit through them.

As Sarah navigates through the conduits guided by Rogin through a two-way radio, the Doctor hooks up the cables in preparation for Sarah as the Wirrn emerge and wander the Ark. Sarah gets stuck just metres from the Doctor, and almost gives up, until the Doctor goads her into crawling the last of it by calling her useless. Connecting the last cable, the Doctor gives the word to Rogin in the ship and the walls of the chamber electrify, driving the Wirrn back.

Noah turns the Ark's power back on and, as the Swarm Leader, offers the others safe passage from the Ark if they surrender, leaving the sleepers for the Wirrn. If they do not, the Wirrn will shut down the oxygen pumps. The Doctor tries to appeal to what is left of the human in Noah with reminders of what Earth is like, asking him to lead the swarm into space where they belong, but Noah claims he has no memory of Earth. Meanwhile, the Wirrn try to board the transport ship but Rogin and Vira fire up the engines to warn them off.

Vira warns the Doctor that the swarm is making its way to the transport deck via the outer hull of the Ark. The Doctor tells Rogin to cut the power, initiate automatic take off and evacuate the ship. He and Sarah rush to the transport deck, helping the others back into the Ark as the swarm enters the ship. The locking mechanisms need to be released so that the transport ship can launch. Rogin and the Doctor each tackle one of the three locks, meeting at the third. The Doctor orders Rogin to leave but Rogin, realising that whoever stays will get killed in the back blast, knocks the Doctor out. Rogin drags the Doctor to safety on the other side of the hatch before returning to the mechanism. Rogin is able to free the last lock just before the transport ship engines fire, killing him instantly.

Returning to the control room, the Doctor wonders aloud whether Noah still had some vestige of human spirit left in him, and was one step ahead of them all along by leading the swarm into the ship knowing what they would do. This turns out to be correct, as Noah "neglects" to engage safety features for the engines. He transmits one final good-bye to Vira before the transport ship explodes with the swarm on board. Mankind is safe to repopulate the Earth.

However, before that can happen, the transmat to Earth must be repaired. The Doctor offers to go down to the planet and repair the receiver unit — it is probably just some corrosion, a quick fix, and it will give him a chance to see if Earth is viable again. Harry and Sarah insist on coming along, and the Doctor tosses a bag of jelly babies
Jelly baby
Jelly babies are a type of soft confectionery that look like little babies in a variety of colours. There are currently several brands of jelly babies, most predominantly Trebor Bassett , Rowntree , Norfolk Manor, and Haribo.Jelly babies were launched by Bassett's in 1918 in Sheffield...

 to Vira as they use the transmat to down to Earth.

Continuity

  • This serial forms part of a continuous series of adventures for the TARDIS crew, beginning from the end of Robot
    Robot (Doctor Who)
    Robot is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 28 December 1974 to 18 January 1975...

    and continuing through to Terror of the Zygons
    Terror of the Zygons
    Terror of the Zygons is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 30 August to 20 September 1975...

    .
  • In the script, Wirrn is spelled with only two 'r's. In Ian Marter
    Ian Marter
    Ian Don Marter was an English actor and writer, perhaps best known for his role as Harry Sullivan in the BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, from December 1974 to September 1975 as a regular, with a one story return in November and December 1975...

    's (the actor who portrayed Harry Sullivan
    Harry Sullivan
    Harry Sullivan is a fictional character from the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who and is a companion of the Fourth Doctor...

    ) novelisation of The Ark in Space, Wirrrn is spelled with three 'r's.
  • The Wirrn also appear in the BBV
    BBV
    BBV is a video and audio production company specialising in science fiction drama, known for its links with the British science fiction television series Doctor Who...

     audio play Wirrn: Race Memory. The Eighth Doctor
    Eighth Doctor
    The Eighth Doctor is the eighth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by Paul McGann...

     encounters the Wirrn in the Eighth Doctor Adventures
    Eighth Doctor Adventures
    The Eighth Doctor Adventures are a series of spin off novels based on the long running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and published under the BBC Books imprint. 73 books were published overall...

     novel Placebo Effect
    Placebo Effect (Doctor Who)
    Placebo Effect is an original novel written by Gary Russell and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who...

    , by Gary Russell
    Gary Russell
    Gary James Russell is a freelance writer and former child actor. As a writer, he is best known for his work in connection with the television series Doctor Who and its spin-offs in other media...

     and the Big Finish
    Big Finish Productions
    Big Finish Productions is a British company that produces books and audio plays based, primarily, on cult British science fiction properties...

     audio story Wirrn Dawn
    Wirrn Dawn
    Wirrn Dawn is an audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. This audio drama was produced by Big Finish Productions.-Plot:Human colonists in the future face many battles to survive...

    by Nicholas Briggs
    Nicholas Briggs
    Nicholas Briggs is a British actor and writer, predominantly associated with the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and its various spin-offs, particularly as the voice of the Daleks. Briggs sometimes uses the pseudonym Arthur Wallis...

    .

Production

  • The script, written by Robert Holmes
    Robert Holmes (scriptwriter)
    This entry is about the television scriptwriter. For other people with the same name, see Robert Holmes .Robert Colin Holmes was an English television scriptwriter, who for over twenty-five years contributed to some of the most popular programmes screened in the UK...

    , is from a story by John Lucarotti
    John Lucarotti
    John Lucarotti was a British screenwriter.Lucarotti began his career at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, writing on over 200 various scripts for them as well as for Canadian television. He then moved back to England where he had a prolific career...

    , which was rewritten because it was considered unusable. Holmes rewrote The Ark in Space as a four part serial as a lead in to the two part The Sontaran Experiment
    The Sontaran Experiment
    The Sontaran Experiment is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was originally broadcast in two weekly parts on 22 February and 1 March 1975.-Synopsis:...

    . Lucarotti does not receive any on-screen credit.
  • The title sequence for Part One was tinted pink and green as an experiment, but was not repeated for subsequent episodes. The title sequence would stay constant for the next six years.
  • Producer Philip Hinchcliffe believed that in order to expand the show's core audience, it was necessary to broaden the show's appeal to adults, and "Ark in Space" demonstrates this with its use of horror, particularly the inexorable transformation of Noah into an alien creature. A scene in which the half-transformed Noah begs Vira to kill him was deemed too scary for children and had to be cut.
  • The sets for this story were re-used for Revenge of the Cybermen
    Revenge of the Cybermen
    Revenge of the Cybermen is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 19 April to 10 May 1975.-Synopsis:...

    , partially set on Space Station Nerva at an earlier time.

Reception

Part Two of this story charted at number five for the most-watched television programmes across the week on all channels. This was the highest chart placing ever attained by a single episode of Doctor Who until 2007's Voyage of the Damned
Voyage of the Damned (Doctor Who)
"Voyage of the Damned" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. First broadcast on 25 December 2007, it is 72 minutes long and the third Christmas special since the show's revival in 2005...

placed second for both that week and the entire year. The highest rated episode (in terms of viewing audience) is Part Four of City of Death
City of Death
-Pre-production:Writer David Fisher had contributed two scripts to Doctor Whos sixteenth season – The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara – and was asked by producer Graham Williams for further story ideas...

.

At Inside the World of Doctor Who, a live event hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...

 on 29 November 2008, Russell T Davies, producer of the 21st century revival of Doctor Who, said that The Ark in Space was his favourite story from the original run of Doctor Who as did Steven Moffat.

In print

A novelisation of this serial, written by Ian Marter
Ian Marter
Ian Don Marter was an English actor and writer, perhaps best known for his role as Harry Sullivan in the BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, from December 1974 to September 1975 as a regular, with a one story return in November and December 1975...

, was published by Target Books
Target Books
Target Books was a British publishing imprint, established in 1973 by Universal-Tandem Publishing Co Ltd, a paperback publishing company. The imprint was established as a children's imprint to complement the adult Tandem imprint, and became well known for their highly successful range of...

 in 1977. This was Marter's first novelisation for Target (he would write several more before his death in 1986). Marter alters the ending so that the travellers leave in the TARDIS.

VHS, Laserdisc and DVD releases

  • This serial was first released on VHS
    VHS
    The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

     in 1989 in an omnibus format. It was then re-released in 1994 in its original episodic format.
  • It was released on Laserdisc
    Laserdisc
    LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...

     in 1996 in its original episodic format
  • Its DVD
    DVD
    A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

     release in the United Kingdom was on 8 April 2002.
  • It was released for sale on iTunes
    ITunes
    iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

    on 11 August 2008.

External links

Reviews
Target novelisation
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