Serial 4C · Classic
Series Episodes 386 389:
The Ark In Space
The TARDIS materialises aboard the Nerva Beacon, a space station
carrying the remnants of humanity in suspended animation. The Earth was
abandoned before it was scoured by deadly solar flares, but mechanical
failure has caused the survivors to oversleep by millennia. The Doctor,
Sarah and Harry begin reviving the humans, including their leader, Noah.
Soon, however, one of the crew is found to be missing, and the Doctor
realises that Nerva has suffered an incursion by the insect-like Wirrn.
When Noah is infected by the Wirrn and begins to succumb to their
hostile influence, mankind faces imminent extinction.
The first storyline considered for the Fourth Doctor was “Space Station”,
submitted by Christopher Langley on December 30th, 1973. As Langley
worked on his scripts, they became a lynchpin of the plans being
formulated by producer Philip Hinchcliffe and script editor Robert
Holmes for Doctor Who's twelfth season. The pair had decided to
make more effective use of the programme's budget by setting two stories
in the same location at different times. As such, the sets required for
“Space Station”
would also be utilised in a second serial which, by May 1974, was
intended to be Gerry Davis' Revenge Of The
Cybermen.
Unfortunately, by the end of May, it was clear that Langley's scripts were
unacceptable and a replacement would have to be found. Since the new
storyline would now burdened by several plot and structural
requirements, Holmes turned to John Lucarotti, who was recommended to
him by former script editor Terrance Dicks. Dicks had worked with
Lucarotti on the short-lived science-fiction drama Moonbase 3,
but Lucarotti's affiliation with Doctor Who went back more than a
decade; he had last written The Massacre Of St
Bartholomew's Eve in 1965. Lucarotti was commissioned to write
Episode One of The Ark In Space on June 5th, with the contract
for the other three installments following the next day.
John Lucarotti's version concerned a space ark invaded by
the Delc, fungi grown from spores floating in space
Lucarotti's adventure concerned a massive space ark carrying
cryogenically-frozen humans, which had been invaded by the Delc. The
Delc were fungi, grown from spores floating in space. The primary Delc
took the form of floating heads, while their servitors appeared as
headless bodies. The Delc were impervious to most forms of harm because
any impact just caused the release of more spores. The Doctor eventually
discovered that the Delc were susceptible to electrocution, and
ultimately knocked the primary Delc out into space with a golf club.
Lucarotti gave each episode its own title, unaware that Doctor
Who had abandoned this practice in 1966.
Contact between Holmes and Lucarotti -- who wrote from a houseboat
moored at the French island of Corsica in the Mediterranean -- was
sporadic, a situation further hampered by a postal dispute. When
Lucarotti's scripts arrived in July, they too were met with disapproval,
having evolved into a sophisticated narrative unsuitable for Doctor
Who. With time growing short, it was decided that Holmes would have
to perform a wholesale rewrite of The Ark In Space; Lucarotti
would not be credited on the broadcast episodes, but he would
nonetheless be paid in full for his work. Hinchcliffe secured
retrospective approval for this arrangement on October 8th. Completing
the new scripts in just eighteen days, Holmes discarded many of
Lucarotti's ideas, although he preserved the basic premise of a space
ark invaded by an alien intelligence (now the insectoid Wirrn rather
than the fungal Delc).
As a further cost-saving measure, Hinchcliffe and Holmes had decided to
pair The Ark In Space with The Sontaran
Experiment, in which the Doctor and his companions investigated
whether the abandoned Earth was safe for the sleepers aboard the Nerva
Beacon. The two serials would effectively be made as a single
production, with The Ark In Space taped solely in the studio and
The Sontaran Experiment made entirely on
location. As such, they would share the same director: Rodney Bennett.
Bennett disliked the end of Holmes' story, in which Noah drew the Wirrn
out into the depths of space, away from the ark. Bennett wanted the
Wirrn to meet a more decisive end, and suggested the revelation that
they could be dissolved in water. Holmes rejected this notion, and
instead amended Episode Four to add Noah blowing up the shuttle with the
Wirrn aboard. Bennett and Holmes also clashed in their conception of
Vira, the chief medtech aboard the Nerva Beacon. Holmes' scripts
indicated that she should be black -- and possibly Haitian -- but
Bennett instead cast Wendy Williams, a white actress, in the role.
Work on The Ark In Space began on October 16th with a day's model
filming at the BBC Television Centre Puppet Theatre in White City,
London. As usual, the serial's studio schedule was divided into
fortnightly two-day blocks, on Mondays and Tuesdays. The first took
place on October 28th and 29th, in BBC Television Centre Studio 3. The
first day saw the recording of Episode One, as well as the opening
moments of Episode Two and shots from the perspective of the Wirrn Queen
for Episode Three. The rest of Episode Two was taped the next day.
Plans to complete the early scenes of Episode Three on
October 29th were scuppered by the slow pace of production
Bennett had also intended to complete the early scenes of Episode Three
on October 29th, since these were the last sequences in which the Wirrn
mutation was confined to Noah's hand. However, these plans were
scuppered by the slow pace of production, and the material was shifted
to the second recording block, which took place in TC1 on November 11th
and 12th. Because Kenton Moore had to be made up as a more fully-mutated
Noah for the rest of Episode Three, the delayed material could not be
completed on the Monday. Instead, this day also took in sequences from
Episode Four set on the transom and in the second control room. The rest
of Episode Four was taped on the Tuesday, at which time the opening
scenes of Episode Three were finally recorded.
One of Hinchcliffe's plans for Doctor Who was to take it in a
more mature direction, but the producer was aware that he had to do so
cautiously, given the programme's chiefly juvenile audience. As a
result, Hinchcliffe decided to cut one significant sequence from The
Ark In Space Episode Three after consulting with Bill Slater, the
BBC's Head of Serials. This was a longer version of the encounter
between the Doctor, Vira and the half-Wirrn Noah. In the excised
material, Noah described the dual ecstasy and torment of becoming a
Wirrn, and pleaded with Vira to kill him, although she was unable to do
so. Both Hinchcliffe and Slater feared that this scene would prove too
disturbing for children.
Although The Ark In Space was made after The
Sontaran Experiment, it was always planned to be broadcast
first. The Ark In Space therefore came after Robot, the debut story for Tom Baker's Fourth
Doctor, which had been held over from the previous recording block. It
was the first serial to which the new Doctor Who title sequence
was added, since the editing of Robot was
only subsequently completed. The titles appended to The Ark In
Space featured a unique colour scheme, with a predominantly green
tint instead of blue.
The BBC Saturday night schedule underwent some changes during the
transmission of The Ark In Space. Up to the broadcast of Episode
One on January 25th, 1975, Doctor Who had been preceded by the
children's show Shari Lewis and a news update, but the former was
replaced by the animated Tom And Jerry the following week. The
same evening marked the season finale for Bruce Forsyth And The
Generation Game, into which Doctor Who led. As of Episode
Three on February 8th, Doctor Who was instead followed by The
Wonderful World Of Disney.
Meanwhile, any fears that the public might react badly to Baker's new
interpretation of the Doctor were quickly allayed. On February 1st,
The Ark In Space Episode Two drew 13.6 million viewers to finish
fifth amongst all UK programmes for the week. This was the highest chart
position yet achieved in the history of Doctor Who, and was just
the first sign of the incredible success Baker would help inspire.
- Doctor Who Magazine #218, 26th October 1994, “Archive:
The Ark In Space” by Andrew Pixley, Marvel Comics UK Ltd.
- Doctor Who Magazine Special Edition #8, 1st September 2004,
“You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet” by Andrew Pixley, Panini
Publishing Ltd.
- Doctor Who: The Ark In Space Special Edition DVD Production
Subtitles by Martin Wiggins (2013), 2|entertain.
- Doctor Who: The Complete History #22, 2015, “Story 76:
The Ark In Space”, edited by John Ainsworth, Hachette Partworks
Ltd.
- Doctor Who: The Handbook: The Fourth Doctor by David J Howe,
Mark Stammers and Stephen James Walker (1992), Virgin Publishing.
- Doctor Who: The Seventies by David J Howe, Mark Stammers and
Stephen James Walker (1994), Virgin Publishing.
- In·Vision #2, February 1988, “Production”
edited by Justin Richards and Peter Anghelides, Cybermark Services.
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Original Transmission
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|
Episode 1 |
Date |
25th Jan 1975 |
Time |
5.36pm |
Duration |
24'58" |
Viewers (more) |
9.4m (27th) |
Episode 2 |
Date |
1st Feb 1975 |
Time |
5.31pm |
Duration |
24'49" |
Viewers (more) |
13.6m (5th) |
Episode 3 |
Date |
8th Feb 1975 |
Time |
5.32pm |
Duration |
24'05" |
Viewers (more) |
11.2m (17th) |
Episode 4 |
Date |
15th Feb 1975 |
Time |
5.32pm |
Duration |
24'37" |
Viewers (more) |
10.2m (24th) |
Cast
Doctor Who |
Tom Baker (bio) |
Sarah Jane Smith |
Elisabeth Sladen (bio) |
Harry Sullivan |
Ian Marter (bio) |
High Minister's Voice |
Gladys Spencer |
Voice |
Peter Tuddenham |
Vira |
Wendy Williams |
Noah |
Kenton Moore |
Libri |
Christopher Masters |
Rogin |
Richardson Morgan |
Lycett |
John Gregg |
Wirrn Operators |
Stuart Fell |
Nick Hobbs |
Crew
Written by |
Robert Holmes (bio) |
John Lucarotti (bio)
(uncredited) |
Directed by |
Rodney Bennett (bio) |
|
Production Assistant |
Marion McDougall |
Production Unit Manager |
George Gallaccio |
Title Music by |
Ron Grainer & |
BBC Radiophonic Workshop |
Title Sequence |
Bernard Lodge |
Incidental Music by |
Dudley Simpson |
Special Sound |
Dick Mills |
Visual Effects Designers |
John Friedlander |
Tony Oxley |
Costume Designer |
Barbara Kidd |
Make up |
Sylvia James |
Lighting |
Nigel Wright |
Sound |
John Lloyd |
Designer |
Roger Murray-Leach |
Producer |
Philip Hinchcliffe (bio) |
Working Titles
Episode 1 |
Buttercups |
Episode 2 |
Puffball |
Episode 3 |
Camellias |
Episode 4 |
Golfball |
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