The Ark in Space (TV story)

Synopsis
The TARDIS arrives on an apparently deserted and deactivated space station Nerva, otherwise known as the Ark, orbiting Earth in the far future. There the Doctor, Sarah and Harry discover the last survivors of the human race held in suspended animation, Earth having been evacuated thousands of years earlier when solar flares threatened to destroy all life.

The station has been visited by a Wirrn, an insect life form, which has laid its eggs in the solar stacks and absorbed the body and mind of one of the sleeping humans. The Doctor's reactivation of the station's systems causes the humans to start to revive. Their leader, nicknamed Noah, becomes infected by one of the emerging larvae and is slowly taken over.

The Doctor and his friends meanwhile gain the trust of the other humans, now led by a med-tech named Vira. Together they manage to lure the hatched Wirrn insects into a shuttle craft and then eject it into space.

In a final act of humanity, Noah - by this time fully transformed into a Wirrn - deliberately neglects to set the shuttle's stabilisers, causing it to explode.

Part one
An unseen presence approaches a space station orbiting Earth and silently infiltrates it until it reaches a human apparently asleep and unaware...

The TARDIS materialises in a dark and stuffy room aboard an apparently unmanned station, due to Harry's inadvertent interference with the helmic regulator. Once the Doctor turns the lights on, the TARDIS crew decide to look round. Harry presses another switch, unknowingly trapping Sarah in a small control room where the oxygen is rapidly being consumed. By the time the Doctor and Harry find her she is severely cyanosed, but they then find themselves trapped with her. The Doctor manages to repair the oxygen servos just in time to save them all, noticing that the control cables had been bitten clean through.

As sarah recovers on a nearby couch, the Doctor and Harry are attacked by an Automatic sentry system which fires electronic bolts at any organic object that moves. Meanwhile Sarah is transported from the couch into a chamber where she hears two voices preparing her for a "journey".

The Doctor and Harry manage to deactivate the auto guard and discover that Sarah has vanished. Exploring further into the station they encounter a slime trail in the corridor, but continue into a restricted section containing hundreds of cryogenically suspended humans, along with animal and botanical specimens and an information store. Harry opens one berth and finds Sarah in suspension. He begins looking for a resuscitation unit to revive her and opens a cupboard - only to encounter a giant insect which looms toward him...

Part two
The insect falls to the floor, having obviously been dead for a long time. The Doctor finds a medical kit, but is unsure what to do with it. One of the sleeping pallets then activates and the occupant takes the medkit and sleepily uses it to fully revive herself. She introduces herself as Vira, 1st Med-tech and demands to know what the TARDIS crew are doing aboard, but agrees to revive Sarah when she realises her suspension was an accident. Vira explains that solar flares were threatening to destroy Earth's ecosystem and that the government put a select group of humans in suspension on Nerva Station, so that they could repopulate the Earth after 5000 years. She is astonished when the doctor informs her that she has "overslept" by several thousand years due to the Alien's sabotage. While she attempts to revive the station commander Lazar, or "Noah" as he is known, the power fails again.

The Doctor goes down to the station's infrastructure to effect repairs and notices a large green grub inside the solar collector, feeding on the solar energy. Noah revives and demands the TARDIS crew be removed before they contaminate the genetic pool, promptly arming himself and proceeding to the control room where he stuns the Doctor. Vira notices that Dune, the station's chief technician, is missing from his pallet, which Noah also ascribes to the "regressive" interlopers. He enters the infrastructure to look for any damage the Doctor may have done, but is accosted by the grub which touches his hand and renders him unconscious. Harry and Sarah find and wake the Doctor, only to be escorted back to the cryogenic section by Noah, who keeps his hand firmly tucked out of sight in his pocket.

As they return Vira is reviving Libri, a young technician, who is instantly afraid of Noah. The commander then begins to act erratically, insisting that the revivals be halted and that Dune is not missing, stating "I am Dune" before storming out. The Doctor convinces Libri to go after Noah and stop him and then proceeds to examine Dune's cryogenic pallet. He finds membrane from the alien queen's egg sac and concludes that the queen laid her eggs in Dune's body before she died and that the alien larvae have absorbed Dune's knowledge along with his body. Libri, meanwhile, finds Noah in the control room but cannot bring himself to shoot his commanding officer, who then kills him before bringing his hand slowly from his pocket to discover that he has started to metamorphose into an alien being.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Tom Baker
 * Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen
 * Harry Sullivan - Ian Marter
 * Vira - Wendy Williams
 * Noah — Kenton Moore
 * Rogin — Richardson Morgan
 * Lycett — John Gregg
 * Libri — Christopher Master
 * The Wirrn — Stuart Fell, Nick Hobbs
 * High Minister's Voice — Gladys Spencer
 * Voices on Nerva — Peter Tuddenham

Crew

 * Assistant Floor Manager - Russ Karel
 * Costumes - Barbara Kidd
 * Designer - Roger Murray-Leach
 * Incidental Music - Dudley Simpson
 * Make-Up - Sylvia James
 * Producer - Philip Hinchcliffe
 * Production Assistant - Marion McDougall
 * Production Unit Manager - George Gallaccio
 * Script Editor - Robert Holmes
 * Special Sounds - Dick Mills
 * Studio Lighting - Nigel Wright
 * Studio Sound - John Lloyd
 * Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
 * Title Music - Ron Grainer
 * Visual Effects - John Friedlander, Tony Oxley

Story Notes

 * The Nerva Beacon sets are reused for Revenge of the Cybermen.
 * The whole story bears resemblance to the Ridley Scott film 'Alien' released in 1979.
 * It is only mentioned once by Vira but Noah's name is Lazer, Noah being a joke on his role on Nerva.
 * No one but the regular cast take part in Part One of this story, the last time this occurred was episode one of The Edge of Destruction.

Ratings

 * Part 1 - 9.4 million viewers
 * Part 2 - 13.6 million viewers
 * Part 3 - 11.2 million viewers
 * Part 4 - 10.2 million viewers

Myths
to be added

Filming Locations

 * BBC Television Centre (Studio 3 & TC1), Shepherd's Bush, London

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

 * If there are thousands of people on Nerva, why is there only 1 shuttle and a transmat with only 3 pads? The Shuttle may be larger than what we see and there are probably more transmat pads throughout the station. Vira does say that getting everyone down to Earth via transmat will be a long task.
 * Why do they teleport to the Earth rather than take the Tardis? The TARDIS can be unreliable at times.
 * There is a piece of very poor editing done when the half-mutated Noah confronts Vira and the Doctor as they move along the corridor (probably done to remove the more grotesque aspect of the scene). Noah is stil talking and then somehow the door slams shut, cutting him off. Yet it is not clear who does this or what exactly happened.
 * The people needed to use a device on their hearts to complete the revival - how would this have worked if no-one was around to help them with it? It's not part of standard procedure; the system had already malfunctioned due to the Wirrn's interference.
 * The Wirn falling out at the first cliffhanger interupts the Doctor talking - but he's not talking at the start of episode 2. Or we just don't hear him.
 * When Sarah is trapped in the control room, why is the switch for the door on the opposite side of the room?
 * Once the auto guard has been switched off, the Doctor and Harry test it by sticking their heads out !

Continuity

 * The Ark in Space is part of a set concerning Nerva Beacon without TARDIS travel; beginning in The Ark in Space and continuing through DW: The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks, MA: A Device of Death and then ending in DW: Revenge of the Cybermen set back aboard Nerva beacon at an earlier point in time.


 * EDA: Placebo Effect features the Wirrrn and delves further into their history and psychology.


 * BFA: Wirrn Dawn is set during the war between the Humans and the Wirrn.

DVD, Video and Other Releases
DVD Releases

Released:
 * Region 2 8th April 2002
 * PAL - BBC DVD


 * Region 4 3rd June 2002
 * Region 1 6th August 2002
 * NTSC -

Video Releases
to be added

Laserdisc releases

 * Released on Laserdisc in 1990.

Audio release
Excerpts from Dudley Simpson's score, arranged by Heathcliff Blair, were released by Silva Screen in the early 1990s on their compilation CD Pyramids of Mars: Classic Music from the Tom Baker Era (FILMCD 134)

Novelisation

 * Main article: Doctor Who and the Ark in Space


 * Novelised as Doctor Who and the Ark in Space by Ian Marter.