Doctor Who:
The Ark In Space
By Robert Holmes
“Homo sapiens. What an
inventive, invincible species. It's only a few million years since they've
crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenseless bipeds.
They've survived flood, famine and plague. They've survived cosmic wars and
holocausts, and now here they are amongst the stars, waiting to begin a new
life, ready to outsit eternity. They're indomitable. Indomitable!”
Instead of a quick trip to
the moon thanks to Harry messing with the helmic regulator they instead land on
space station Nerva way in the far future.
But The Doctor discovers they are not the first visitors to Nerva as
they discover some sheared wires and the oxygen off. The Doctor gets all this fixed including the
defense mechanism which is shooting electric bolts at them. While The Doctor
and Harry are pinned down Sarah is resting on a bed that also gets you ready for
cryogenic sleep. After shutting down the
defenses the realize Sarah has been transported somewhere and start searching
for her when they stumble upon the humans that are asleep waiting to awake to habitat
Earth and start life anew.
Among them is now Sarah as
The Doctor and Harry discover and they are trying to find the device to revive
her. While looking for the device Harry
comes upon something really nasty in the storage cabinet. It’s a Wirrn and it’s a nasty insect like race
that absorbs the mind of those it kills or infects. At this time others have started waking
up. Vira and Noah have woken and they
are in charge of reviving everyone. But
Noah is leery of The Doctor and goes off to stop him from restoring the power
to Nerva. After knocking The Doctor out
the Wirrn grub infects Noah and thus endangers the revival of the human race as
the Wirrn now will take over unless The Doctor can find a way of stopping them.
The Ark in Space is one of
the best stories Robert Holmes wrote if indeed the best. It is your classic monster story and what a
better monster than the bug like Wirrn. Just look at the way they are and how
viscous they act it is scary to watch them as they terrorize the crew of
Nirva. They are a really good creature
that it surprises me the Wirrn never made a return on TV. When I first saw this story all those many years
ago the Wirrn freaked me out and I have been a fan of theirs ever since.
The Ark in Space holds a
special meaning to me as it was the first story of Doctor Who that I have ever
seen. I caught a glimpse of the last 2
minutes of Robot and that was enough to get me to tune in the next day to watch
The Ark in Space. By watching episode one
I was hooked and watching Tom Baker as The Doctor and swooping in and saving
the day how could one not be hooked. You
had this zany hero guy that also had a serious side and was all knowing and had
that command of a hero and gave the appearance of someone you could trust. How
cool was that for someone at that age looking for something really cool and
different to watch on TV as he was just getting into sci-fi.
The story was really easy
to follow for a 10 year old like myself to follow and The Ark in Space had a
cool and freaky monster to grab my attention. The Ark in Space to me will
always be a brilliant story and one of my all-time favorites just for that
reason. It was the first one I watched
and I will always enjoy watching it and think back to the time when I first
discovered Doctor Who. Thanks PBS.
Grade A+
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