It is each
Doctor’s second story which really
gives us our first fully reliable look at the series’ new lead. The first
adventure for each incarnation usually sees the Doctor in a state of confusion
and disarray, whereas by the second, things have settled down and we can see
what we can expect for the stories to come. In this sense, then, The Ark in Space is where we properly
meet Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor. Originally released on DVD in 2002, this
Special Edition re-release adds an extra disc of content and improves upon the
audio/visual quality of the episodes.
After a
unique title sequence – experimentally filtered into shades of green and brown
for Part One only – the beginning of the story is delightfully retro. Dudley
Simpson’s music is far more electronic than I remembered, and it really does contribute to the atmosphere. The
video-based model shots of the eponymous Ark don’t look anywhere near as good
as their film counterparts, but they certainly have a charm to them. Just as
any good Doctor Who story should, The Ark in Space sets up a mystery, as
an alien point-of-view shot closes in on a doomed, motionless man. In a
sequence which seems as though it’s just longing to come before the title sequence, we fade to black as the Ark drifts
through space in the Earth’s orbit. And then...
Our new
TARDIS team arrives in the darkness. There’s instantly a rapport between them (even
though this is only the second outing for Tom Baker and also Ian Marter as
Harry Sullivan), with some great exchanges of dialogue throughout this story. One
of the best has to be the Doctor’s line “Well there are only two of us here and your name is Harry.” The first episode of the story is probably the best,
because no-one other than the regular cast has a speaking role, allowing us to
really focus in on this new dynamic between the time travellers. The opening
instalment has it all: transmats, a deadly electronic auto-guard, our
introduction to an amazing concept which lies at the heart of this story, and
something nasty waiting in the cupboard.
The Ark in Space is among my favourite Doctor Who stories. The basic premise is
that the last humans have escaped from a dying Earth and put themselves into
suspended animation on the Ark, which is orbiting the planet. But something
else has arrived there while the humans slept. Conceptually, it’s a wonderful
story. Sadly though, the realisation of the fully grown Wirrn isn’t brilliant.
It’s usually clear that they aren’t blessed with many joints, because they don't move very well at all. I expect the concept drawings looked wonderful, but there
are two things the Wirrn seriously needed here.
First and
foremost is more articulation. I can’t help but wonder if they might have been
more effective as creatures which primarily crawl around rather than stand
vertically (the young, developing Wirrn certainly do this a lot), but what we
have is quite obvious as someone shuffling around inside a fibreglass shell.
The second thing is more sympathetic studio lighting. The Wirrn
certainly work better in the darkened solar stack set, and while the flat,
sterile lighting of most of the Ark was a deliberate creative decision, it
doesn’t do the Wirrn any favours at all. Whenever this story comes up in conversation,
it doesn’t take long for the two words “bubble” and “wrap” to appear in hot
pursuit. It’s easy to laugh at the heavy use of the now-commonplace packing
material in the creation of the “grubs”, but back in 1975 it was a far less
familiar material, and probably appeared more effective on-screen as a result.
But quite frankly, I don’t really care about the shortcomings of the various
forms of Wirrn. The story is just so good,
with such strong performances. A bit of suspension of disbelief is all that’s
really needed here.
Tom Baker
delivers an electric performance in only his second outing, nailing the role of
the Doctor. With a perfect blend of eccentricity and power, Baker really does
hit the ground running. The Doctor greets danger with a wide grin and look of
wild excitement, he takes a gravity reading with a yo-yo, and he isn’t
concerned about a lack of oxygen. All of this considered, this new Doctor is
almost scary. But beneath it all is exactly the same man, and there are two
points in this story which really stand out to me. One is when the Doctor seems
to make a callous remark about a deceased man, and Sarah Jane (Elisabeth Sladen)
tells him not to make jokes. The Doctor’s reply sees a fantastic flip from dark
humour to a totally serious tone from Baker. The other is quite possibly the
best scene in the story, in which Baker delivers a speech about the wonder of
mankind, surrounded by the entire human species in cryogenic suspension. It’s
an utterly captivating moment, and one which defines Baker’s era on the
programme.
Unlike Baker
and Marter, Sladen had been in the show for around a year by the time of The Ark in Space, but the major change
in the other two thirds of the principal cast provides an opportunity to
examine how the character of Sarah Jane Smith changes. There is a notable scene
later in the story where the Doctor seemingly mocks and taunts Sarah Jane,
because she is struggling to complete her vital task. Needless to say, things
aren’t what they seem, but Sarah Jane’s initial reaction (and how Sladen plays
it) is fascinating – it really does make it clear that from the character’s
perspective, everything has changed. The man she thought she knew has
transformed, and is now outwardly a new person. Perhaps the audience at the
time would have been having a similar experience. These days, with our ability
to dip in and out of any DVD of any story at any time, it’s easy for a whole
layer of some stories to effectively be rendered invisible, but this scene in
particular helps to remind us of the original context of this story, and that Doctor Who was undergoing a major
regeneration of its own. The relatively new partnership of Baker and Sladen
would go on to become one of the most definitive in Doctor Who’s history.
In the grand
scheme of things, Marter wasn’t in the series for that long (he first appeared
in the story before this, and his regular appearances on the show ceased after
the first story of the following season), but he’s certainly entertaining. The
bizarre thing is that on paper, Harry Sullivan is arrogant, sexist and
generally quite foolish and limited. But Marter imbues the character with
energy and charm, and the result is that the character on-screen is a lot more
likeable than the script alone suggests. There is a spark between Marter and
the other regulars, and this sense of a firm team continues all the way through
the stories in which the trio appear together. The Doctor seems to take delight
in ribbing Harry – “Your mind is beginning to work! It’s entirely due to my
influence of course, you mustn’t take any credit” – and this is a habit which
continues at various points throughout this season, with another instance in
the finale, Revenge of the Cybermen.
Wendy
Williams turns in a strong performance as Vira (the first guest character we
see in the story, who turns up in Part Two). Williams appears to have a knack
for delivering total technobabble with complete conviction, and this plays a
major part in wrapping the viewer up in the drama of the situation. I didn’t
even consciously think about how meaningless some of her terminology is until
the commentary participants alerted me to it. As Rogin, Richardson Morgan adds
a slightly comic touch to the proceedings. One of my favourite moments in the
story is Rogin’s reaction to the Doctor’s idea of how to exploit an overlooked
aspect of the Ark’s transmat system. The brilliant thing about Morgan’s
performance is that while there are brief moments of comedy, they still
completely fit in with the surrounding story – he makes Rogin’s dialogue seem
entirely natural rather than forced.
But it is Kenton
Moore who gives the standout guest performance, bringing the character of Noah to life wonderfully. There is a famous deleted scene (which
sadly isn’t known to survive anymore) in which Noah begs the Doctor and Vira to
kill him; producer Philip Hinchcliffe felt that while the scene as scripted was
fine, Moore brought such a dark intensity to it that it was too strong for Doctor Who. The scene was edited down
significantly, and only the first section of Noah’s dialogue is included before
a cut which doesn’t quite blend in from a continuity perspective, but it was
the best that could be done. The surviving part of the scene, though, sees
Moore giving a very sinister performance, and a tantalising hint at what the
excised material may have been like.
SPECIAL
FEATURES
Ported over
from the original 2002 DVD is a commentary
by Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen and Philip Hinchcliffe. As most new commentaries
these days are moderated affairs, this one feels quite different from what we
are now more used to. But that said, although it is eleven years old, this
commentary stands up very well – it maintains reasonable focus throughout,
although as you’d expect from a commentary starring Baker, it does periodically
drift off into anecdotes and stories about the other actors. Hinchcliffe’s
recollections about the early days of Baker’s era are fascinating, as is his
discussion of the reasoning behind cutting down the aforementioned scene with
Noah. It’s lovely to revisit a commentary featuring the late Sladen, whose
recollections and exchanges with Baker are enjoyable to listen to. It’s a shame
that Sladen ceased her participation in the DVD commentaries later on, but that
makes her presence on this one even more valuable.
Chris
Chapman’s latest making-of feature is A New Frontier, new to this Special
Edition DVD. Although Hinchcliffe’s contribution repeats some of what he says
on the commentary, it is still insightful (particularly when he talks about the
scripts that were being developed prior to Robert Holmes getting the writing
gig), and there are plenty of people here who aren’t otherwise featured on the
disc. Rodney Bennett discusses how directing The Ark in Space differed from his other work, and what his
attitude was to how adult the show should be. To have both the producer and
director in this documentary means that the behind-the-camera elements of the
production are extremely well-covered. Wendy Williams reflects on her role as
the “bloody superior” Vira, and it is immediately obvious that she put a great
deal of thought into how to portray the character. The same is true of Kenton
Moore, who had originally planned out his performance in a manner which relied
upon effects more advanced than the bubble wrap which was ultimately used. The
events which led up to The Ark in Space
as it ultimately turned out (especially the plan to use a writer who hadn’t
written for the series since William Hartnell’s era) are fascinating, and so is
the production of the story itself, with the programme starting to explore a
new direction. A New Frontier is a
very comprehensive account of all this, and it really does feel as though it
covers everything which could possibly have been covered. The standard of the
DVD range’s making-of features is still sky-high.
As well as
the transmitted four-part version of the story, a movie version is included as an extra. Originally broadcast in
1975, this omnibus edit merges all four episodes into one long feature which is
seventy minutes in length. I watched the whole thing in order to review it
here, but never again. There isn’t much point in watching a version of the
story with around half an hour of material missing when the whole thing is
available. The omnibus even excises the Doctor’s superb “homo sapiens” speech,
which ought to be a criminal offence. As a curiosity and document of history,
though, its inclusion is worthwhile – after all, this was broadcast in the seventies, so there’s ultimately no harm in
releasing the occasional example of these contemporary omnibus compilations
(there’s also one on the Planet of the
Spiders DVD). But aside from this, I can only describe the movie version as
terrible.
This DVD
includes the first instalment of a new documentary series from James Goss. Dr
Forever! – Love and War looks at the Doctor Who novels produced by BBC Books and Virgin during the
‘wilderness years’ of 1989-2005 – and it is, I have to say, brilliant. It includes Russell T Davies,
Doctor Who’s executive producer and
head writer from 2005-2010 and writer of fiction for The New Adventures book range, writers Paul Cornell, Gary Russell
and Mark Gatiss, and a whole host of people who were involved with the
books at some point. In retrospect, the most striking thing about this period
is that although Doctor Who was
off-air, it was about as far from dead as you could get, and this was due in no
small part to the new fiction and adaptations of television stories provided by
the book ranges. What’s also interesting is how many different avenues the
books explored; some of them were very adult in nature (with strong language
and sex) which was totally different to the television series. No matter what
your opinion is about this, it can’t be denied that the makers of the books were
very brave in this respect, and as Davies says, it would never happen today. I
didn’t know much about the books from this time before I watched this, and it
was still hugely interesting and enjoyable to watch, so I imagine that someone
who’s much more into the books will utterly adore it. The only negative thing I
have to say is that the linking sections from presenter Ayesha Antoine are
bizarre. They are very brief, so I have to wonder if it was really necessary
for an in-vision presenter at all. This isn’t helped by the fact that Antoine
herself isn’t great. Many of the links feel awkward, especially when Antoine
states the question that was put to the interviewees at the beginning of each
section of the documentary – these parts feel rushed and unnecessary. But this
aside, Dr Forever! – Love and War is
one of the best documentaries ever to come out of the classic DVD range.
Two sets of
contemporary film footage are included. Neither of them have any specific
connection to The Ark in Space, but
are included as a ‘mopping up exercise’ in a similar fashion to last year’s Vengeance on Varos Special Edition.
Footage from Scene Around Six sees Tom Baker visiting Northern Ireland, and
there is also some 8mm location footage
from the location recording of Baker’s debut story Robot. I found the latter considerably more interesting, but the
Northern Ireland news footage is nevertheless fun to watch.
This DVD
features optional CGI effects. These
are almost the same as on the 2002
release, although they have been re-graded. CGI is always improving, so I went
into this expecting the sequences to show their age. But with the exception of
an explosion towards the end (although the original effect looks weird anyway),
they stand up quite well. In fact, they are rather beautiful. The Ark itself is
gloriously rendered, and while I usually prefer to watch a story with its
original effects rather than CGI replacements, this is one case where the newer
effects are so good that I might actually be tempted to watch them again.
(Possibly.) Earlier DVDs in the range which included CGI effects had an option
to watch them in isolation rather than sitting through the whole story just to
see them, and while this was dropped later on to free up the disc space for
other things, the option is still on this Special Edition as per the original
DVD.
A BBC trailer for the story’s original
1975 transmission is included. There’s not really much to say about it, other
than that it reminded me how much I miss the (formerly semi-regular) trailer/continuity
compilations, which seem to have vanished from the DVDs. Another item taken
from the 2002 DVD is an interview
with designer Roger Murray-Leach, which covers all of his work on Doctor Who. It’s very enjoyable and
comprehensive, looking at the challenges he had to face and the innovations in
some of his set designs as a result. He comes across as a very interesting and
amusing man to talk to – his parting comment is brilliantly funny.
An alternative title sequence appears, but
it is quite similar to the finished one – the biggest difference is a couple of
silent shots at the beginning. This version of the sequence borrows more
elements from that used during Jon Pertwee’s final season. A reel of model footage comprehensively uses many
different takes of each shot. This does mean that it becomes quite repetitive,
but there are some interesting moments and shots in there.
The 3D Technical Schematics from the
original DVD are an interesting idea, but one which doesn’t really work here.
The captions that appear on-screen to describe the fictional components of the
Ark don’t stay on screen for long enough, and having this as a standalone menu
item is a bit strange. Perhaps this feature would have worked better mixed in
with the CGI effects compilation, although the problem of the captions being
too brief would have remained. As always, a new Photo Gallery by Paul Shields shows a wide variety of production
photos. Originally produced in 2002 for the BBC website, TARDIS-Cam No. 1 was part
of a series of brief effects sequences to demonstrate what modern Doctor Who could look like. This is one
of the most impressive ones – a very filmic and impressive scene showing the TARDIS
on a barren and deserted quarry planet, with the head of an eighties
Cyberman on the ground nearby.
This DVD’s Production Information Subtitles are
written by Martin Wiggins, and cover an impossibly vast range of information: the
very strange individual episode titles of the original John Lucarotti script,
what other shows were recording at BBC Television Centre on the days that the
four episodes of The Ark in Space
went before the cameras, the intricate details of the set designs, and how
Holmes’ original visions sometimes differed from what ended up on-screen.
Every
classic Doctor Who DVD in recent history
has included a PDF of that story’s Radio Times listings (although the
original DVD of this story was one of those which didn’t, funnily enough), but on
this Special Edition, three additional PDF files can be found, two of them with
explanatory introductions by Richard Bignell. In 1975, Nestlé updated the wrappers of their Doctor Who chocolate bars (yes, Doctor
Who chocolate bars! Why are these not made any more?) to feature six biographies
of major characters, and these are reproduced here. In 1977, Crosse & Blackwell ran a Doctor Who promotion on their cans of
baked beans, which enabled people to receive, among other things, an exclusive
TARDIS-shaped Doctor Who colouring
book. Scans of the promotional materials and the colouring book itself are
included here. Finally, 1983’s The Doctor Who Technical Manual is
included in its entirety, with information about many different Doctor Who creations such as the Daleks,
Cybermen, K-1 Robot, Servo Robot and Davros. It’s great to see all these things
pop up on this release, especially the Technical
Manual – it was a pleasant surprise to see it included, some years after
the Doctor Who Annuals ceased to be
included on the DVDs.
Three Easter Eggs can be found somewhere on
this release. Two of them relate to a seventies Doctor Who event, and the third will appeal to anyone with a
particular interest in how television used to be made.
The Coming Soon trailer by Gareth Randall
is for the next Doctor Who DVD
release, The Aztecs Special Edition
starring William Hartnell. That story has always been another favourite of
mine, so I look forward to writing about it. However, the trailer does not
feature any footage or mention of Air
Lock, the third episode of Galaxy 4
(discovered in 2011), which is to be a part of that release. Perhaps the
trailer was made before the decision was taken to include Air Lock.
(It should be noted that this release does not include the Tom Baker interview that appeared on the 2002 DVD, as that is now more appropriately located on the Revenge of the Cybermen DVD.)
AUDIO/VIDEO
As far as
the audio goes, everything’s fine. Dialogue is clear, as are the music and
effects.
The video
also looks splendid, and has benefited from improvements in DVD encoding and restoration technology
and technique since the 2002 DVD release. This time around, the episodes have
been put through a device called the Transform PAL Decoder, which removes
cross-colour artefacts from the picture. Besides that, the video looks
generally crisper and more vivid than the original DVD, with less MPEG-2 compression artefacts. To see how the episodes
looked prior to any restoration whatsoever, look at the grainier unrestored
omnibus edit.
SUMMARY
As the list of Tom Baker stories to be released on DVD is nearly exhausted (only Terror of the Zygons now remains, and that’s due to be released later this year), The Ark in Space Special Edition provides an opportunity not only to improve the quality of the story and add much-needed new extras, but also to include some other archive items which don’t necessarily relate to the story itself, but are part of the history of the series and need a home somewhere. The story is a classic of its era, and now has the full set of special features that it deserves. It marks the true beginning of Baker’s time as the Doctor, and you get the feeling from the end of the story that it doesn’t just lead into The Sontaran Experiment, but also to everything. One of the most popular and well-remembered periods in the programme’s history started here, and it promised to be fun.
8 OUT OF 10
