023 - The Ark

Broadcast:

5^th - 26^th March 1966

Doctor:

William Hartnell

Companions:

Steven, Dodo

Adversary:

Monoids

Written by:

Paul Erickson, Lesley Scott¹

Director:

Michael Imison

Music:

Stock, Tristram Cary²

Script Editor:

Gerry Davis

Producer:

John Wiles

Average Viewers:

6.48m (5.5, 6.9, 6.2, 7.3)

Summary: When the TARDIS lands on an ark ship carrying the last of Earth's inhabitants, Dodo's cold puts them all at risk of being as extinct as her namesake. Just convincing her to use a handkerchief is not enough for the Doctor to save all humanity!

The Ark is something of a transitional story. It is the first fully script edited by Gerry Davis, the last produced by John Wiles, the first full adventure for new companion Dodo (who's accent goes through a change of its own!) and the first turn around in viewing figures since The Daleks' Master Plan was approaching its climax (though just like with that occasion it wouldn't last). Greater changes were also around the corner as the incoming producer would make sweeping changes to the cast so really this was just the start of a transitional period.

In the news, the British Government had just announced plans to decimalise the pound (though not for 5 years) and the BBC announced plans to start broadcasting in colour (BBC 2 would be the first in July 67). John Lennon made his infamous "more popular than Jesus" comment (though it would be five months before it caused controversy when it received its American publication), Austria won Eurovision (the UK entry came 9th), US manned craft Gemini 8 made the first space docking and Soviet probe Venera 3 reached Venus (but failed to land successfully). The Jules Rimet Trophy was stolen from an exhibition and found in a garden by a dog named Pickles a week later, the top half of Nelson's Pillar in Dublin was blown up by former IRA volunteers and the Irish Army engineers caused greater damage and disruption when they blew up the remaining stump to clear the unrepairable ruins. Two plane crashes in Japan took 188 lives in two days - the first crash when trying to land in Tokyo at night with poor visibility, the second hit turbulence over Mount Fuji shortly after taking off from Tokyo. Finally, there were protests in America (against the Vietnam War), Indonesia (against communism), and South Vietnam (against government policies)

Cinema releases during this story included The Reptile, Born Free, and Our Man Flint, and the music charts were still topped by Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" until The Walker Brothers began their own four week run with "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore". Oh, and influential and career launching satirical comedy show "The Frost Report" started.

Jackie Lane had been introduced to the show as new companion Dodo in a fast paced sequence at the end of the previous story. She would be the first out of the TARDIS following its landing in a jungle full of birds and lizards, insects and one-eyed aliens! Her colourful Lancastrian accent (in a time when nearly everyone else was speaking in "BBC English") was set to bring some interesting variety to the show along with her random taste in clothing raided from the TARDIS wardrobe but it was all too much for the senior staff at the BBC. The costume changes could be accommodated and here she is in a medieval doublet and hose with a curiously 1960s flavour, but her accent became softened and disguised by the stuffy sniffles of a cold. The cold was, of course, part of the plot but as the serial progressed and Dodo's cold symptoms lessened, so did her Lancastrian brogue and she ended with a fairly 'normal' accent! Despite this troublesome imposition Jackie brought great energy and enthusiasm to the role, conjuring up the essence of an unloved teenager finding joy in adventure and excitement in the curious surroundings.

Unfortunately, the premise of the story suffered a similar fate. It's a nice idea and it works through to its logical conclusion but ultimately has little substance. One of the early investigations carried out be the BBC decided that the main drive of science fiction was ideas rather than characters and narrative and that is exactly what The Ark provides. It would be great if scientists eradicated all viruses, but our immune systems would be redundant and eventually be lost and something as simple as the common cold could have a devastating effect. Other elements are introduced like the impending destruction of Earth and a mysterious alien life form (Monoids with one eye and no mouths) willing to help humanity escape to a new plant (along with all animal and plant life) but the main narrative involves the cold virus spreading and the mysterious new arrivals being accused of some kind of sabotage attempt. The outcome is obvious, the Doctor will work with samples and reconstruct a cure (we'd seen him do this in The Sensorites despite not being a medical doctor. Sure enough, with knowledge of the original cure (something to do with animal membranes) a cure is made and distributed and they are free to leave at the end of the second episode...

And that's the first twist. Viewers in 1966 would not have known how many episodes the story was due to have so a story wrapping up in just two episodes may have been unusual but by no means against expectation - most stories at this time were either four or six episodes but each series had featured a two parter and the lengthy The Daleks' Master Plan might have hinted that a short story was due in compensation. The real surprise was the fact that having resolved the problems and departed, the TARDIS landed back in exactly the same place but 700 years later and a statue being built to commemorate humanity's triumphant exodus had been completed not with a human head but a Monoid one instead! This is where things start to get interesting, but with only two more episodes they are again restricted and although interesting ideas are used, there is little room for them to play out.

Perhaps the greatest element that saves The Ark is Michael Imison's direction. The who serial is enriched by interesting camera angles and inventive and somewhat impressive special effects. There are large video screens for the first time, through the use of image overlay, there are bowls that are instantly filled with food when special capsules are dropped into them - again achieved with overlays (not the way described in the production subtitles), invisible lifeforms with more specific interaction than the Visians in The Daleks' Master Plan (making indents in cushions when they sit down placing flowers into a vase) and a brilliantly executed miniaturisation of a human. Although some of the back-cloths only work well from limited angles (the large metal dome over the vast ship) there are some brilliant model shots mixing full sized set props of the landing craft with miniatures that can be seen to land in the foreground. One of the most impressive effects is the TARDIS dematerialisation at the end of the second episode because it features an actor in the forecround who would have had to have remained perfectly still while the Police Box prop was removed. A similar 'wow factor' comes from the TARDIS's materialisation at the start because it comes in the middle of a tracking shot with the camera slowly moving from left to right (technically speaking though, the camera stops moving while the TARDIS appears and then starts moving again but the fluidity was something new). Imison was sadly a man facing the end of his career at the BBC so he really wanted to prove himself but it appears to have been to late as he was handed his notice as he entered the studio to record the final episode!

With so much focus on the technical side of the production, it is perhaps unsurprising that there are quite a few line stumbles/fluffs from various actors including the Commander saying "join" instead of "voyage" and Zentos saying "mistrusted" instead of "misjudged", but both actors corrected themselves. Hartnell's struggles were more damaging though as he stumbled through the word "establish" and at one point said "I don't want to think it... think about in too, dear boy" which really was a failed recovery. There were a couple of camera wobbles/knocks, one of which was during a shot being fed to a monitor screen and if I'm really critical the lander models wobble as they are shown leaving the Ark and wires are clearly visible (though viewers in 1966 probably wouldn't have seen them). Continuing the negative elements, the Monoid costumes look pretty good from the chest up but below that are very awkward leathery rubber 'skirts' with a clear seam down the back and they really don't hang or move well enough and the poor actors are lumbered with cumbersome flippers on their feet Moniod Two even stumbles down a door step because he can't see clearly. That said, the idea of having single eye where a mouth should be works well and kind of explains their mute nature (communicated with dodgy looking sign language) but does lead to the question of how they eat (in the second part of the story this is vaguely addressed at the very end of a shot as Monoid One moves a piece of fruit to his chest, lifting up the communication sash that has been introduced since the Doctor's first visit). The human/guardian costumes are equally questionable in design - essentially mini-dresses made of vertical strips held together with a belt, but this was the mid sixties! Both Steven and Dodo have new costumes introduced in the final TARDIS scene which leads into the next story (with the Doctor himself turning invisible!) and both look to be very colourful with Steven having horizontal stripes while Dodo has circles. The production subtitles state at this point that Dodo's new costume is the first miniskirt on British television... a claim that is hard to confirm and is immediately questionable due to the fact that it is a dress and is barely above her knees! And it only takes a little thought to realise that Vicki was wearing a mini-dress when she first appeared in The Rescue and it really was shorter than Dodo's since it ended half way down her thighs. Colour photos from the set reveal that while Dodo's dress is a colourful red and blue, Steven's stripes are in fact a rather dull mix of brown and beige, but with black & white television you can imagine it however you like!

I'll finish with a few points of interest for fans of little details... the final episode of The Ark was the first major use of recoding scenes out of sequence (mainly due to the multiple uses of the single Lander prop/set), this was the first serial to include Chris D'Oyly John in its crew (as Assistant Floor Manager, but he would go on to be Production Assistant for 28 episodes and Production Unit Manager for a further 26 up until 1977 - a total of 15 stories with 4 different Doctors), it was the first to feature Michael Sheared in the cast (he would go on to appear in a total of 17 episodes in 6 different roles and with 4 different Doctors) and finally, it was the first to feature Roy Skelton (who would go on to tally up 50 episodes right up to the show's cancellation in 1988, providing mostly voices for 16 stories with all 7 Doctors!) As for the serial itself it, the scores I gave it mark it out as the most mediocre so far with a Production score of 50% and Content score of 51% resulting in a combined final score of 51% (The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve was marginally more mediocre in its final score of 50% but it was comprised of a reasonable 62% Production and poor 38% Content). This score feels quite harsh for what plays out as an overall nice story but it very much feels like a 'love it or hate it' case with a certain emptiness that leaves it open to criticism.