Escape To Danger No.52

When I was a child and I used to go to friends' houses to play, there was one item of Doctor Who merchandise that was notable by its bizarre ubiquity. For out of the entire range of Target novelisations that had been published up to that point of my life (approximately sixty, I'm guessing), no less than three non Who-obsessive families had chosen Ian Marter's rendition of "The Ark In Space" as their one and only dip into the Target library.

Why this should be is a joyful mystery to me even to this day. The more iconic Daleks and Cybermen had in these three instances been usurped by the one-shot menace of the insect Wirrn, more than likely helped along by a carefully composed and masterfully elegant cover by Chris Achilleos.

I think it's the Wirrn encircling the thoughtful Baker's neck that really does it for me...

Anyway, whatever the circumstances of the family bookshelves of long, long ago, what does Serial 4C have to offer us today?

Sheer fucking body horror, Robert Holmes style, that's what.

In screen terms, "The Ark In Space" was Philip Hinchcliffe's debut as a Who Producer ("The Sontaran Experiment" used the film allocation originally mooted for an allegedly six-part Ark-based serial and was taped first, but for all purposes Serial 4C marks the true start of Hinchcliffe's tenure). And it is immediately apparent that something new is afoot, and something radically different in both tone and content.

Despite having commissioned it, it's hard to imagine how the Letts/Dicks partnership would have handled "The Ark In Space", especially in the light of their lacklustre performance on Season 11. (Well, it's not that hard to imagine... just think of Mister Pastry and even more bubblewrap, And whilst you're at it, have a go at contemplating how the story would have turned out if John Lucarotti hadn't thrown in the towel on the script...)

As I've probably mentioned many times before, it was more likely Robert Holmes rather than Hinchcliffe that helped change the tone of Doctor Who at this point, and it was "The Ark In Space" that set the ball rolling. Unhappy with the way the scripts were going, Holmes did a total rewrite and added a new dimension to the standard threat of alien invasion - loss of personal identity through possession and/or transformation.

This was a theme with which Who had dallied in the past, but Holmes cranked it up to 11 for the next few years until it became a standard trope of the series. But being a new boy, Hinchcliffe played it careful on his first transmitted story, and the famous scene where Noah begs Vira for death is both a sad loss to the episode and a horrendous edit that makes little sense.

It's also interesting to note that, whether intentional or not, Holmes decided to hit the rewind button and have an opening episode similar to the premier installment of 1963's Serial B (whatever it's called this week). The focus on the regular characters exploring their surroundings more or less uninterrupted gives the Ark a presence and believability similar to the establishment of the Dalek city and petrified forest on Skaro in the aforementioned serial.

And thanks to the cliffhanger ending of a cockroach falling out of a cupboard, ratings rocketed from 9.4 million for Part One to 13.6 million for Part Two, which was no mean feat and a feather in cap for the new production team.

None of which helps me determine how "The Ark In Space" ended up being the sole Target book of choice for three disparate Yorkshire families in the late 1970's...

The final word however should go to director Rodney Bennett, who in interview recalls his struggles with the lighting directors to get the sets lit as brightly as possible.

If this is true, it must make Bennett the only director in the history of Proper Doctor Who that had to beg for the lights to be turned up rather than down...