DVD Extras include:
Episode One - The Steel Sky
Michael Imison proves what a great and innovative technical
director he is with his masterful opening shot, which flows
smoothly from a variety of animals to a freaky one-eyed alien
to a panoramic motion shot of the jungle set to a satisfying
and well-executed TARDIS materialization to yet more motion
as we follow Dodo's happy-go-lucky exploration of the surroundings.
Although the camera does pause during the trick dissolve, this
is all done so gracefully that the shot is a better example of
the TARDIS materializing in a motion shot than the much more
advertised example in 1980's
"The Leisure Hive" (story no. 110),
or for that matter, during the
Christopher Eccleston and
David Tennant years with all
their computer effects sophistications. Well done! Let the
competition eat their hearts out!
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| At any rate, the botched trust-conflict stage does not waste too much time, and we quickly move on to the medical challenge which engages William Hartnell's Doctor superbly in a heroic fashion. Nice one! We also get a fine example of TARDIS time travel, sparing no expense on effects, leading up to one of the finest cliffhangers in the Hartnell era. The "next episode" caption should really have waited until after the final fade to black for it to work best though - it's not hard to imagine how the powerful final shot would likely be butchered for the movie-length compilation version of this story in order to have the caption removed. |
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Episode Three - The Return
Episode Four - The Bomb
Seven hundred years later, a total guest cast change has occurred,
not to mention some significant changes in circumstance as well.
The Monoids now come to the forefront of the story, and for this
stage in the development of Doctor Who productions, they come off
quite well as interesting alien creatures. Their constant
fiddling with their voice-box collars is somewhat distracting
though - it wasn't until I read the Archive feature in Doctor
Who Magazine that I understood they were trying to turn a
black-dot display on and off to help indicate who was speaking.
Not only does this never work to any good effect, it is totally
unnecessary. Unlike the boxed-in Daleks, the Monoids have every
capability of gesture and easily understood humanoid movement.
The one who moves and gestures emphatically is always the one
speaking. It's as plain as day without the voice-box dot.
I have less to complain about in terms of acting for these two episodes, but neither is there anything remarkably outstanding. Generally the acting is okay, perhaps a bit bland, but tells the story well. Perhaps what the human guest characters need is a more commanding representative amongst them. Neither Dassuk nor Vanessa seem to be great leader / lead-character material, too often taking their cues from others, and not having any obvious central personal issues to work through either (unlike Xentos).
The Ark arrives at Refusis, and thankfully the Doctor is allowed to join the exploration with the first expedition, and he gets to meet and interact with the Refusians, offering a prime example of good first-contact etiquette. He also has an instrumental and somewhat risky, even though limited, role to play in helping the humans conquer the Monoid bomb. The invisibility of the Refusians is very believably and satisfactorily done - the invisible character has motivation for each display of effects that he causes. This is much better than the CSO antics of "Planet of the Daleks" (story no. 68) many years later, which seem to merely display the spectacle of invisibility in an unmotivated way. We also get a well-directed bit of Monoid action, wisely shot and edited on film, and even after that a peaceful, moral resolution wraps things up nicely. The conclusion is satisfying and well-done all round.
How "The Ark" tripped up...
Even with all that going for it, this island of excellence within "the dregs" of season three did not manage to improve ratings. What went wrong? The scenes that we actually get are all exceptionally good, but what the story lacks is the ANTICIPATION that it will continue to be good as it unfolds. Episode one spends all its time explaining what situation exists in this era, and projects a largely slow and uneventful voyage for the Ark. There is also nothing to suggest that the Doctor will be able to show us viewers the arrival at Refusis. Not enough questions are raised about Refusis in episodes one and two to make us want to discover the place in episodes three and four, or believe that we will discover the place at all. Episode two also projects the aura that it is artificially creating conflict to fill time, even though it doesn't actually waste much time at all and does move itself forward. Our time travellers are all stuffed into the kitchens in early episode three (from the writer's point of view, to learn about the situation there, no doubt), but this easily creates the sinking feeling that the Doctor and his friends will simply be spending the whole episode there in a near repeat of their episode two antics. We don't know that we're going to get a cool exploration of Refusis until it happens, thus many viewers did not stay tuned in. The conflict between humans and Monoids seems quite one-dimensional at first as well. Only AFTER it is all over, in the wrap-up, does the Doctor make it clear to all that the Monoids quietly suffered injustice in the first two episodes, although at least a hint of this came out in his episode two scene where he praised a Monoid for being more knowledgeable than the Guardians seemed to realize. Not enough to hold viewers though. (In retrospect, perhaps a patronizing, slightly irritating commander Guardian was an appropriate casting decision, but unfortunately this ONLY works in hindsight.) The difference of opinion amongst the Monoids themselves is also a good source of dramatic conflict in the final episode, but you can't see it coming from watching the first three episodes.Anticipation is the key ingredient lacking in all of the stories in "the dregs" of season three, and "The Ark" highlights this well because it is so good in almost everything else.
As such, "The Ark" is actually more enjoyable with repeat viewing, when members of the audience can bring along their own sense of anticipation without relying on the narrative to do it for them. It is then that the idea of causing injustice through lack of faith in the intelligence of other beings takes on the slightly horrific twist, where we can wonder if we are doing that in any aspect of our lives now without really realizing it, not just in our view of other species, but in parents' view of their children, in management's view of its employees, in the media's view of its audience, in the marketers' view of the consumers, and in government's view of the people it represents.
I wouldn't call "The Ark" a great Doctor Who story,
but it does deserve honourable mention.
International Titles:
Deutsch: (Die Arche)
Magyar: "A bárka"
- Az acél égbolt
- A pestis
- A visszatérés
- A bomba
Русский: "Ковчег"
- Стальное небо
- Эпидемия
- Возвращение
- Бомба
Italiano:
- Cielo d'acciaio
- La peste
- Il ritorno
- La bomba
Français: (L'Arche)
This story has become available on DVD and VHS video.
Click on the Amazon symbol for the location nearest you for pricing and availability:
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for the North American market: 
in the U.S.
in Canada
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for the U.K.
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VHS Video
NTSC
in North America
PAL
for the U.K.
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