The Ark is the sixth serial of the third season of Doctor Who. It was written by Paul Erickson & Lesley Scott, directed by Michael Imison and featured William Hartnell as the First Doctor, Peter Purves as Steven Taylor & Jackie Lane as Dodo Chaplet.
Overview[]
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Synopsis[]
In the final days of Earth, the TARDIS lands on a massive spaceship carrying the last members of the human race to a new home beyond the Solar System. The humans are not out of danger, however, as a deadly plague emerges from the most unlikely of sources: the common cold carried by the Doctor's companion, Dodo.
Put on trial for their lives, the TARDIS crew must find a way to repair the damage they have unwillingly caused - and face up to the devastating consequences...
Plot[]
The Steel Sky (1)[]
While a strange, one-eyed alien wanders around a sandy, jungle-like habitat, the TARDIS lands close by. New companion, Dodo is the first to emerge from the TARDIS, followed by Steven, who is intensely frustrated by her casual attitude to their current location. Dodo suspects that they've landed in a Whipsnade Zoo outside of London, name checking a number of Earth animals she spots to back up her point.
The Doctor soon emerges from the TARDIS, believing from the instruments that they may very well be on Earth, but fails to notice the alien lurking behind some trees nearby. Elsewhere, a group of humans attend a gathering wherein one of the population is publicly tried for a crime against them and their servants, the Monoids, by the Commander. He is found guilty, in spite of the pleas of his daughter Mellium, and sentences him to 'expulsion'. He is placed in a large machine, shrunk down to a microcell and taken away.
Back in the jungle, the travellers continue searching, with Dodo still name checking animals along the way, including an Indian Elephant. She notes that all the animals they've found are from different Earth continents. The Doctor notices through the trees that there is no sky, only a metal ceiling and that the ground is giving off a mechanical vibration. Despite Steven's skepticism, the Doctor suspects that they may have been landed inside an artificial nature reserve, still unaware that there's a Monoid following them.
The Commander's young subordinate, Zentos, reports the travellers' presence to him and suggests them arrested and questioned; the Commander agrees to question them on amicable terms. The Doctor, Steven and Dodo hear an alarm from the distance; Steven goes to check and spots the Monoids examining the TARDIS before heading in their direction. They hide in a cave until they pass and head back to the TARDIS before they return. Looking over the top of the trees, the Doctor discovers that they've landed on a spaceship when the Monoids capture them.
The Commander and Zentos question Steven and he tries to explain the TARDIS to them but insists that the Doctor is the one to ask about it. The Commander shows him the expanse of the ship and explains that their civilisation is from Earth in the 27th Segment of Time and the Monoids are refugees from a long-extinct planet. Zentos doesn't trust them and suspects that the travellers are agents from their destination planet Refusis II, but the Commander trusts them and offers to show the Doctor the mechanics of the ship and Steven and Dodo a statue being constructed from the most durable stone in the universe.
An alarm goes off and the Monoids come in bringing one of their own, who collapsed from an illness that the Commander soon becomes afflicted with, Zentos blames the occurrence of the sickness on the Doctor, Steven and Dodo, who had been showing symptoms of a cold since arriving in the TARDIS. The Doctor examines him and deduces that since the common cold was eradicated centuries ago, the peoples have no resistance to it and it may prove fatal.
Zentos hears this and proclaims the Doctor and his companions to be guilty, ordering them seized and arrested when the ill Monoid dies. Mellium asks after her father, but Zentos muses that he may die and this leaving Earth would have been pointless.
The Plague (2)[]
The Doctor, Steven and Dodo are thrown in a cell, where Dodo mopes that it's her fault the sickness is aboard. Realising the strength of Dodo's cold, Steven wonders the virus may start an epidemic and Dodo starts crying. In the main room, Zentos watches more humans and Monoids dying throughout the ship while the ship's microbiologist tends to the Commander. Mellium is made to promise her father that whatever becomes of him, the ship's voyage to Refusis II must continue to save humanity.
Looking out of their cell, the Doctor and Dodo watch the Monoids carry the body of a victim of the illness to the control room where it is ejected into space out of respect. Zentos addresses the people and declares that the travellers' hearing will begin immediately before they each start to succumb to them all. However, Mellium and Manyak stand in their defence while Baccu stands in prosecution. Needing one of the travellers to speak at the trial, Steven offers to go while the Doctor works to find a cure for the virus.
Baccu makes claims again that the travellers are agents from Refusis II and Zentos publicly debunks their story of being time travellers; Steven openly challenges these accusations and insists he knows nothing of Refusis II. He also insists that the Doctor could help in finding a cure if they let him out, but Zentos continues to turn the people against him. On the monitor, the Doctor and Dodo see Steven start to show symptoms of the virus. Manyek and Mellium defend the travellers with counter arguments the peoples are informed that a guardian has died.
To this end, the travellers are found guilty and sentenced to execution; before Steven is escorted away however, he collapses from the sickness. They return him to the cell and the Doctor challenges Zentos' verdict by offering again to help find the cure but he doesn't listen. Before the sentence can be carried out, the Commander declares that the Doctor's party be released, under the condition that the Doctor's experiments use Steven as a test subject, and Zentos is forced to concede.
With assistance from Mellium and Dodo, the Doctor orders all the ill people to be kept warm while he works on a treatment for the condition. The guardians and the Monoids go out and collect animal membrane samples and the Doctor succeeds in concocting the cure for the condition and applies it to Steven, who starts to recover soon after. Soon, the cure is applied to all of the ill people in the colony and are immunised against any further infection.
After bidding farewell to the Commander, Mellium and Zentos, a Monoid escorts the Doctor, Steven and Dodo back to the TARDIS. They promptly get inside and dematerialise; however, when the ship materialises again, the travellers are astonished to discover that they've not gone anywhere, but that the vegetation has overgrown in the span. Returning to the city, Dodo discovers the statue, which was expected to take several centuries to complete has been finished, but bearing the head of a Monoid.
The Return (3)[]
Steven observes the ship's navigational charts to discern that the ship is nearing it's approach to Refusis II and the Doctor finds that the humans employed a form of automatic guidance. Looking at the scanner with feeds across the ship, they observe that the power hierarchy reversed after they left and the guardians are now subservient to the Monoids. As they watch, a trio of Monoids, who are now identified by numbers on their collars, and their human servants come in and Two demands to know them.
The humans remember the travellers' presence on the ship before, when Two explains that a revolution took place and the Monoids took control of the ship. He takes the Doctor, Steven and Dodo to speak with One, who displays footage of their departure from the ship several hundred years prior. He explains that in spite of their efforts to cure the virus, it mutated a while after they left and gave the Monoids the chance to take over, along with developing voice boxes for their people and heat weapons.
The human slaves discuss the travellers' return, with some hoping that their appearance beckons a coming liberation while others see it as nothing of the kind. The Two brings the Doctor and his companions to the kitchen and the guardians are amazed by them. In the control room, the One makes plans to colonise Refusis II for themselves but discreetly plots a way to destroy the humans at the same time.
The travellers confer with two guardians Venussa and Dassuk about the guardians and try to disarm the Two when he comes in but the Three arrives and kills a guardian; the Doctor and Dodo are ordered to the control room to make first contact on Refusis II while Steven is forced to stay behind. Having placed the Doctor, Dodo, Two and his manservant Yendom in the Ark's launcher capsule, the One and Three send them down to the planet's surface.
Heading off to look around at gunpoint, an invisible creature sneaks inside the capsule and examines it. Dodo quickly realises from a quick remark the by Two that they have no intention on bring the guardians down to Refusis II at all, when the Doctor returns and directs their attention to a castle-like structure in the distance, likely inhabited by the Refusians. Endeavouring to the building, Two tries to coax the Refusians out of 'hiding' by breaking things, infuriating the Doctor.
A Refusian speaks out and Two demands it to show itself, promising to keep breaking things if it doesn't comply and show them 'adequate respect'. The Refusian incapacitates Two and addresses the the Doctor with civility. Back aboard the Ark, Three confers with One about his plan to exterminate the guardians, and he explains that he plans to destroy them with a bomb planted inside the statue, unaware that Maharis is listening into their conversation and he reports it to Steven and the other guardians but didn't see where One had indicated the bomb's location.
On Refusis II's surface, the Doctor and the Refusian converse and they explain they've evolved to be unseen to all, including themselves; Dodo notices that Two and Yendom are missing. The Monoid heads back to the capsule and when Yendom tries to stop him from contacting the others, realising that they will try and exterminate the Refusians, but Two kills him. While the Doctor and Dodo head back to the launcher, Two makes contact with One and Three to give his report, but a Refusian emerges from the bushes and destroys the capsule, killing Two and stranding the Doctor and Dodo on the planet.
The Bomb (4)[]
While the Monoids try and discern what broke Two's communication, One announces that the disembarkation will nevertheless take place, in spite of reservations from Three. The Refusian confers with the Doctor and Dodo again and show concern that the inhabitants of the Ark will show aggression when they land but allows the guardians currently under the Monoids' control one day to liberate themselves before they start to employ defensive measures against the Ark.
One orders the guardians to load the next launching capsules with Monoid nutrients; Steven and Venussa plan their attempts against the Monoids when Maharis returns and tells them that the Monoids are preparing to leave. After the Monoids pass, Maharis gives the signal for the humans to come out and they make their escape. One and Three, along with the other capsules, start to embark to the planet's surface to investigate Two's disappearance, but prime the bomb before they leave. After seeing the Monoids leave, Steven orders the guardians to search the ship for the explosives before it goes off.
On the planet's surface, One and Three find the wreckage of the destroyed launcher capsule and vow to destroy those responsible, while the Doctor and Dodo watch the departure party move away from the capsules and sneak aboard one, hearing Four, who doubt's One's leadership, unwittingly informs the Doctor about the bomb. Through the communication system, the Doctor gets the guardians hunting for the bomb and the Doctor presents himself to the Monoids when they return to the capsules while the Refusians take the launchers back to the Ark.
One demands to know where the Refusians are, but the Doctor continues to feign ignorance; Four openly challenges One's leadership and some go with him on return to the Ark, but One follows them with his followers to kill those who left. Steven sends some of the guardians down to Refusis II to help the Doctor and Dodo while and remains behind with Venussa to help him find the bomb. While Four and the others make their way back to the launch site, they are ambushed by One and his followers and a firefight breaks out before the survivors make in opposite directions.
As One leaves, the launcher carrying the guardians lands on the planet's surface. Maharis steps out of the capsule and is killing by the approaching Monoids. While the two factions fight, the other guardians escape. Dussuk finds the Doctor and Dodo and brings them back to the launcher; as Dassuk pilots the capsule, the Doctor contacts Steven and tells him the bomb's location. While he and Venussa try and figure out of to dispose of it, the Refusian picks up the statue in a phenomenal feat of strength and places it in the launching bay, while the guardians launch it into space just as it explodes.
The Refusians agree to give the guardians sanctuary on Refusis II on the understanding that they make peace with the Monoids, while the travellers return to the TARDIS. Inside, while Steven and Dodo prepare for their next landing, the Doctor goes completely invisible and he discerns that it's a sign of an imminent attack.
Cast[]
- Dr. Who - William Hartnell
- Steven Taylor - Peter Purves
- Dodo Chaplet - Jackie Lane
- Commander - Eric Elliot
- Zentos - Inigo Jackson
- Manyak - Roy Spencer
- Rhos - Michael Sheard
- Mellium - Kate Newman
- 1st Monoid - Edmund Coulter
- 2nd Monoid - Frank George
- Baccu - Ian Frost
- 1st Guardian - Stephanie Heesom
- 2nd Guardian - Paul Greenhalgh
- Monoid One - Edmund Coulter
- Monoid Two - Ralph Carrigan
- Monoid Three - Frank George
- Monoid Voices - Roy Skelton, John Halstead
- Maharis - Terence Woodfield
- Dassuk - Brian Wright
- Venussa - Eileen Helsby
- Yendom - Terence Bayler
- Refusian Voice - Richard Beale
- Monoid Four - John Caesar
Crew[]
- Costumes - Daphne Dare
- Designer - Barry Newbery
- Film Cameraman - Tony Leggo
- Film Editor - Noel Chanan
- Make-Up - Sonia Markham
- Lighting - Howard King
- Sound - Ray Angel
- Title Music - Ron Grainer and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop
- Incidental Music - Tristram Cary
- Writer - Paul Erickson, Lesley Scott
- Story Editor - Gerry Davis
- Director - Michael Imison
- Producer - John Wiles
References[]
To be added
Story notes[]
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Broadcast & Ratings[]
| No. Overall | # | Title | Runtime | First Airdate | Viewers (in millions) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #107 | 1 | The Steel Sky | 24:00 | 05 March 1966 | 5.5 |
| #108 | 2 | The Plague | 25:00 | 12 March 1966 | 6.9 |
| #109 | 3 | The Return | 24:19 | 19 March 1966 | 6.2 |
| #110 | 4 | The Bomb | 24:37 | 26 March 1966 | 7.3 |
Continuity[]
To be added
Home video and audio releases[]
To be added
External Links[]
- Official The Ark page on Doctor Who Website