After finishing this serial, and before writing this comment, I quickly just Googled to check what year the original Alien film came out versus the date this serial was released. The reason for this will be clear to anyone who has seen both Alien and Ark in Space; an intelligent and deadly alien, an enclosed spaceship with humans in suspended animation, humans navigating tight tunnels while trying to keep an increasingly hostile an numerous alien force at bay; indeed even the scene where aliens go over and around to get into the shuttle at the end was reminiscent of the scene in Aliens where they do the same in the roof space. It was interesting to note that of course this serial came many years before Alien, and I do not know if this is an influence, but for sure there does seem to a certain connection (although having said that, the serial itself seems to borrow from other sci-fi such as Quatermass, and the use of silence in the space sequences as a juxtaposition with the sound of the internal shots.
This aside, The Ark in Space is a solidly good serial. It is only 4 parts long (which I usually find keeps it tighter), and has a good tight control of its own narrative. It is pretty impressive that mostly it all plays out in a few different sets, and yet it is engaging throughout. The crux of the plot is the alien threat to the humans sent out in the ark to protect the species from extinction; this features some surprisingly effective images and ideas. Okay the special effects are dated, but it was still impacting to see Noah partially transformed, and interesting to see him fighting the transformation to keep an element of humanity alive – or at least to make the sacrifice to take out the threat himself. Such aspects are nicely played and given the space to be ideas with the room to exist in the serial. There were elements of the serial that moved a little slower, and a few scenes here and there that we probably could have done without, but nothing really too padded and certainly not compared to some of those 6-part serials where clearly there were only 4-parts to be had.
The cast are good and benefit from the low number of characters and limited sets. Baker seems much better already as the Doctor; in Robot he was far too silly and flamboyant but here he is much more balanced. Not dull or dry or overly serious, but able to provide a certain amount of wonder in his character's view on life, as well as an appreciation for the seriousness of a situation when need be. Sladen is solid and has more to do than just scream (indeed a key plot point sees her goaded into action by accusations of such). Marter's "come one ol' girl", and "feisty bird" routine bothered me as much as it did in Robot. I did like that the other characters teased him a bit, and perhaps he will relax to be a decent companion in the mould of Ian Chesterton from the Hartnell era. The supporting cast play well, particularly Moore.
A positive step then. I liked Robot for what it did well, but Ark in Space is much better in allowing ideas room to breathe, producing some genuine creepy moments and threads, and also having better control of the tone and the characters. The performances match this, and with hindsight it makes the serial more interesting to ponder on the similarities between this and Alien.
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