Doctor Who (1963) 12.02.03

The Ark in Space - Part Three

Noah reaches out to Vira from the control room. He instructs her to accelerate the revivification process. He struggles to maintain control as the alien part of his body starts to assert control. Vira is ready to follow the orders but the Doctor says, no. They won't have enough time to wake everybody up.

Harry takes over where Vira left off and wakes up the two remaining Med Techs, Rogin and Lycett. The Doctor and Harry dissect part of the dead alien that lurched out of the closet at Harry. The Doctor gets a piece of its brain and hooks it up to a video monitor. Nothing happens when they turn on the power.

The Doctor hooks himself up to the video monitor and the piece to alien brain. This time it shows them part of what happened to the dead alien, a Wirrn. A live Wirrn pupa starts to break in to the room where everyone, other than Noah, is located. Lycett is killed by the Wirrin that is still in pupa stage.

Harry, Rogin, and Vira fend off the pupa with guns they retrieved from another part of the station. They get the doors closed again but they are trapped in that room. The Doctor uses the transmat bed to send Harry and Rogin to a different part of the station. Sarah is getting ready to follow them when the power fails. 

The air stops flowing. The Doctor tells Vira and Sarah to stay put. He heads to the power stack. He gets there just in time to meet Noah who barely identifiable as once being Noah and looks much more like a Wirrn.

Thoughts

The stage is set for the big showdown with the Wirrn which finally have been given a name.

I think that Vira survives this story. I'm not so sure about Rogin.

There is one scene that I didn't mention above where the Doctor and Vira encounter Noah. He is about half human and half alien. According to Philip Hinchcliffe (in the commentary track) there was more to the scene that they were forced to cut. There was a moment where Noah ask Vira to kill him but it didn't make it to the final cut of the episode. It was deemed to be too scary for children.

The special effects in this episode (including a fair amount of green bubble wrap) aren't great but I like the story. The supporting cast are all doing a great job. More importantly, it doesn't feel like they are relying too heavily on the special effects.