Day 55 — February 24th 2021
The Steel Sky and The Plague
The Steel Sky (The Ark — Episode One)
That this is the first full story we’ve had in the archives for ages is abundantly clear when watching through on BritBox — where Season Three seems to begin with ‘Episode 26’!
And what an episode to come back on! The scale of the sets in this one are incredible, largely thanks to a decent amount of pre-filming at Ealing, allowing them to really make the most of the TARDIS team exploring their new surroundings.
(As a side note, what is Doctor Who’s obsession with jungles at this point in its history? We’ve had Kembel in Mission to the Unknown and The Daleks’ Master Plan, with Desperus and Mira in the latter story too. And now this one here on the Ark! Do you think they got a special discount on the plants if they agreed to bring them back to the studio every few weeks?)
It’s also brilliant to see the cast interacting with the animals, too. We’ve gotten so used to film inserts from other places — like the wolves in The Keys of Marinus and the ships in both The Romans and The Time Meddler — that actually seeing Doctor Who go up and being in the same shot as the elephant is oddly stunning.
This feels like a really big budget episode, and that’s no bad thing. The elephant can’t have come cheap, and yet is only on screen for a few seconds really. Add that to the scale of the jungle, and the size of the main set and you’ve got something that’s more expansive than the series has attempted before.
It’s also a slightly different format to the series than we’ve seen to this point. Most of this episode is taken up with Doctor Who, Steven and Dodo exploring their surroundings and trying to work out where they are. They stumble on mysteries like the animals being from vastly different continents and the lack of a sky above them, and they wonder what sort of world they could have found themselves on…
…but we’ve already seen the Monoids, who appear in one of the earliest shots of the episode. We’ve witnessed a trial where the humans sentence one of their own to a science-fiction punishment, and we have a sense of what’s happening — if not the specifics — while our heroes are still trying to piece things together. It’s unusual. I’m used to being introduced to the new world alongside the regulars, not being so many steps ahead of them.
The introduction of Dodo to the series continues to sit oddly here, and I’m still not entirely sure it works. They flirt with the idea of her being new to all this (Her disbelief and protests that they’re in Whipsnade feel oddly reminiscent of Vicki’s brand of sarcasm), but they also seem to want to just get on and tell the story with her just being one of the companions. Doctor Who says she’s already been ‘frootling’ around in the wardrobe, which feels like an odd thing for her to have done after running into the TARDIS specifically to find a policeman. She takes it all in her stride quite well, too. Even if they were still on Earth, she doesn’t bat an eyelid at the fact that the TARDIS has moved.
I’ve heard it suggested that there’s maybe a couple of adventures between The Massacre and this one, but I’m not sure I buy that. Even if there are they must be fleeting because she’s very clearly still ‘new’ to the team, even if she is oddly settled in other respects.
Overall, though, there’s a lot to like in this one, and the scale alone makes it worthy of a decent score. A slightly cautious 8/10.
The Plague (The Ark — Episode Two)
It’s bizarre, The Ark, because I feel like I shouldn’t like it as much as I am. It’s the kind of dated nonsense science fiction I complained about repeatedly in Season Two, and it’s full of extras standing around in the kind of silly science fiction costumes I’ll be complaining about when we reach the likes of The Dominators and The Krotons… and yet, I’m really enjoying watching this!
In many ways it reminds me lots of The Sensorites. There’s a mysterious plague wiping out the ‘natives’ (I’ll talk a little more about the plague itself in a moment), Doctor Who is having to race to find a cure, there’s even a montage of sorts while he’s doing it. You’ve got one member of the guest cast who’s totally on the side of our heroes, and another who is desperately against them and assumes control in an attempt to have them killed. Now I liked The Sensorites, so I’m hardly complaining, it’s just not a story I expected to be replayed here.
There’s something so fascinating in the idea of the common cold coming back to wreak such devastation like this, and I’m amazed we’ve never seen it touched on again. That said… good grief Dodo must have the worst cold in human history. I’ll accept that the humans in the future aren’t able to fight it off in the way that we do now, but I’m not sure I buy that it strikes them down so quickly. In The Steel Sky, one of the Guardians succumbs to it in about three minutes! I wonder if the story would be better served with a more leisurely pace? Have the TARDIS crew stick around a few days to enjoy the hospitality of the ‘last’ of humanity, and then have the trouble begin when their hosts begin to fall sick.
There’s probably some clever thing to be said here about Covid, but let’s skip over that, shall we? Tell you what, though, the BBC have missed a trick in not marketing face masks that look like the ones worn in this episode! How fab are they? I’d happily wear one of those to Tesco! Bizarrely, they even look quite good on the Monoids, where I’d expect them to start falling apart a little.
I continue to be impressed with the scale of the story in this episode, and I’m amazed that they’ve managed to pull it off. I think I’m right in saying that the director — Michael Imison making his Doctor Who debut — was fired from the BBC during recording, and it’s a real shame because I’d love to have seen him do more with the series. Imagine a run directed by a revolving trio of Imison, Camfield and Martinus!
Even the effects shots here are brilliant. I’ve a feeling that the Earth burning up gets a bit of stick in fan circles, but I really like it, and totally buy into it. I’m also not sure I see it as being incompatible with The End of the World as some claim. Yes, Doctor Who dates this particular story to several billion years before that one will be set, but we’re at a point in the series where he’s still baffled by arriving on a spaceship, so I think we can assume his maths is pretty bad.
Can we also take a moment to appreciate the dating used in this story? We’re in ‘the 57th Segment of Time’. I love that. I slip that into things as often as I can. Indeed I’ve recently written something for an upcoming book where I’ve used ‘Segment of Time’ as part of the dating. Whether it gets removed before publication is another matter entirely, but I’ve tried. They talk here of the ‘Primal Wars of the 10th Segment of Time’, and of Doctor Who’s historical adventures in Rome, Troy and the battle with Daleks as all occurring in the ‘First Segment of Time’. I think it’s oddly beautiful.
Also beautiful is Doctor Who’s parting words to the humans;
‘Remember your journey is very important, young man, therefore you must travel with understanding as well as hope.’
I have a feeling that this particular sentiment may have been paraphrased in a Jodie Whittaker episode somewhere, so maybe I’m not the only person who tries to slip in references to The Ark when I’m writing?
A 7/10 for this one.
