1.24: The Ark

In which director Michael Imison shows just what can be done if you ignore the budget, and as a direct result never works on the series again.

Broadcast: March 1966

Watched: August 2019

Just realised that I was so baffled by The Massacre that for the first time in ages I’ve stopped looking forward to the next story. I think I understand the 1966 ratings crisis now.

Moving on:

1. The Steel Sky

They’ve got an elephant. Where the hell did they get an elephant? [The answer, James Cooray-Smith informs me, was a circus. She’s called Monica.] Also, where did they film this? The studio is suddenly massive. 

This looks really good compared to what we’re used to. The cast of extras is massive, far bigger than we’ve seen before I think. How much did they blow the budget by?

Anyway. Dodo is incredibly annoying isn’t she? First companion that feels like a mistake. Although I do like Steven’s exasperation as she utterly refuses to take it seriously. And the monoids are a great design.

RTD’s line about how part ones in the old show would be the pre-credits sequence now... that’s really not true here. We get a lot in this episode, it covers a huge amount of ground in 24 minutes.

Why are “arks” such a huge thing in Who and Who-adjacent fiction do you think? There’s this, Ark in Space, Beast Below (which is obviously inspired by this one – the vibrating floor etc), plus Hitchhikers’... where does all this come from?

Meaningless thought: the word “steel” appears in a surprisingly large number of episode/story titles.

Is The Steel Sky the first time the series uses voiceover btw? [It isn’t, anywhere near: they used it in Marco Polo, it’s just that we can’t see the film so I’d forgotten.]

2. The Plague

Zentos is a ray of fucking sunshine isn’t he.

The ejection of the body into space is weirdly haunting.

The Monoids are much less obviously a slave race than I remembered. Is that ever made explicit?

Ooh a trial. Doctor Who does love a trial doesn’t it. Is this the second or have I forgotten one?

Ah. The Guardians are a bit “now a human has died this is serious” aren’t they.

I’m fairly sure this isn’t actually how vaccines work.

Ah the first end of the earth. Many more to come. 

Could have sworn there was a bit where the Doctor shook a Monoid’s hand. Must be from the book.

The statue is very well done, both as a conceit and in execution. Presumably the real thing was three feet tall or something. 

[Oh, er, a thing I forgot to mention in the version of this that went out on the email list: this is a very oddly structured story, essentially two-linked two-parters. After Doctor Who has helpfully cured the plague that his companions brought with them, the TARDIS leaves the ark at the end of this episode, then materialises again in the same place, 700 years later. This time, though, the silent and servile Monoids are now a) talking and b) in charge, and the giant unfinished statue of a human has been completed with a Monoid’s head. Right, that’s enough of the plot, let’s get back to the stupid jokes.]

3. The Return

Hmmm the reversal in this story would be better if the Monoid’s inferior status has previously been better communicated. Nice of them to wear numbers so we know which is which. 

The pill you drop into water to make potatoes is awesome. Lot of top quality model work here too.

The Monoids’ plotting has all the wit and subtlety of Homer Simpson. Monoid 2 tells Dodo the plan and then looks embarrassed about it.

Bit odd we have another invisible race just 13 episodes after the last. Although the fact we now have one race which had no voice and another which has no body is interesting. “A solar flare took our bodies” sure Jan.

The Doctor is very calm about being trapped on Refusis.

[Another observation courtesy of James Cooray-Smith: “All Wiles/Tosh SF Whos involve invisibility. All their historical build up to a mass slaughter via the Doctor impersonating someone and a bit in a pub.” John Wiles and Donald Tosh were the producer and script editor of this stretch of the show.]

4. The Bomb

Is Lesley Scott the first woman credited with writing Who, btw? [She is, and the last, until Barbara Clegg wrote Enlightenment in 1983.]

The Refusians’ “We will build you a palace but also blow you up if you put a foot wrong” is a bit pass agg. Not as dumb as the Monoids going around announcing their plans, mind. 

“They are a blind people” – so the one eyed man is king. Nice.

“But since it is inside the statue” WHAT THE HELL IS IT WITH MONOIDS AND JUST ANNOUNCING THEIR PLANS.

Sort of odd that Steven naturally ends up in charge and everyone just accepts it. It’s because he’s more of a plot function than a character, but it sort of prefigures The Savages. Also Venussa is very obviously trying to bang him.

The scene where the Monoids turn on each other is weirdly funny in quite how ridiculous it is.

The Refusians are sort of like God aren’t they? Disembodied voice, offer you paradise, bring salvation, tell you to live in peace but burn you if you betray them. Although the bit where one’s laughing is a bit Anthony Ainley.

Between the Monoid’s hair and the bit at the end with the change of clothes we’re into the swinging bit of the 60s now.