Synopsis:
The TARDIS materialises in a dense jungle environment. The ship's newest traveller - Dodo Chaplet - rushes out and begins to explore. Steven follows and berates her for having failed to take precautions before leaving the ship. They must follow basic safety checks. Dodo dismisses his concerns, claiming to know exactly where they are. It is Whipsnade Zoo, which she has previously visited on a school trip. She points out some familiar animals.
The Doctor emerges from the TARDIS and explains to Steven that Dodo may well be right, as the flora and fauna do match that of Earth. He is annoyed that she has helped herself to an outfit from the TARDIS wardrobe - a mediaeval pageboy costume.
Steven spots a strange creature in the forest - a one-eyed reptilian being - and reports this to the Doctor, who has discovered other odd things. There is a mechanical vibration being generated beneath the ground - and the sky appears to be made of metal...
They suddenly find themselves surrounded by more of the cyclopean creatures.
Nearby, a group of humans have just completed a court trial. An engineer has been found guilty of negligence, and sentenced to be miniaturised and placed in suspended animation.
On learning of the strangers in the forest, the prosecutor has sent the one-eyed beings to bring them to him. He is Zentos, deputy commander of a vast spacecraft.
When the Doctor, Dodo and Steven are brought to its command deck they meet the elderly commander, who welcomes them, and Zentos, who is suspicious of them.
They learn that the Earth has reached the natural end of its existence, and the entire population of the planet, along with examples of flora and fauna stored in huge biodomes, is about to commence a 700 year voyage to a new home - the Earth-like world of Refusis II. The majority of people are miniaturised, frozen and stored securely - with only a small number left to pilot the vessel on its long journey. They are known as Guardians.
Joining them are a number of the cyclopean beings - the mute Monoids. They came to Earth many years ago in search of a new home after their own was destroyed, and have become servants to the human race.
Dodo nicknames the vessel "the Ark" - a reference lost on the Guardians.
This is the 57th Segment of Time - millions of years in the future. The commander's daughter Mellium shows them a plinth on which a gigantic statue is being constructed. It will take the entire length of their voyage to complete, and will represent a human figure.
Reports start to come in of a rapidly developing illness which affects both human and Monoid.
Dodo has been suffering from a cold, and the Doctor is horrified to realise that in the far future people will have lost their immunity to illnesses such as the common cold as they would have been eradicated generations before.
The commander falls ill, and first Monoids then a Guardian die from the disease.
Zentos accuses the newcomers of being spies from Refusis II, come to sabotage their efforts to make a new home there. They are taken into custody and will be made to pay for what they have done.
As they see the Earth orbit past on the huge monitor screen, the deputy commander worries that all their plans to preserve humanity may now be in jeopardy...
Next episode: The Plague
Written by: Paul Erickson & Lesley Scott
Recorded: Friday 18th February 1966 - Riverside Studio 1
First broadcast: 5:15pm, Saturday 5th March 1966
Ratings: 5.5 million / AI 55
Designer: Barry Newbery
Director: Michael Imison
Guest cast: Eric Elliot (Commander), Inigo Jackson (Zentos), Roy Spencer (Manyak), Kate Newman (Mellium), Edmund Coulter (1st Monoid), Frank George (2nd Monoid), David Greneau (Miniaturised Guardian).
The Ark is the first Doctor Who story to have a woman credited as writer. However, it is known that Lesley Scott contributed little or nothing to the scripting. Her partner, Paul Erickson, simply asked for her to receive a co-writer credit, and Gerry Davis agreed.
Copyright on the story remains solely with Erickson, and in later life he refused to discuss Scott's involvement. He had remarried around 1980.
Erickson had written a small number of works for cinema and the stage, but was primarily a TV writer, contributing single scripts to on-going series such as The Saint and Compact. He had also contributed to a sci-fi series - the anthology Out of the Unknown.
This was Davis' first full story as Story Editor, having gained his first on-screen credit for the role on Bell of Doom.
He had been working solidly on a football-themed soap called United!, which was being made in the Midlands. Wishing to relocate to London after the birth of his latest child, he accepted the role on Doctor Who.
As the new Story Editor arrives, so the old Producer departs. The Ark was John Wiles' final story for the series, and represents the sort of story he had wanted to tell from the outset - high concept adventures with a strong scientific background. He had toyed with the idea for a multi-generational spaceship for some time. He saw a ship so large that people would need cycles or cars to travel around in it. Donald Tosh was not so keen - thinking it beyond their budget and technical resources, but commissioned Erickson - whom he knew from Compact - to submit a script.
The reasons for Wiles departure were three-fold - his poor working relationship with William Hartnell; his frustration at the producer role (when he really wanted to write and direct his own work); plus the imposition of the lengthy and complex Dalek story.
The director chosen to helm the story, which was seen as being one of the most technically complex of the season, was Michael Imison - his only work on the series. Playwright Gerald Savory had recently taken over as Head of Drama at the BBC. His wife had worked on an adaptation of Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks, which Imison had directed. Savory disliked his work - no doubt spurred on by his wife - which led to some personal animosity. Imison realised that his days with the BBC were numbered with Savory now head of the department.
It was Imison who developed the role of the Monoids, which were generic aliens in the original scripts. The director saw merchandising potential for the one-eyed reptile people.
The designer was Barry Newbery, whose work on the series had mainly been on the historical stories - though he had recently contributed to half of the latest Dalek episodes.
Production on The Ark got underway with the miniaturisation sequence for this episode, when the Guardian played by David Greneau was photographed on 24th January 1966 - to be inlayed into the finished episode.
Filming began with the Refusis scenes for the second half of the story, with the jungle biodome scenes finally being filmed from Thursday 3rd February.
This was Jackie Lane's second piece of work for the series, after filming her debut on Wimbledon Common.
She later reported that whilst Hartnell could come across as irascible, he was very welcoming to her but clearly unhappy at the changes in personnel going on around him. Imison noted the poor relationship between Hartnell and Wiles.
Amongst the animals present in studio was a young Sri Lankan elephant named Monica, which usually resided with Sir Robert Fossett's Circus and Zoo in the North of England.
BBC insurance regulations forbade the animal being kept in the grounds of Ealing Studios overnight, so Imison found himself baby-sitting the animal when it was left in a horse-box outside his home on the eve of filming.
Model filming of the Earth to be shown on the scanner took place the next day, as did shots of the biodome landscape - using miniature bonsai trees flanking a painted backdrop.
The decision to open the episode with a close-up of a Monoid was a late one. It was originally intended that their reveal would be held back until later. The miniaturised Guardian also had a name - Opallo.
As a cost-cutting measure, the music for the story mostly came from stock - much of it from the very first Dalek story, composed by Tristram Cary.
Since her scenes at the end of Bell of Doom, much thought had been given to Lane's accent, and it was decided that it should be changed to "BBC English" - creating a discontinuity. The Doctor admonishes her for her slang, yet by the end of the serial there's no trace of it.
The accent is stronger in this opening instalment, though things are complicated by Lane's nasal "cold" acting.
There were only two sets needed for the first studio - a small section of jungle with a cave, and the hangar-like space of the command deck. The massive control panel had working TV monitors and other screens were simply backlit photographs.
The backdrop to the set was designed to give the impression that the Ark was a gigantic sphere. This is also suggested by a plan which the Commander shows to the Doctor.
(At no point will we ever get to see the whole vessel, but the few exterior shots later on do appear to show a section of a spherical craft).
During the afternoon camera rehearsals, the press were out in force to get images of the new monsters and the contingent of young female Guardians, including Kate Newman who was playing Mellium.
The many shots of Dodo posing with a Monoid had been taken separately at Ealing on the main jungle set, as had images of the regulars with Monica (see below).
Four recording breaks were planned. One of these involved a Monoid walking up to the camera on the jungle set, with another walking away from the camera on the command deck set.
A sign-language interpreter was employed for one scene, and a number of children were employed to illustrate the multi-generational aspect of the voyage.
There is an underlying race-relations story struggling to get out from under the sci-fi trappings. The alien Monoids have been invited in to Earth society, as West Indian workers were invited into Britain from the 1950's - only to end up being treated like second-class citizens, unable to rise above menial roles.
This aspect of the story will develop, so we'll return to it later.
- The ratings take a further dip, but the appreciation figure remains healthy in the middle 50's.
- Paul Erickson was actually the writer's nom-de-plume. He was born Frederick Redwood Watts in Cardiff in 1920.
- Fed up with submitting scripts and never hearing anything back, Erickson had it included in his contract that he would only submit the next script when its predecessor had already been accepted.
- Lesley Scott is also supposed to be an alias - for Erickson's wife Gemma Vitale.
- The Ark was originally intended to appear earlier in Season 3, and had Katarina in its draft version. It was the 12-part Dalek epic which caused it to be pushed back to later in the run, by which time the Trojan character had been dropped.
- The Doctor describes Dodo's outfit as her "playing at Crusades". The implication is that this might be Vicki's old pageboy costume from The Crusade, but it is clearly different.
- The Doctor tells the Commander about a number of previous adventures - The Romans, The Myth Makers and a Dalek story - presumably The Dalek Invasion of Earth. They are said to have taken place in the first segment of time, whilst this is the 57th. The Doctor thinks they are millions of years in the future, but we know that the end of the Earth will be measured in billions rather than millions of years. His dating has been unreliable in the past.
- Amongst his many screen roles, Inigo Jackson, who died in 2001, featured in the Hammer film Twins of Evil as one of Peter Cushing's vampire-hunting brethren.
- On learning that Davis had daughters named Chelsea and Victoria, Hartnell joked with him that he was naming his children after London Underground Stations. Davis found he could get on with the actor by deflecting his anger towards reminiscing about his previous acting roles.
- On the Thursday prior to broadcast of this episode, Blue Peter included the Dalek tea party segment, in which Valerie Singleton made Dalek-shaped cakes and sandwiches. This can be seen as an extra on The Dalek Invasion of Earth DVD / Blu-ray.
- This episode will have given Peter Purves excellent experience for dealing with young elephants when he came to join the Blue Peter team.
- We have a good example of the regional variations for Radio Times this week - the same text and photograph, but a different layout. The top version gives a suggested story title, one which fandom ran with for a while, though paperwork has always simply called it The Ark:
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