Synopsis:
The Doctor and his companions have found themselves back on the Ark - but it is clear that they have travelled 700 years into the future as Dodo points out how the statue is now finished. Intended as an image of a human being, it now has the head of a Monoid...
The space vessel is now fully automated. Examining the controls the Doctor accesses the internal security cameras and they witness a human being working as a servant to a Monoid, with others labouring in a kitchen area.
A trio of the reptilian creatures approaches and they are taken to see their leader - Monoid One. The aliens are now able to talk, making use of artificial voice-boxes attached to numbered bands around their shoulders. They are also armed with lethal heat weapons, which can also be used to injure.
The Doctor is horrified to hear that, after they had left the Ark 700 years ago, the after-effects of Dodo's cold had a long-term impact. The Monoids became stronger, whilst the Guardians weakened.
Providing them with technological help to develop their speech devices, the humans were unaware that this was also being used to create the heat weapons.
The complacent Guardians were unprepared when the Monoids staged a revolt against what they saw as their oppressors, and took over.
The Ark is now entering the orbit of its final destination - Refusis II.
The TARDIS crew are despatched to the kitchens, which are a maximum security area. They learn from Dassuk and Venussa that some despised humans have privileged positions as servants to the Monoids.
Monoid One and his deputies, Two and Three, discuss their plan to make Refusis a Monoid world only. The humans are to be wiped out.
Concerned about what may face them on the planet, they decide to send down a scout party, led by Monoid Two. This will comprise the Doctor and Dodo, and one of their subservient humans - a man named Yendom.
The group arrives on the surface of Refusis using one of the Ark's launcher pods. They discover the new world to be forested, and soon spot a large palatial building.
There is no other sign of life, however. Suspecting that the Refusians are hiding from them, the arrogant Monoid Two starts making threats.
They then discover that the natives of this planet are really immensely powerful disembodied beings who have lost their physical forms.
Back on the Ark, Monoid One informs Three that a bomb has been planted, which will be detonated as soon as their people have evacuated to Refusis. This conversation is overheard by One's personal servant Maharis. He goes to the kitchen and informs Dassuk and Venussa. They and Steven begin plotting a means of escape.
The invisible Refusian does not like what he hears about the situation on the Ark, and of the aggression of the Monoids. The exodus must be halted, at least for the present.
When Yendom learns that no human is to be allowed to settle on the planet, he rebels and is killed by Two. The creature then enters the launcher to radio a report to his superior.
Before he can do so, the Refusian obliterates the craft, killing its occupant.
Observing the wreckage, Dodo fears that they may now be stranded on this planet, and the Doctor is forced to agree...
Next episode: The Bomb
Written by: Paul Erickson & Lesley Scott
Recorded: Friday 4th March 1966 - Riverside Studio 1
First broadcast: 5:15pm, Saturday 19th March 1966
Ratings: 6.2 million / AI 51
Designer: Barry Newbery
Director: Michael Imison
Additional cast: Brian Wright (Dassuk), Eileen Helsby (Venussa), Terence Woodfield (Maharis), Terence Bayler (Yendom), Edmund Coulter (Monoid One), Ralph Carrigan (Monoid Two), Frank George (Monoid Three), Richard Beale (Refusian Voice), Roy Skelton, John Halstead (Monoid Voices)
Critique:
The Ark can, if you wish, be viewed as a linked pair of two-part stories, utilising the same sets and costumes to tell two quite different stories. The narrative thread which hold these two stories together is simply that one of the events in the first half has inadvertently led to the set-up of the second.
It's better, however, to regard it in its four-part entirety - a story which spans hundreds of years and illustrates the consequences of the Doctor's travels through time.
It's something the series had never done before - and has rarely ever tried again since.
The best analogy from the modern iteration of the series would be Steven Moffat's decision to play about with the nature of two-parters in Series 9, such as The Girl Who Died and The Woman Who Lived.
The filming for this episode took place at the beginning of production, with the Refusis surface scenes going before the cameras at Ealing between Monday 31st Jan - Wednesday 2nd February.
Barry Newbery opted to make the forest more open than the dense jungles seen recently in The Daleks' Master Plan, with a cyclorama showing the sky and a distant horizon, and strips of fibreglass were hung from the trees and bushes to make them look more exotic.
False perspective was used to show the launcher landing, using both a model and a full-scale prop.
This prop was open on one side to allow the cameras to show the interior.
The heat prods were working props, emitting a puff of white powder when operated.
Naturally, the replacement of the flowers in the vase was achieved by simply running the film backwards after they had been pulled out using thin twine.
Joining the cast on this episode is the actor Roy Skelton - the beginning of a lengthy association with the programme that would continue until the 1999 Comic Relief adventure The Curse of Fatal Death.
Having developed many funny voices during his time in rep, Skelton had contributed to several children's TV series, often working alongside Peter Hawkins, who would recommend him to the Doctor Who team. Skelton would join Hawkins in providing Dalek vocals during the Troughton era before superseding him in the 1970's, as well as helping develop the very first Cyberman voice.
As well as vocal input on many occasions, Skelton would get to appear on screen and in person during the Pertwee era, in Colony in Space, Planet of the Daleks and The Green Death.
Skelton voiced Monoid One, whilst John Halstead provided vocals for Two and Three.
Like Skelton, Richard Beale would also provide vocals as well as making in person appearances in the series. He also appears in The Green Death, as the Ecology Minister, and will be seen later in 1966 as Bat Masterson in The Gunfighters.
Terence Woodfield had only just been seen, under heavy make-up, as alien delegate Celation in the second half of The Daleks' Master Plan (as well as a guest appearance, in character as the alien, on Junior Points of View).
Michael Imison had worked with most of his cast before on the soap Compact.
On the day before recording, Jackie Lane was released from rehearsals to film a sequence for the forthcoming The Celestial Toyroom. This was the sequence of her attending her mother's funeral, as seen by her in the Toymaker's "Memory Window".
The Commander's room had now been taken over by Monoid One. On the TV monitor a clip was seen from the previous episode, of the travellers' return to the TARDIS. (Oddly, the Monoids describe the TARDIS as a black box, and no-one challenges this).
The Monoid costumes had white sashes added with an identity numeral and the small voice box. The actor had to manually operate this, sliding a coloured disc to indicate that the device was in use.
The implication is that the Monoids have their mouth in the centre of their chests, which is where the voice box hangs. We also see Monoid One appear to remove an apple core from this area, though he has his back to us at the time.
The large screen on the command deck had been replaced with one covered in white co-ordinate lines, across which lights played. These were actually torches, wielded by stage hands.
A small corner of the Refusis forest set was seen in studio with the launcher prop. The inlay technique was employed to show characters in the launcher being shown on the command deck screen - very noticeable as their heads remain in exactly the same place between shots.
Newbery reused the gates of El Akir's palace from The Crusade for the Refusian dwelling.
There were four recording breaks - three for moving cast from one set to another, with the fourth used to replace the launcher with the heap of smoking wreckage.
There is little doubt that the second half of The Ark is the weaker one. The new set of human characters are a fairly colourless bunch, and don't actually contribute very much to any of the events of the final two episodes. The subservient men are the more interesting, but we never get any insight into their motivations. Once the invisible Refusian arrives, they come to dominate the action, with the humans simply tagging along in their wake.
The Monoids are simply presented now as a generic crowd of stereotypical villains. Monoid Two's bullying nature is particularly over-played. They develop an annoying habit of blurting out their plans to anyone who happens to be listening. There's something childlike about the way they behave, but this is never picked up on or developed.
The nature of their escape from servitude, to become enslavers themselves, is the more interesting story - but the writer fails to go into this.
Concepts such as a "Security Kitchen" really don't help the production. The idea of confining potentially hostile prisoners - mostly unsupervised - in an area containing sharp implements and sources of heat is, quite frankly, a stupid one.
The least said about how the Refusians came to lose their physical forms - "a galaxy accident" - the better...
Interestingly, Zentos had been concerned about the Refusians spying on them, but it would appear that they may have been doing just that - as they seem to know that the approaching spacecraft contains people who wish to settle on their planet, and that they are humanoid in form.
- The audience falls by half a million on the previous episode, meaning half of the bounce-back of the previous instalment has been lost again. The appreciation figure drops by five points.
- The Monoid costumes were the work of father and son freelance effects makers Jack and John Lovell. They worked to designs by BBC costume designer Daphne Dare, which included some input from the director.
- We haven't mentioned the Guardian costumes so far. Dare wanted to use pastel colours and went down the 'blue for boys and pink for girls' route. The Commander in the first two instalments had worn a red version of the outfit. These were worn over bathing costumes.
- Terence Bayler is well-known to comedy fans as 'Leggy' Mountbatten of The Rutles - the Pythonesque Beatles spoof - and for a notable role in The Life of Brian. He's the man who claims "I'm Brian - and so's my wife!". He also featured in the Harry Potter franchise as one of the Hogwarts ghosts. Born in New Zealand in 1930, he died in 2016.
- Eileen Helsby was the sister of the director's assistant.
- For several years this was thought to be the only surviving episode from this story, held as a 16mm film print in the BBC Film and Television Archives. In 1978, BBC Enterprises announced that they had copies of all four instalments.
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