Dr Who: the Ark
After two reasonably complete seasons of Dr Who it is a bit of a shock to have such a long run of serials that don’t exist, either in full or partially. I’ve skipped over the single part Mission to the Unknown (a teaser to the epic Daleks’ Masterplan), the four part Myth-Makers (in which we would have said farewell to Vicki), the twelve part Daleks’ Masterplan (I will catch up with the surviving episodes soon), and the four part The Massacre. That last one is where Dodo wanders aboard the TARDIS at the end of the serial to join the Doctor and Steven Taylor.
This is the first time I’ve seen this serial, collectively called The Ark, outside of small clips. I watched it on 27 December 2022. I don’t know why I’ve not watched it before, and I quite enjoyed it. It does have its flaws, and doesn’t contain anything remarkable. It’s just a watchable adventure in which our heroes cause problems, are caught up with more problems, and set things on a path that seems okay.
I liked how it’s two related adventures told in a total of four parts because it cracks along at a decent pace. The plot can be boiled down to there being two groups vying over a planet that belongs to neither of them. One group are humans, the other not. It’s tempting to view one group as evil and the other as deserving and good, but the reality shows neither are wholly one or the other. The simplistic moral is that if you treat others badly, they can turn nasty against you. The story also tries to show how devastating unintended consequences can be. In this case, Dodo’s cold spreads as a deadly virus to those who’ve not been exposed before, including Steven… watching this plot strand while Covid-19 continues to cause sickness and death globally wasn’t easy. The Monoid space burial was oddly affecting. Death is real.
The humans aren’t all men — hurrah! — but, we only see white people — boo! We are also back to them not wearing very much. Oddly, when we skip 700 years in their future, their clothes and hairstyles haven’t changed.
The Monoids are curious creatures. It’s interesting that no one knows where they came from. They seem fairly simple-minded… no, they’re child-like. Using natural numbers as names, naming everything they’ve secured as “security _____”, 2 being easily tricked by Dodo to reveal their plans, and their nastiness in their (partially justified) revenge against the humans is childish. They remind me a bit of the Ogrons, come to think of it.
I’m skipping ahead to The Gunflighters next. I’ll catch up with what remains of the Celestial Toymaker later…