The tearing free and then the great blackness rushing through.
Approaching Ark in Space is an interesting prospect. As with other stories of similar standing, finding something new to say about them is the biggest challenge. These stories have been discussed, evaluated and analysed for years now. The story has an interesting place within the cannon – not quite in the very top tier, but close to it and very highly regarded (22nd in the 50th anniversary DWM poll and 28th in the Mighty 200 survey). It is also a favourite story of Russell T Davie sand Steven Moffat, both of whom have waxed lyrical about it in the past. As with a number of other well-regarded stories, it had a very troubled gestation. Robert Holmes had a couple of weeks to completely re-write a story that had already failed twice Space Station by Christopher Langley and secondly John Lucarrotti’s rather odd sounding scripts involving the fungal Delc, detachable heads and golf clubs!
Ark in Space is traditionally the moment where the Hinchcliffe/Holmes gothic era begins, where Tom establishes himself as the new Doctor via the ‘Homo sapiens’ speech, where the programme shifts back towards the stars (the ‘tearing free‘ of the quote above is actually very apt), aided by fresh, imaginative new designs from Roger Murray-Leach and a new TARDIS team; The Fourth Doctor, Sarah and Harry are born. In a chronologically ordered marathon – where the story is placed in context of those surrounding it, these changes would most likely form a hugely important part of the review and I will talk about all of those things. However, that isn’t what interests me about the story – what I am really interested in here, is the concept at the heart of the story – the remains of the human race being parasitised by an alien insect species as they sleep.
Metatmorphosis
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect-like creature.
Franz Kafka Metamorphosis(1915)
Transformation of human into insect has a long history. For example, Metamorphosis, the Franz Kafka novella concerning a travelling salesman who overnight finds himself transformed into a giant insect. Then we have cinema and the most obvious example of the genre The Fly (based on a short story first published in Playboy in 1957), which was remade in 1986 by David Cronenburg. Metamorphosis makes the most of the absurd situation Gregor finds himself in, it isn’;t really concerned with the mechanism; rather the effects and what they reveal about Gregor, his place in the world and his relationship with his family and work. The Fly falls back on that staple of science experiment gone wrong; harking back to those classics Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus and The Strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; both of which I am sure will get further outings in these reviews. Ark in Space is quite different to both of these, for me it’s influences lie elsewhere.
God, the wasp and the scientist
I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice
Charles Darwin (1860)
Where Ark in Space is different and I think very clever is the idea of the transformation of a human into insect form a part of the natural life cycle of a parasitoid species. Despite being realised as something akin to a giant earwig ; complete with tail pincer (cerci), Robert Holmes based the Wirrn on the ecology of ichneumonidae wasp family, of which there are tens of thousands of species worldwide, most of which are parasitoid. They lay their eggs in the caterpillars or grubs of other species, sometimes (not always) paralyzing the host in the process and as the young wasps hatch they consume the host from the inside; the host provides shelter for the developing wasps and also a food source as they hatch. Some even parasitize other ichneumon species.
Think that an insect species controlling and absorbing the mind of another species is far-fetched? Well, there are also studies indicating that some species of parasitic solitary wasp influence the mind and development of their victims; for example euderus set, the crypt-keeper wasp; which parasitizes species of gall wasp (themselves parasites of host tree species) by entering their body and then influencing them into excavating a route through the gall to the outside world, but crucially too early, so that the host gets stuck on leaving the gall. The crypt-keeper, which is smaller than the host, then eats its way through the gall wasp, erupting through its head to leave the tree. The crypt-keeper basically pilots the ‘zombie’ gall wasp larvae before consuming it.
Ever heard of the Eumenes? It is a genus of wasps that paralyses caterpillars and lays its eggs in their bodies. When the larvae emerge, they have a ready made food supply. Strange how the same life patterns recur throughout the universe.
Holmes re-purposes the life-cycle of the ichneumonidae as the stuff of human nightmare; substituting human bodies for those of the beetle, moth, wasp or butterfly species normally parasitized by them. The quote from Darwin is from a letter he wrote to a fellow scientist and reveals his doubts about his own religion and an intelligent designer/creator; why would such a God create the horror of parasitoid wasps or indeed The Wirrn? I’m not sure how Robert Holmes became interested in them – whatever reason, it is an inspired idea for a story and the concept is particularly horrific – I suspect that it horrifies us for precisely the same reasons as it did Darwin all those years ago.
But I’m here. I am Dune.
With Ark in Space; we have the added twist beyond the ichneumonidae, and even the crypt-keeper of the Wirrn absorbing the knowledge and experience of their host, such that Noah, once infected, also states that Dune (the chief engineer who the Wirrn queen lay her eggs in during the first scene of episode one) is here and present. This harks back to The Quatermass Experiment – where the surviving astronaut Caroon can speak German, because he has also absorbed his colleague Reichenheim’s knowledge – more of which later. Even the scene of Noah looking at his infected hand at the end of episode two mimics a similar scene where Caroon looks at his mutated hand. Quatermass is again invoked in the scene where the Doctor later links his mind to the cerebral cortex of the Wirrn queen and sees her journey to the Ark and Dune’s body – this time it is Quatermass and the Pit and Roney’s machine showing us the cleansing of the Martian Hive.
As for the body horror itself – the scenes of the metamorphosis of Noah into a Wirrn are some of the most horrific in the programmes history – certainly in terms of the concepts, writing and performance, if not necessarily a modern view of the execution of the effect of transformation. The show ventures into the body horror of the transformation – necessarily pulling its punches, despite Kenton Moore’s excellent performance – this is a TV show broadcast early evening (it was shown around 5:30!) and primarily aimed at children. We do see enough to realise the horror of the transformation and it’s impact on Noah – a character we don’t even like – the script and performance give us everything we need. There were also cuts instituted by Hinchcliffe and his head of department, notably Noah begging Vira to kill him. Although these sound really important, we don’t actually miss them – but read them here and imagine how the scene was played – I honestly think it could have been one of the great scenes in the shows history.
NOAH: Keep back! Don’t touch me!
VIRA: Noah.
NOAH: Keep back, I said!
DOCTOR: Noah, tell us one thing. How much time do we have?
NOAH: Time?
DOCTOR: Before the Wirrn reach their adult form?
NOAH: It feels near, very near. The tearing free and then the great blackness rushing through.
<< excised scene
NOAH:..Wirrn, Wirrn.. burning fire life ectasy!
He rolls against the shutter, panting for breath, his voice cracked.
NOAH: Oh Vira.. oh Vira!
She stares at him
VIRA: Are you in pain?
NOAH: Pain? I’m in torment! These creatures!
He throws the blaster at the Doctor’s feet
NOAH: Vira. Shoot me!
NOAH: Kill me! Please!
NOAH: For pity’s sake, kill me!
Noah is a convulsed, shuddering bundle.
The Doctor’s jaw tightens.
Vira passes a hand over the locking cell.
The shutter slides back in place.
A muted moan of despair from Noah .
Then silence…
VIRA: I’m sorry.
DOCTOR: I couldn’t have done it anyway
Doctor picks up gun.
VIRA:I showed weakness. But there is something that you should know. Noah and I ..
Her eyes close for a moment, her only concession to emotion.
>>
VIRA: Noah and I were pair-bonded for the new life.
Strong stuff, the end of the scene – which we do have, is beautifully played by Wendy Williams -cracking and showing emotion at last. What is interesting is that this scene was referred by Hinchcliffe to his head of department and yet similar scenes under later production teams made it through I’m thinking of Stengos begging his daughter Natasha to kill him in Revelation of the Daleks or even Stael’s suicide in Image of the Fendahl.
Do I have the right?
Homo sapiens. What an inventive, invincible species. It’s only a few million years since they’ve crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenceless bipeds. They’ve survived flood, famine and plague. They’ve survived cosmic wars and holocausts, and now here they are amongst the stars, waiting to begin a new life, ready to outsit eternity. They’re indomitable. Indomitable!
So here is a question – what right does the Doctor have to interfere with the natural life cycle of an intelligent alien species – are only humans allowed to be indomitable? Take this scene:
WIRRN: Stay, Vira. Stay. Abandon the Ark, Vira. Take the transport ship. Leave now. If you stay, you are doomed.
VIRA: That would be desertion.
WIRRN: Then you must die, all of you. When the Wirrn emerge, you will be hunted down and destroyed, as you destroyed us.
SARAH: We’ve never destroyed. What does he mean?
WIRRN: Long ago, long ago humans came to the old lands. For a thousand years the Wirrn fought them, but you humans destroyed the breeding colonies. The Wirrn were driven from Andromeda.
VIRA: Andromeda? So our star pioneers succeeded?
WIRRN: Since then we have drifted through space, searching for a new habitat. The Ark is ours. It must be ours.
DOCTOR: But the Wirrn live in space. You don’t need the Ark.
WIRRN: You know nothing. We live in space, but our breeding colonies are terrestrial.
DOCTOR: But you could leave the Ark and go on. There’s plenty of room in the galaxy for us all.
WIRRN: In the old lands, senseless herbivores, cattle, were the hosts for our hatchlings. Now we shall use the humans in the cryogenic chamber. We shall be informed with all human knowledge. In one generation, the Wirrn will become an advanced technological species. We shall have power!
VIRA: That proposition is genetically impossible.
WIRRN: I already have all Dune’s knowledge. High energy physics, quantum mechanics. Every ramate in the next hatching of Wirrn will possess the sum of your race’s learning. That is why you must die.
DOCTOR: Time to leave.
WIRRN: Leave the Ark, Vira, or die with the rest of your race.
The Wirrn have been persecuted by humans who have invaded their galaxy and destroyed their existing colony worlds. In return they need hosts to lay their eggs in and human knowledge as a catalyst for the survival of their own species. That seems fair enough doesn’t it? The lifecycle of the Wirrn might seem alien to us, but the Doctor is supposed to have a broader universal perspective and after listening to the rather cold Vira and distinctly unlikeable Noah in episode two – I’d be inclined to let them tuck in. Maybe the Wirrn should be subject to conservation measures, rather persecution and maybe the Doctor is half-human after all? Also, how beautiful is that scene ? Holmes as ever tells us so much about the world of the Wirrn so effortlessly and artfully, that it never feels like info-dumping – just good storytelling. He also makes us think from the Wirrn’s perspective and even evokes some sympathy for a parasite species whose life-cycle instinctively appals us – very clever.
Better together?
Some things are meant to go together – Laurel and Hardy, Morecambe and Wise or Hinchcliffe and Holmes. Hinchcliffe is a galvanizing force here – he may have been guilty of manipulating Bob Holmes into doing a huge amount of extra work beyond that of a standard script editor (he did get extra fees for him), but the results speak for themselves. I’m not sure if Bob could have carried on with that work-load beyond season 14, but we have some terrific stories as a result of it – particularly the likes of ‘Ark in Space’, ‘Pyramids of Mars’ and ‘Talons of Weng Chiang’ – where Bob had to write scripts very quickly to replace stories that had failed to successfully deliver.
Baker, Sladen and Marter aren’t a bad combination either! I will talk about Ian Marter in another post – but I absolutely adore him as Harry and he gets some great stuff in this script. Tom is nothing less than magnificent here – unblinking, wide-eyed, mercurial – gravitas and lunacy all rolled into one. At this stage he is still an actor, rather than Tom Baker professional eccentric and is all the better for it. Lis Sladen, again I will talk about her more fully elsewhere, but she has never been bettered for me and she is terrific again – somewhere in between the headstrong feminist of season 11 and the Doctor’s best friend of season 13. This review is focussed elsewhere, but I promise I will return to all three of these actors another time.
We need to talk about bubble wrap
Let’s talk about loss of context. In 1975, I had never seen bubble wrap, green or otherwise. When I did a few years later, it was an amazing thing – a modern miracle and us kids spent many happy hours popping it. I still think that it just about looks OK here – in an archive TV context, particularly as the larvae trapped in the solar stack. So, guess what, technology moves on. Besides bubble-wrap – sliding doors, moving walkways and personal communication devices were also things of the far future in 1975 – take a look at Rose’s phone from 2005 to see how quickly things change. Here, the white set and lighting (earlier on before the power is cut) don’t help, but it does provide a really nice contrast between the sterile, technological setting of the Ark and the ‘infection’ of the Wirrn, so thematically it works, but the lighting should probably have been reduced earlier. The grub is a harder sell, but we’ve seen a lot worse in the series before and since. It might not be Alien, but it is OK and overall John Friedlander does a decent enough job on the adult Wirrn and the other effects. Given what he had already given the series and that he was about to give us Davros – I am happy to cut him some slack.
‘Awaiting the trumpet blast…’
Although the setting of a space station or a giant space ark harks back to the 60’s stories – The Ark, The Wheel in Space etc. Ark in Space felt shockingly new at the time and it is all done with so much conviction from cast through to design. It feels like a melding of the high concept 1960’s ideas of someone like John Wiles, but seen through the prism of the real world 70’s cynicism of Robert Holmes. Episode One in particular feels like a superior version of the regular cast exploring their new world from The Sensorites, Wheel in Space or The Space Pirates. It is far superior to all of these, mainly because it is written by Robert Holmes (OK Space Pirates) and largely set in the Cryogenic chamber and curved transom set designed by Roger Murray-Leach. It also somehow feels like the show taking its first steps into the wider universe, despite the fact that the Pertwee era had been doing that since 1971. Rodney Bennett’s direction also helps – for example the crane shot as Tom gives his ‘homo sapiens’ speech gives the whole thing gravitas.
‘More than a vestige of human spirit’
So to the ending. It is the sort of ending that I absolutely love. I loved it the first time around too – when Nigel Kneale wrote it in the Quatermass Experiment! When that decent, principled, moral scientist Bernard Quatermass appeals to the remnants of his friends – Green, Reichenheim and Caroon, still within the creature in the abbey and asks for their help to save the human race. Here the Doctor takes that role, appealing to Noah to save the human race.
DOCTOR: Noah, listen to me. If there’s any part of you that’s still human, if you’ve any memory of the man you once were, leave the Ark. Lead the swarm into space.
DOCTOR: That’s where the Wirrn belong, Noah. Not on Earth, not where you were born. Remember the wind and the sun, the fields, the blue sky? That’s Earth, Noah. It’s for the human race. Don’t abandon it.
WIRRN: I have no memory of the Earth.
That clearly isn’t true, as we later get:
VIRA: Space Station Nerva.
WIRRN: Goodbye, Vira.
Out-sitting eternity…
By the time the solar flares hit the Earth, I’m not sure how much of today’s flora and fauna will have survived to make it into the Ark’s animal and Botanic section – if I had to guess, sadly not much given the current extinction crisis. Balaenoptera musculus did well to survive the 20th century never mind make until Vira’s time. However, I hope somewhere amongst the collection, in a room adjacent to the cryogenic chamber, frozen in stasis, still spiting Darwin with their existence, is the Ichneumon Wasp section. Where new solitary parasitic wasps are awaiting a new life and new hosts – ready to out sit eternity – they are indomitable, indomitable!
A Journal of Impossible Things 