388 The Ark in Space Part Three

EPISODE: The Ark in Space Part Three
OVERALL EPISODE NUMBER: 388
STORY NUMBER: 076
TRANSMITTED: 08 February 1975
WRITER: Robert Holmes
DIRECTOR: Rodney Bennett
SCRIPT EDITOR: Robert Holmes
PRODUCER: Philip Hinchcliffe
FORMAT: DVD: Doctor Who - The Ark In Space

The voice of the chief Earth Minister echoes on a recording played through the space station. Noah, struggling against the alien form taking him over, orders everyone revived and taken to Earth before the Wirrn take over and places Vira in command. Harry sets to work reviving more of the remaining humans. Vira & the Doctor seek Noah and encounter him with his arm and much of his head changed. They dissect the Wirrn body they have removing it's brain and connecting it to a monitor which shows it approaching the station and then electrocuting itself. The Larvae emerges from hiding and kills technician Lycett but is driven back using fusion guns. They use the station's transmat to escape to the control centre of the station but after Rogin & Harry travel a power drain occurs and the oxygen pumps are stopped. The Doctor goes to the solar stack to reactivate the power where he finds an open cocoon and is approached by the Wirrn that Noah has become.....

Now we're into classic "base under siege" territory as the Doctor and the small group of humans are trapped and picked off one by one. We've not done this for AGES, possibly as far back as The Seeds of Death. The only thing that's spoiling it for me is that the Wirrn Larvae are so obviously bubble wrap!

The only one of the humans in this story to have appeared before or since in Doctor Who is Rogin played by Richardson Morgan who was Corporal Blake in The Web of Fear. However the two Wirrn operators have been in many thing: Stuart Fell was in both The Curse of Peladon & The Monster of Peladon as Alpha Centauri, the Planet of the Spiders as a tramp, The Android Invasion as a Kraal, The Brain of Morbius as the Morbius Monster, The Masque of Mandragora as an entertainer, The Invasion of Time as a Sontaran and State of Decay as Roga. Nick Hobbs meanwhile was also in both Peladon stories, as Aggedor and was recently Mr Nainby in new series episode Amy's Choice.