History Recap / DoctorWhoS12E2TheArkInSpace

'''Production code:''' 4B\\

'''Production code:''' 4B

Written by Creator/RobertHolmes. This four-episode serial first aired from January 25 to February 15, 1975.

->''Homo sapiens. What an inventive, invincible species. It's only a few million years since they 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, out among the stars, waiting to begin a new life. Ready to outsit eternity. They're indomitable. Indomitable.''

The one with killer bubble wrap.[[note]]Well, not in-universe. [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E7Kerblam At least not this time.]][[/note]]

* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Apart from Sarah, Vira is the only female character in the story.

* ChromosomeCasting: Apart from Sarah, Vira is the only female character in the story.

* BigCreepyCrawlies: The Wirrn.
* BodyHorror: It's not the gigantic bugs; those look silly. It's what seems to be a man in a sleeping bag covered in green goo, and before that, the person ''turning'' into said bag of slop by melting bodyparts is worse than the alien creature it turns into. The story also has one of the show’s most famous cliffhangers, with Noah slowly removing his hand from his pocket to reveal he's being taken over by... green bubblewrap?

* DecontaminationChamber

* PeopleInRubberSuits: The larva was actually made out of green bubble wrap - but considering that bubble wrap had only just been invented (to the point where it wasn't even called 'bubble wrap' yet), the overall effect worked, if only for about five years after the serial's premiere. Supposedly the bubbles went 'pop-pop-pop' as the extras inched their way across stage reducing cast and crew to hysterics and the sound department to tears. Most of the scenes with the larva are recorded silently with incidental music over the top - if there's dialogue in the scene, a layer of smooth plastic is placed underneath the larva to reduce the likelihood of the bubbles bursting.

* ShoutOutToShakespeare: The Doctor paraphrases ''Theatre/HenryIV'' -- "Discretion being the greater part of valour".

* TheVirus: The Wirrn can work a lot like this.

* SpecialEditionTitle: The title sequence for part one features a prominent greenish-brown tint instead of the usual blue, matching the Wirrin's color scheme. According to ''Doctor Who: The Legend Continues'', the production team originally intended to do this kind of thing for the whole season, theming the title sequence after the MonsterOfTheWeek, but their dissatisfaction with the results here led to the idea being dropped after one episode.

* PupatingPeril: Having already demonstrated a breeding process replete with BodyHorror and bubble wrap, it's revealed that the Wirrn larvae resulting from this conversion process will eventually pupate into even more dangerous adults. Worse still, this also marks the point when they cease to require oxygen - leaving the Doctor and the others in serious danger when the Wirrn switch off life support.
* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: The Doctor gives one to Sarah Jane calculated to hit all of her {{Berserk Button}}s, in order to turn her [[ScreamingWoman screaming]] into screams of UnstoppableRage. (This was the Fourth Doctor's second story and so it serves as something of an EstablishingCharacterMoment for him - it is impossible to imagine the Third Doctor being this manipulative.)

* ShoutOutToShakespeare: The Doctor paraphrases ''Theatre/HenryIV'' - "Discretion being the greater part of valour".

Written by Creator/RobertHolmes. This serial first aired January 25-February 15, 1975.

* BottleEpisode: The first episode features just the Doctor, Sarah, Harry and no other characters save for some cryogenically frozen extras. This was because the set had been extremely expensive to construct. The set [[RecycledSet reappears]], with some light modifications, later on in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E5RevengeOfTheCybermen "Revenge of the Cybermen"]].

* DarkerAndEdgier: From the opening shot of the TARDIS materializing into the eerie gloom of a Nerva corridor, Creator/PhilipHinchcliffe and Creator/RobertHolmes immediately make their mark on the show, immediately forsaking the ensemble-cast cosiness, [[Series/TheAvengers Avengers]]-style action, brightly-lit sets and oft-moralistic tone of the preceding [[Creator/BarryLetts Letts era]] for ominous, claustrophobic environments (aided by more stylized set designs provided by Hinchcliffe-era stalwart Roger Murray-Leach), viscerally-depicted {{body horror}} and possession (inclusive of, in Noah's case, a brutal glimpse into the human consequences of such a fate) and a much more ruthless and enigmatically 'alien' Doctor, with both the relatively steadfast heroism of [[Creator/JonPertwee Jon Pertwee's]] portrayal and the more clownish and energetic figure of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E1Robot Tom Baker's debut performance]] shed in favour of an eccentric-yet-brooding and Byronic figure prone to expressing ostensibly-detached emotional responses to horrific ordeals, down to, in the final part, manipulating his companions to further his aims.

* DarkerAndEdgier: From the opening shot of the TARDIS materializing into the eerie gloom of a Nerva corridor, Creator/PhilipHinchcliffe and Creator/RobertHolmes immediately make their mark on the show, immediately forsaking the ensemble-cast cosiness, [[Series/TheAvengers Avengers]]-style action, brightly-lit sets and oft-moralistic tone of the preceding [[Creator/BarryLetts Letts era]] for ominous, claustrophobic environments (aided by more stylized set designs provided by Hinchcliffe-era stalwart Roger Murray-Leach), viscerally-depicted {{body horror}} and possession (inclusive of, in Noah's case, a brutal glimpse into the human consequences of such a fate) and a much more ruthless and enigmatically 'alien' Doctor, with both the relatively steadfast heroism of [[Creator/JonPertwee Jon Pertwee's]] portrayal and the more clownish and energetic figure of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E1Robot Tom Baker's debut performance]] shed in favour of an eccentric-yet-brooding and Byronic figure prone to expressing ostensibly-detached emotional responses to horrific ordeals, down to, in the final part, manipulating his companions to further his aims in defeating his imposing adversaries.

* DarkerAndEdgier: From the opening shot of the TARDIS materializing into the eerie gloom of a Nerva corridor, Creator/PhilipHinchcliffe and Creator/RobertHolmes immediately make their mark on the show, immediately forsaking the ensemble-cast cosiness, [[Series/TheAvengers ''Avengers'']]-style action, brightly-lit sets and oft-moralistic tone of the preceding [[Creator/BarryLetts Letts era]] for ominous, claustrophobic environments (aided by more stylized set designs provided by Hinchcliffe-era stalwart Roger Murray-Leach), viscerally-depicted {{body horror}} and possession (inclusive of, in Noah's case, a brutal glimpse into the human consequences of such a fate) and a much more ruthless and enigmatically 'alien' Doctor, with both the relatively steadfast heroism of [[Creator/JonPertwee Jon Pertwee's]] portrayal and the more clownish and energetic figure of [[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E1Robot Tom Baker's debut performance]] shed in favour of an eccentric-yet-brooding and Byronic figure prone to expressing ostensibly-detached emotional responses to horrific ordeals, down to, in the final part, manipulating his companions to further his aims in defeating his imposing adversaries.

* DarkerAndEdgier: Creator/PhilipHinchcliffe and Creator/RobertHolmes immediately make their mark on the show with a story involving {{body horror}}, posession and much more ruthless Doctor than before.

* BodyHorror: Noah's transformation.

* MoreExpendableThanYou: Rogin to the Doctor.

* PatrickStewartSpeech: See the page quote.

* LightningGun: The automatic defense system has one.