3. Russell T Davies Loves It... As Does Steven Moffat
Whichever side of the Davies/Moffat new series divide youre on, theres a reason to watch this. Russell T Davies has gone on record as saying this is his favourite serial from the classic series and Steven Moffat has previously said this it is his favourite Fourth Doctor story of all time. Moffat also wrote the enthusiastic foreword to the recent re-release of the novel. If you want an insight into what your favourite - or least favourite, as the case may be - writer gets out of Doctor Who, The Ark in Space is a good place to start. Ark has a clear influence of some of each writers stories, too. Davies often looks at themes involving the end of humanity and how it continues to survive, prominently in episodes like The End of the World and Utopia. In fact, the Tenth Doctors speech in Utopia where he enthuses about the human races capacity for survival and calls us indomitable is a direct reference to the Fourth Doctors speech in the first episode of this, even using some of the same wording. Davies also tends to use a lot of aliens influenced by the animal world which could be another link to this story as the design for the adult Wirrn is reminiscent of the praying mantis and other bugs. This is only speculation, of course, but it could have had an effect on where Davies looked to find ideas for monsters. Moffat, meanwhile, uses a similar scenario to Ark in Space in The Beast Below with humanity using spaceships to escape disasters on Earth. The larger influence on Moffats work would be his love of creepy monsters that play on primal fears and a love of tense scenes to let this fear play out - the Wirrn play on fear of insects and then some. Theres a very similar feel to Ark in Space in the most recent episode, Last Christmas, but then that could also be down to them both sharing similarities with Alien. Given how good Alien is, thats not really a mark down for either. However, if the revived series isnt really your thing, the opinion of the head writers might not sway you. In this case, its worth mentioning that Tom Baker himself has gone on record to say that this was his favourite story he ever worked on, so if youre only into classic Who theres still reason to check it out (or re-watch it).
