Doctor Who: 8 Tom Baker Stories To Celebrate In January

8. The Ark In Space (1975)

It€™s probably for the best that Robot doesn€™t make this list. Apart from Baker€™s immediate presence on the screen, the story itself is somewhat mediocre, a last gasp of UNIT€™s greatness. Then The Ark In Space comes along and all the rules change. Seriously - watch the last episode of Robot and then immediately follow it with the first episode of Ark (which aired on 25th January, for those of you keeping score at home) and it's as if the series itself had regenerated, not just the lead character. New producer Philip Hinchcliffe and writer/script editor Robert Holmes immediately begin to pull the series away from its previous Earthbound, almost homey approach by throwing us onto a seemingly deserted space station and nearly killing all three leads within the first 25 minutes. The very fact that only those three leads (and a soon-to-be-dead sleeper) are the only human faces featured during that first episode is itself revolutionary. Once everyone starts waking up, the real action begins. This is usually when the point out it would be pointed out that these older stories are paced very differently to modern ones - but Ark has none of that. The story unfolds relentlessly -terrifying at each and every step - and no amount of green painted bubble wrap can take anything away from it. And then there€™s the wonderful €œTo outsit eternity€ speech that Baker gives in episode two. It€™s no wonder that not only Baker but also Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat consider this their favourite Classic Series episode which is no mean feat when you consider the fact it's not like they haven't got a limited amount to choose from.