“It sounds like savages.” 

C’est un épisode qui me dégoûte. 

Même avec une production aussi soignée, c’est le visage le plus hideux qu’a jamais offert Doctor Who, et la première grosse atrocité de la série. 

Ceci dit c’est moins parce que l’épisode est catastrophique que pour tout ce qu’il représente.  

C’est déjà un épisode qui fait de sa compagne une idiote qu’il méprise activement. Mais surtout c’est un épisode qui choisit son camp. Des peuples entiers se libèrent de la mort et de l’exploitation. Mais Doctor Who les traite tous d’abrutis.

“You must travel with understanding, as well as hope.”

A great concept for a story, with the four parter being split equally over two different time periods on the same shop, seeing how the Doctor and his presence can affect people. It’s just a shame that the execution and writing is very dull.

The villains aren’t very interesting, and neither are any of the human characters. The Monoids design is unique and fun, but doesn’t make them very threatening in the slightest. The human characters are irritating at best, boring and lifeless at worst.

Even our three leads feel rather distant here. Hartnell is on autopilot, Purves doesn’t get to do anything, and our new addition Jackie Lane isn’t really explored particularly well, other than having her look fairly stupid and annoying in her scenes.

Theres some decent set designs, but it doesn’t help a boringly written and frightfully dull story.

The Ark: 8.9/10 - The Ark was a very good story that really felt at home within the confines of Doctor Who. The first half with the plague was a nice story that felt similar to other stories like the Sensorites, but had fun with itself at the same time. The second half with the Monoid uprising was really cool and the hijinks with the bomb and the Refusions were interesting entities. Dodo as a companion was good in this story but didn’t have the same presence as similar companions like Vicki or Sara. All in all however, she was a good character and I liked her dynamic with both Steven and the Doctor

The pacing of the four episodes is perfect, there are a lot of ideas being played out here.

The Monoids also make their mark as the second ever genuinely interesting looking alien race in the show, it took over 100 episodes - but they did it!! I'm surprised these guys never came back in a serious way as their design is magnificent.

The eco-system on a spaceship its refreshingly sci-fi after the previous story. The Dystopian future in which the Earth is about to be burned up, and on top of this an 'ancient' illness will kill the remaining humans is such a daring and forward thinking concept, bringing to mind white plagues brought to indeginous populations. It is up to The Doctor to sort out a mess that he has brought to this culture.

The resolution to the cliffhanger in part 3 is a revelation. Everything seems to rap itself up, they resolve the situation then find themselves 700 years in the future in the same place. There is a giant statue of a Monoid instead of what should have been a human. Brilliant! The Monoids are scarier and more malevolent 700 years in the future and they have taken power.

After Steven's moral outrage at the end of the last story it would have been positive if they'd returned to that issue, as he has gone from "storming out forever" to never mentioning it again.

The alien force end up being their own undoing, turning on each other. Thankfully there is a moral cautionary ending, where the humans are made to understand that they too enslaved the alien race, giving motivation to the monoids to act in the way that they did.

It ends with another great cliffhanger with The Doctor suddenly fading - what's going on - who is attacking them?

I quite enjoy this classic story. It has some interesting ideas for its space ark and these themes are explored decently with some interesting moral ambiguity to all of it. Dodo, a relatively weaker companion by the show's standards, does shine a bit here, and Steven has some fun stuff to do. The Doctor doesn't have as much to do here but Hartnell is always entertaining.

This is an easy one to get through and most of all, it looks great. I think the design of the Monoids is fun, and the set itself really feels like this artificial environment on a spaceship given the limited effects of the era. I got a good sense of all these moving parts and how it comes together nicely from the experience, even if it kind of feels like they used up all the money near the end of the storyline and that even bled into the Celestial Toymaker's budget, apparently.