Production Code: X
First Transmitted
The Steel Sky - 05/03/1966 17:15
The Plague - 12/03/1966 17:15
The Return - 19/03/1966 17:15
The Bomb - 26/03/1966 17:15
Plot
The TARDIS arrives some ten million years in the future on a giant spaceship carrying all the Earth's surviving plant, animal and human life (much of it miniaturised and in suspended animation) on a 700 year voyage to a new home on the planet Refusis II. Dodo is suffering from a cold - an unknown affliction in this era - and as the human Guardians of the ship and their servant race the Monoids have no resistance, a plague breaks out.
The Guardians place the travellers on trial and Steven is forced to defend them against allegations that they spread the disease deliberately. Fortunately, the Doctor finds a cure. The TARDIS leaves the spaceship, which Dodo has nicknamed the Ark, only to arrive back there as it is approaching the end of its voyage. Partly as a result of the earlier plague, the Monoids have now grown strong and enslaved the humans.
They plan to make Refusis II their own but, with the help of the invisible Refusians, the Doctor is able to persuade the two races to live together in peace.
Episode Endings
With the Commander suffering from the same fever that has killed a Monoid, Zentos demands that the strangers be made to suffer for the crime that they have committed. If the Guardians die now, it will have been pointless them leaving the Earth in the first place. On the Ark's scanner screen, the Earth is seen moving toward its final destruction...
Having arrived back on the Ark, the travellers head for the control room. On the way, Dodo notices that the statue that they earlier saw under construction has now been completed - but it has the head not of a human but of a Monoid.
Dodo is horrified that the Ark's launcher has exploded, stranding her and the Doctor on Refusis II. The Doctor states that the two of them will have to wait until another party arrives; and if no one comes, they will just have to stay on the planet.
The TARDIS is arriving at a new destination. Suddenly the Doctor vanishes from sight. Dodo suggests that this might have something to do with the Refusians, but the invisible Doctor tells his companions that it is some form of attack!
Roots
The First Men in the Moon.
The War of the Worlds.
The Lord of the Rings (a statue with a one-eyed replacement head).
Genesis.
Dialogue Triumphs
Steven : "If your medical records are anything to go by, this segment of time, far from being one of the most advanced in knowledge, is one of the worst."
Zentos : "We can cope with all things known to the fifty-seventh segment of time, but not with strange diseases brought by you as agents of the intelligences that inhabit Refusis."
Steven : "You're still on about that? I told you before, we know nothing of that planet."
Zentos : "My instinct, every fibre of my being, tells me differently."
Steven : "That, unfortunately, tells me only one thing."
Zentos : "What is that?"
Steven : "That the nature of man, even in this day and age, hasn't altered at all. You still fear the unknown like everyone else before you."
Dialogue Disasters
Monoid one : "Take them to the security kitchen!"
Continuity
Dodo once went to Whipsnade Zoo on a school trip. The Doctor says that he couldn't take Dodo home even if he wanted to. Dodo has been rooting through the TARDIS wardrobes, finding a pageboy outfit (not Vicki's from The Crusade), and is criticised by the Doctor for her use of contemporary slang ('Fab!'). [The TARDIS, picking up on the Doctor's reservations, choses to follow the Ark to Refusis 2, showing that, even if the Doctor can't pilot it, it can navigate itself. See The Three Doctors.]
The statue is made of gregarian rock, and was supposed to last forever.
The origins of the Monoids are 'obscure': they came to Earth after the destruction of their own planet. The (previously mute) Monoids eventually benefited from human research that enabled them to talk, and provided them with their 'heat prod' weapons. The peaceful Refusians, thanks to solar flares, now have no physical existence.
QV
Location
A spacecraft and the planet Refusis 2. The Doctor speculates that they are some 10 million years in the future.
Future History
Future History: Far into the future (the 57th segment of time), the Earth is destroyed by the sun going nova. Mankind and the Monoids undertake a 700 year journey to resettle on Refusis 2 (see Frontios).
The common cold was cured in the twentieth century, the vaccine being derived from animal membranes. As a result of this neither humans (including Steven) nor Monoids have any resistance to it. Knowledge of the virus was lost in the Primal Wars of the tenth segment. Unsuccessful time travel experiments were undertaken in the 27th segment of time.
The ship contains the last members of the human race, watched over by a small number of Guardians and their Monoid helpers. The majority of the human race and all other Terran life, plus the Monoids exist in miniaturised form. 'Audio space research' [radio telescopy] has provided much information about the planet, which is known to be inhabited. It is, however, almost identical to Earth in terms of climatic and other conditions. Dodo calls the ship The Ark, although the Commander is ignorant of the name (despite having heard of the Trojan war). The name sticks. The rules under which the Ark operates are referred to as Galactic Law.
Links
Nero (The Romans), the Trojan wars (The Myth Makers) and the Daleks are mentioned by the Doctor.
The Commander has heard of them all, and places them in the first segment of time.
Trivia
The Monoids, who have no visible mouths, are seen (apparently) eating through holes in their necks.
There are occasional lapses by Jackie Lane into the Cockney accent in which she rehearsed the story, before the production team were instructed by their superiors that it was unacceptable for a regular character in Doctor Who to speak in anything other than 'BBC English'
There is a wonderfully dramatic moment at the end of The Plague when the completed statue with its Monoid head is revealed for the first time.
There are sequences set in the Ark's kitchen in the third and fourth episodes where small pills are seen to be transformed into recognisable food items - such as vegetables and fruit - when dropped into bowls of water.
Goofs
The Doctor's advice to keep feverish patients warm is not to be recommended.
At the start of episode two there is an audible cue.
Fashion Victim
The mop-top Monoids.
Cast & Crew
Cast
The Doctor - William Hartnell
Dodo - Jackie Lane
Steven Taylor - Peter Purves
1st Guardian - Stephanie Heesom
1st Monoid and Monoid One - Edmund Coulter
2nd Guardian - Paul Greenhalgh
2nd Monoid and Monoid Three - Frank George
Baccu - Ian Frost
Commander - Eric Elliott
Dassuk - Brian Wright
Maharis - Terence Woodfield
Manyak - Roy Spencer
Mellium - Kate Newman
Monoid Four - John Caesar
Monoid Two - Ralph Carrigan
Monoid Voices - Roy Skelton
Monoid Voices - John Halstead
Refusian Voice - Richard Beale
Rhos - Michael Sheard
Venussa - Eileen Helsby
Yendom - Terence Bayler
Zentos - Inigo Jackson
Crew
Director - Michael Imison
The Ark