Blu-ray Review – Doctor Who, The Collection: Season 12 box set, Part 3: The Ark in Space

Tom Baker’s first season as the Doctor in Doctor Who has been released as a Blu-ray box set. Season 12 comprises 5 stories made up of 20 episodes. Rather than trying to review the whole thing all at once, I’m dividing things up over a number of reviews. In this review, I’m looking at the second story, “The Ark in Space”.

Leaving UNIT behind after his first story, the fourth Doctor takes reporter Sarah Jane Smith and naval doctor Harry Sullivan off into space. They arrive in the far-flung future on the Nerva space station, which is holding the last remnants of the human race after a planet-wide disaster. Everyone is in suspended animation, waiting for the Earth to become habitable again. Except something has gone wrong. Power cables have been chewed through, resulting in the inhabitants having slept in. And the creature that chewed the cables, a Wirrn, has also laid its eggs inside one of the sleeping humans. With the hatching of the eggs comes a threat to the future of the human race… unless, of course, the Doctor can intervene.

I have previously reviewed this story when the DVD special edition was released in 2013. You can read it here.

In re-watching it, my opinion remains unchanged — it is a top-notch story. Something that I didn’t mention in the pervious review but which really struck me this time… is how the Wirrn have only become a threat to the human race because of the way the human race has treated then in the past. Intergalactic karma at work.

The extras are pretty much the same as on the previous release, expect for the addition of the “Behind the Sofa” featurette. As with this extra on “Robot”, it’s too slow to be really interesting.

All up, it was lovely to watch “The Ark in Space” in this Blu-ray edition. It looks and sounds so good.

You can also read my previous reviews in this series…

• Doctor Who, The Collection: Season 12, Part 1: Overview
• Doctor Who, The Collection: Season 12, Part 2: Robot

Doctor Who, The Collection: Season 12 is released on Blu-ray in Australia by Roadshow Entertainment.

Catch ya later, George