A space station orbiting Earth has lain dormant for 8,476 years. Its systems are clogged with dust, so the human crew kept frozen in cryogenic storage have never woken up.
When the Doctor, Sarah and Harry arrive to resuscitate the sleepers, they discover something else on board. A small, golf-ball like object gives Harry an electric shock, and has a more sinister impact on the awakening crew. Soon, the Doctor and his friends are battling to save the space station - and Earth - from a ravenous puffball!
Recorded on: 21 and 30 June, and 9 August 2021
Recorded at: Remote recording
Producer Simon Guerrier said: "For Doctor Who: The Ark, we've worked from the original scripts written by John Lucarotti, which are very different from what ended up on TV. The script editor at the time, Robert Holmes, effectively rewrote it from scratch. But there's a ghost of the original in what made it to TV. Plus, Doctor Who: The Ark includes one of the best cliff-hangers ever!”
Adapter Jonathan Morris added: “This is the chance to hear a Doctor Who story from the writer of [the TV stories] Marco Polo, The Aztecs, and The Massacre. It’s a story that was presumed to be completely lost and it paved the way for one of the all-time classics, The Ark in Space. It has the same basic setting, and a couple of similar set-pieces, but it’s otherwise a very, very different story. Even if you think you know what it’s about from summaries given in behind-the-scenes guides you don’t know it at all. It is a strange and wild ride along a road not taken.”
Christopher Naylor, Tom Baker, Sadie Miller (c) Big Finish
