My friend Michael Montoure, who is very possibly the biggest Doctor Who fan I know, recently said to me that "...Holmes/Hinchcliffe Who is the best Who." He's not wrong, and with this morning's workout I finally hit that incredible alchemy. Although the first story of the season (and Tom Baker's first story as the Doctor) had Robert Holmes as the new script editor taking over from Terrence Dicks, it was still produced by Barry Letts. He had produced the vast majority of the Third Doctor era, and he very much defined the look and feel of Pertwee's Doctor. With The Ark in Space production duties were taken over by Philip Hinchcliffe, and the thematic change is palpable.

Let's talk about that.

The Ark in Space - Parts 1 & 2

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

Right off the bat Holmes and Hinchcliffe take the Doctor and his companions away from contemporary Earth and put them into a science-fictional horror setting. The story is set after the great human Diaspora, previously glimpsed in the First Doctor era story The Ark (the naming echo is not coincidental). The location is a seemingly-empty space station that eventually turns out to be the home of hundreds of humans who have been placed in cryogenic sleep in order to survive past the great disaster that befell the home world. The plan was for them to sleep for five thousand years and then be revived to carry on the human race. Unfortunately, as the Doctor and his companions Sarah Jane and Harry discover, something went wrong. Something sentient tampered with the equipment, and mankind has been sleeping for several thousand years longer than intended. Also, that something is still creeping around the station.

Over the course of the first two parts, progressively more humans are awoken from their sleep. It is a lovely way to have an eerie and claustrophobic setting, and yet still plausibly bring in additional characters as needed for exposition and conflict. The invader (invaders?) is a giant insectoid creature whose dead husk is found hidden in a broom closet. But before she died, she laid eggs inside a convenient human on ice. Clearly that human was completely consumed by the hatching offspring, and there is some kind of larval slug-like version of the creature sliming around the station. The horrifying cliffhanger for part two has the human leader shown to be infected by the creature, with his left arm having been turned into a writhing green tentacle.

Absolutely everything about this story so far is perfect. It is creepy, funny, thrilling, suspenseful... It is five weeks in for Tom Baker, just embarking on his second story as the Doctor, and he has firmly settled into the role. I love this story so much, and it is only the very beginning of Baker's reign as the Doctor. The next three months of treadmilling are going to be awesome.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Fourth
Companion(s): Sarah Jane Smith, Harry Sullivan
Episode(s): The Ark in Space - Parts 1 & 2
Steps Walked: 7,231 today, 1,323,197 total
Distance Walked: 3.76 miles today, 654.76 miles total
Weight: 260.76 lbs (five day moving average), net change -46.54 lbs