There are alot of episodes of Doctor Who currently up on BBC IPlayer with the service holding around eight hundred hours of classic Doctor Who. However sadly that does mean that we get alot of missing episodes and alot of the classic seasons being incomplete usually this doesn't really effect the show as the show could just animated them using what little material survived however that isn't the case for the episode that proceeded this one as it was the previous episode that introduced a new companion with this episode being the closest earliest episode to feature the character of Dodo and so then join me as I review the episode that sees The Doctor and his companions battle with the common cold with the episode in question being called simply just "The Ark" enjoy.
The plot of the episode when The Doctor's newest companion Dodo accidentally passes on her cold to a group of humans living on a space ship it's up to The Doctor to cure them and stop something sinister from happening all before it's far to late. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad altho at the same the episode does feel like it's got two separate plots as the first two episodes of the show have the plot described above and the final two episodes have a completely different plot that's only very barely tied to the plot of the first two episodes with the plot of the episode as a whole being really rather entertaining and as well as being really rather engaging in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this episode is William Hartnell as The Doctor , Peter Purves as Steven Taylor and Jackie Lane as Dodo Chaplet. Also starring in this episode is Eric Elliott as The Commander , Inigo Jackson as Zentos , Roy Spencer as Manyak , Michael Sheard as Rhos , Kate Newman as Mellium , Ian Frost as Baccu , Brian Wright as Dassuk , Eileen Helsby as Venussa , Terence Bayler as Yendom , Roy Skelton as The Voice Of The Monoids , John Halstead as The Voice Of The Monoids , Richard Beale as The Voice Of Refusian.
Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. Which is really nothing new for this show at all but even with that said the acting in this episode quite clearly isn't the best kind of acting to come from the William Hartnell era none of this is the fault of the cast as they are only being told to act to certain way and while the likes of William Hartnell and Peter Purves do indeed turn in some solid performances in this episode which does make sense as they've been playing there characters for a while now the same thing cannot be said for Jackie Lane who is trying but she and the rest of the cast cannot make this episodes work well enough for them with the episodes script being so bad that it really gives none of the cast absolutely nothing to work with interms of what there characters personalities are in the first place.
As was mentioned at the start of this review this is the earliest surviving episode to feature the character of Dodo Chaplet. This character really doesn't have alot of things going for her as she was just there to be a transition companion as she leaves the show by the end of this third series of the show but what little of her personality that we get from her from his show does make her seem like a fun companion as she is a fun and spunky companion at times but at the same time we the audience aren't really given a reason to care for her character and it doesn't help that she doesn't have a whole lot to do in this episode with her feeling really more like a background character then a main character as she just does nothing for a large portion of the episodes running time and as a result of this the character really does come across as being a really underdeveloped character with even her friendship with Steven not really being developed all that well either.
For classic Doctor Who this episode really does have some fairly impressive sets to it which is even shocking when you take into account that the show especially during it's classic era didn't have that big of budget. Yet even with that working against it this episode really did pull of some massive sets which looked really good and rather rightfully they made sure to film alot of scenes in the huge spaceship set as alot of the four episodes take place in this one spaceship however while a massive set is something that works well enough for the James Bond films as those kinds of sets work well enough for those films it's not something that works well for this series as for Doctor Who bigger doesn't equal better as instead you'd want something that's a little bit smaller but still has alot of character to it and something that your able to make scary and while yes the TARDIS interior is a massive that is something that works for the show as they have to fit in large amount of people and it adds to the science fiction aspect of the show as well.
As was stated at the start of this review this episode feels like an episode of two halves of the first two episodes have one story and one set of characters whilst the remaining two episodes have a wholly different story and a different set of characters as well. With the two sets of episodes only being very loosely linked with this really being an issue for the episode as the plot for the first two episodes is fairly dumb yet enjoyably so with there characters being just bland where as with the other two episodes it's the opposite that's true and that makes it hard to fully judge this episode with the two story split feeling like they released that the plot for the first episodes wasn't strong enough to carry four episodes and as a result of this they quickly came up with a plot for the remaining four episodes as it's in those episodes where we get alot of plot and all of this make you wonder why they didn't just focus on creating a good story for those first two episodes as they had alot of potential for those characters and for that story to be really well done and yet because they chose to have different stories it makes both sets of episodes come across as being rather bad because of it.
Classic Doctor Who is known for having some production issues especially late into the William Hartnell era and yet this episode has a few issues that they kept in like the fact that William Hartnell flubs a line in episode one which they don't even hide and the fact that after being shrunken to death you can see the back of the person that got killed moments after he got killed in the same episode. While yes they couldn't really help those issues as they couldn't really do alot of editing they are still issues that standout a mile and all they do is take you out of the episode as they just remind you that your not only watching a TV show but they also remind you that your watching a late William Hartnell episode of the show and while yes the episode does have some really creepy looking villains having creepy looking villains doesn't get you sucked back into the story after seeing the back of an actor who's character just got shrunken to death in a strange looking object.
Now then while I cannot for the absolutely life of me remember whatever this episodes running time even was I do know that for a fact that this episode has / had an exact grand total running time of roughly one hour ad thirty minuets. Which is solid running time as the episode really doesn't have alot of plot to cover anything longer then the four episodes that it lasts for but with saying that the episode could have gotten away with picking one plot over the other and have it just be three episodes long as that would have made the episode alot more snappy but given that they basically added two stories into this one episode it means that both stories don't have the time that they need to breathe and to be fully developed as they really could have been as either story had the potential to be a fun Doctor Who story they both just needed the time needed to be fully developed but I will admit that this episode really does have some really good pacing to it tho.
So now then as this is an action show that means that I have to actually talk about the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual action that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. As classic Doctor Who wasn't really known for having good action scenes in it due to it's small budget and the same thing is true here as we only get two action scenes in the whole episode and there both in the final two episodes of this story and both of which do look good for the incredibly small budget that this era of the show had and yet they still managed to the action both compelling and incredibly exciting to watch as due to that small budget they have to get creative and they have t make every single second count with the episodes action scenes which is something that they very easily pull off and manage to do quite easily in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Overall this wasn't a bad episode but at the same time it wasn't a good one either as the episode does have quite of faults in it all of which combine to make it an episode that could have been good or even great and yet it just can't because of all of those faults and the fact that it's basically two different stories told in four episodes in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very episode in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very episode really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 6 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from the official Doctor Who fandom wiki page , Wikipedia and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from this very episode that I used in this very review being the really great and really legendary Google Images simply just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that are all really from this episode and are really of course on Google Images are all really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition.