Mutton dressed as lamb (Doctor Who - The Ark In Space (DVD))

Member Name: lordsnooty

Product:	Doctor Who - The Ark In Space (DVD)
Date:	30/09/02 (73 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of extras, Audio commentary, Great audio visual quality

Disadvantages: Poor story, New special effects

OK, I'll be straight with you from the off - I'm not keen on this story. It lacks any suspense, fear, realism or humour. That said, I love all of the Beeb's Doctor Who DVD releases, because they always pad them out with lots of extra material.

This one comes with an audio commentary by Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen and Philip Hinchcliffe. It's a rather dull and slow-moving commentary to be honest, and didn't live up to my expectations. Philip Hinchcliffe has a bit of a tendancy to drone on a bit, and even Tom Baker's sense of humour seems subdued.

Uniquely however, this DVD also has brand new CGI footage to replace the woeful model work present in the original (don't worry traditionalists - you can choose to view it with the old model shots too). Most of the other extras are a little dull and insignificant, aside from an interesting interview with the designer Roger Murray-Leach.

As I mentioned before however, the story is weak. The dialogue is largely flat (particularly surprising given that this tale was written by Robert Holmes), the story is plodding, and the effects are shockingly bad. The Wirrin, really are extremely poor - seemingly made of plastic, and virtually immobile. This was a real opportunity to produce a scary, claustrophobic story (which could have well pre-empted Alien, to which this story is often inexplicably compared). Like the later tale 'Warriors of the Deep', this is a story which suffers from overly lit sets and sad, shuffling monsters. It's not a complete disaster, but this season of Doctor Who produced far better stories than this.

Both picture and audio quality are excellent as usual, thanks to the hard work of the Doctor Who Restoration Team.

If you're only a casual fan, I'd probably say that this isn't really worth buying, but it's by no means a bad DVD.

Summary: