Doctor Who Re-Watch: Old-school bubble wrap horror in The Ark in Space

Following Sunday’s episode Kerblam!, we look at another Doctor Who episode where bubble wrap was scary: the classic Fourth Doctor story The Ark in Space!

I’ve mentioned before how much I adore The Ark in Space. It’s a Doctor Who story that’s close to perfection. It’s got just the right balance of build-up, atmosphere, mystery, scary monsters, and Tom Baker being absolutely awesome!

Seriously, if you want to see a clear reason why his Doctor is so popular to this very day, watch The Ark in Space. Only his second story in the role, and he brings such confidance and authority to it.

However, there’s also another key reason to watch The Ark in Space: the Wirrn. It’s rather fitting that I look back on this story now.

There are two key reasons why. First, the Wirrn will be making an appearance in the seventh series of UNIT, Revisitations, out this week. I’m really looking forward to the idea of a UNIT versus Wirrn story.

But there’s also another reason why I’m looking back at The Ark in Space: bubble wrap. You see, Kerblam! featured an excellent use of it in a genuinely surprising and even scary way. The Ark in Space also did this, at least at the time. To be honest, even when I watched it years after its broadcast, it was still a story that terrified me as a kid.

The Wirrn were a very effective monster in Doctor Who. So it’s strange to think that one of their stages of transformation involved bubble wrap…

(Photo credit: Doctor Who/BBC.

Image obtained from: BBC.)

A classic horror story

Of course, bubble wrap was used in a very different way in The Ark in Space. Unlike Kerblam!, it wasn’t used as actual bubble wrap, but as part of the Wirrn costume. Painted green, it was used to look like Wirrn skin. It wasn’t so much scary on its own, but when Noah pulled his hand out of his pocket to find himself slowly changing into a Wirrn, it was a great moment of body horror.

In fact, The Ark in Space to this day remains a very effective horror story. It’s paced just right, we’re given quite a few characters that we care about, and we feel sympathetic towards them.

In a way, that’s another thing that Kerblam! shares in common with Ark: sympathetic characters. Both Kira and Charlie came across as people that felt real and believable. So it was a huge blow when one of them died and the other turned out to be the villain.

But honestly, comparing Kerblam! to The Ark in Space feels a little unfair. Because Ark is, and always will be, one of the all-time greats. I really enjoyed Kerblam!, but there are very, very few stories in Doctor Who that come close to Ark. If you haven’t seen it yet and you have BritBox, stick it on right now and enjoy.

Have you seen The Ark in Space? Do you think it used bubble wrap better than Kerblam!? What’s your favorite Tom Baker story? Let us know in the comments below.