This episode defined my childhood relationship to Doctor Who. It scared the pee outta me. But I don’t remember what it was. There is a split second clip at 0:34 - 0:35 of this montage. A guy’s arm is turning all gooey green and he looks all frightened and grossed out.
I’m pretty sure Tom Baker was the Doctor. Anyone?
Arc in Space. Tom Baker is indeed the Doctor.
Oh, thank you! Thank you! Do you remember what happened to the guy that resulted in the green goo arm? That scene (the one int he clip) is what sent me running from the room because it gave me the willies so bad, but I draw a blank when I try to remember how his arm got that way.
The guy (whose name was Noah - a name from ‘mythology’ as one character put it) was infected by a insectoid species called the Wirrn. He essentially was mutated into a larvae creature, which turned into a full-grown Wirrn. He managed to retain his human thoughts & emotions long enough to turn the tables on his fellow Wirrn.
That’s it! The larva things! :: shudder ::
Thanks, it’s been bugging me all these years that I could never identify the episode that both repelled me and got me hooked on the Who.
Nitpick: it’s Ark In Space, and I’m still firmly convinced that Ridley Scott saw those episodes before making Alien.
Me too. Unfortunately, the show did not get very popular in the U.S. until the early 1980s, so many American folks only saw those episodes after ‘Alien’ had come out. Lots of people were convinced it was the other way 'round - that ‘Doctor Who’ was ripping off ‘Alien.’
Let’s not even get into the folks who say that the central premise of ‘Doctor Who’ (time travelling in a ahem ‘phone booth’) was stolen from…“Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure”!!!
I can’t get You Tube right now, but I have a feeling I know exactly which clip you’re talking about.
It scared the piss out of me when I first saw it at age five.
It took another five years for me to not automatically change the channel when I would hear the theme music.
Was it the episode where the Doctor lands in the middle of a conflict between two under-manned and under-equiped outposts locked in a perpetual war and then either somehow brokers a peace between them or narrowly escapes before their madness causes their mutual destruction?
The thing is the special effects were so bad that I remember the guy had to practically reach out to help the puppet thing that was the “larva” bite his hand or whatever. I didn’t freak out so much when the guy was totally getting covered in green goo, but when it was just his hand reduced to a green stump, I fled the room.
From that point on, I always watched Doctor Who from behind the lazy-boy.
I *knew *it. Thirty four years later, it still give me the willies.
No, “Arc in Space” has only the one space station. Two “outposts locked in perpetual war” would describe “Genesis of the Daleks”, and several other episodes I can’t recall right now. They’re still using that setup; check “The Doctor’s Daughter”.
On the new DVD of “Arc in Space”, you can clearly see the “green goo” is green-dyed bubble wrap. But the actor’s a pro; he sells that bubble wrap.
Ark In Space is the freakiest story of the entire series for me, for the same reasons listed here. I also hated the giant maggots in the Third Doctor story The Green Death.
Ark as in Noah.
Not arc as in curved line.
It’s probably one of those where the TARDIS goes right over the viewer’s POV and doesn’t make a sound…
*** Ponder
That set-up would also describe “Revenge of the Cybermen” (which used the same basic set as “Ark” - it’s the same space station, only thousands of years earlier), “the Face of Evil” (first Leela story), and “the Armaggeddon Factor” (last of the Key to Time serials) among others.
I must be weird. I saw that episode when I was about four or five and I loved it. It was scary, yes, but I couldn’t get enough of it.
I wonder if it’s on DVD?
