Plot
The TARDIS materialises on an aged space station. Sarah is overcome by lack of oxygen. While Harry and the Doctor explore, Sarah is transported away and placed into cryonic suspension by the station computer. Harry and the Doctor explore and realize the station is a kind of ark. Discovering Sarah, Harry searches for a resuscitation unit but discovers a mummified alien insect instead.
A woman (Vira) revives from suspended animation. Vira revives both Sarah and the Ark's leader, Lazar, nicknamed "Noah". The Doctor tells Vira that the Ark's (Space Station Nerva) inhabitants have overslept by several millennia, thanks to the insect visitor that sabotaged the control systems. Noah and the visitors clash, and Noah accuses them of murdering a missing crewmate.
Noah investigates the power room and is infected by an alien creature. The Doctor realizes the alien insect laid eggs inside the missing crewman, who became an alien now inhabiting the Ark. Noah kills a crewmate, but recovers enough to order Vira to revive the remaining crew and evacuate, but the Doctor realizes the alien pupae will mature too quickly for this. He proposes that they destroy the Wirrn while they are in their dormant, pupal stage.
Dissection of the Wirrn corpse reveals the Wirrn are vulnerable to electricity. As he tries to reactivate the station power, the fully transformed Noah attacks him. Noah reveals that the Wirrn were driven from their home by human settlers and now intend to absorb all human knowledge.
To electrify the cryogenic chamber and overcome the Wirrn, Sarah crawls through service conduits to reach the Doctor and succeeds in electrifying the Ark. Set back, Noah, as the Swarm Leader, offers the others safe passage from the Ark if they leave the sleeping crew for the Wirrn, but the crew decline.
The Wiirn escape in a transport ship. Noah, realizing his altered nature, sabotages the engines. He transmits one final good-bye to Vira before the transport ship explodes with the entire Wiirn swarm on board.
In the closing sequence, the TARDIS party transmats down to Earth to repair the receiver terminal and allow the Ark colonists to repopulate the Earth.
Read more about this topic: The Ark In Space
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