Beacon commander as Noah was an overtly Biblical allusion. Crome also drew parallels between the commandment given by God to Man in — "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" — and the High Minister's rousing speech to the humans awakening from cryogenic sleep on Nerva Beacon: According to Crome, the catastrophe of solar flares burning the Earth was represented in the Ark in Space as a purifying event which led to the renewal of human society, drawing heavily on the Genesis flood narrative. At Inside the World of Doctor Who, a live event hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts on 29 November 2008, Russell T Davies, executive producer and lead writer of the 21st century revival of Doctor Who, said that The Ark in Space was his favourite story from the original run of Doctor Who, as did his successor in the role, Steven Moffat, on a subsequent occasion. The Ark in Space was placed in 28th position in Doctor Who Magazine's Mighty 200 reader survey in 2009, which ranked every Doctor Who serial to that point in order of preference. Commercial releases In print A novelisation of this serial, written by Ian Marter, was published by Target Books in 1977. It was subsequently reprinted by Virgin Publishing in 1991 with a new cover. BBC Books also reprinted the book in 2012 in an edition featuring an introduction by Steven Moffat. This was Marter's first novelisation for Target; he would go on to write seven more. Marter had wanted to correct some logical problems he had found in the story. He considered writing in first person from Harry's point of view, but abandoned this when he realised that many important plot points took place when Harry was not present. Notably, Marter changed the spelling of "Wirrn" to "Wirrrn". Marter alters the ending so that the travellers leave in the TARDIS. Home media The Ark in Space was first released on Betamax in 1985 then VHS in 1989 in an omnibus format. It was then re-released in 1994 in its original episodic format (but the 1999 US release is still in omnibus format). It was released on Laserdisc in 1996 in its original episodic format. It was released on DVD in the United Kingdom on 8 April 2002. It was released for sale on iTunes on 11 August 2008. This serial was also released as