The Ark in Space Salmon of "SFX" rated the serial four and a half out of five stars, calling it "brimming with confidence". Salmon wrote that the concept of the Wirrn were so terrifying that the poor effects did not matter. In an analysis of apocalyptic themes in "Doctor Who", academic Andrew Crome highlighted the explicit religious influences on the writing of "The Ark in Space". He considered the eponymous Ark to be an analogue of the Biblical story of Noah's Ark, the ancient flood myth related in the Book of Genesis, and that the naming of the Nerva Beacon commander as Noah was
Book of Noah compounded of the Semjaza and Azazel myths, and in its present composite form is already presupposed by 1 Enoch 88-90. Hence these chapters are earlier than 166 B.C. Chapters 106-107 of the same book are probably from the same source; likewise 54:7-55:2, and Jubilees 7:20-39, 10:1-15. In the former passage of Jubilees the subject-matter leads to this identification, as well as the fact that Noah is represented as speaking in the first person, although throughout Jubilees it is the angel that speaks. Possibly Eth. En. 41:3-8, 43-49, 59 are from the same work. The book may have opened with Eth.