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 En. 106-107 On these chapters may have followed Eth. En. 6-11., 65-69:25, 60, 41:3-8, 43-44, 54:7-55:2; Jubilees 7:26-39, 10:1-15. The Hebrew "Book of Noah", a later work, is printed in Adolf Jellinek's "Bet ha-Midrasch", 3:155-156, and translated into German in Rönsch, "Das Buch der Jubiläen", 385-387. It is based on the part of the above Book of Noah which is preserved in the "Book of Jubilees". The portion of this Hebrew work which is derived from the older work is reprinted in Charles's "Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of Jubilees", p. 179. James Charlesworth writes (footnotes used for clarity)