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
Noah S. Sweat Parkinson's disease. The "whiskey speech" concerned the question of the prohibition of alcoholic liquor, a law that was still in force in Mississippi at the time the speech was delivered. Sweat later recalled, "When I finished the first half of the speech, there was a tremendous burst of applause. The second half of the speech, after the close of which, the wets all applauded. The drys were as unhappy with the second part of the speech as the wets were with the first half". Noah S. Sweat Judge Noah S. "Soggy" Sweat, Jr. (October 2, 1922February 23, 1996) was a