Courtesy of TJ Lubinsky, here's a transcript of the Time/Life produced introductions for The Ark In Space, narrated by Howard Da Silva. Notes about their production are further down. The restored Howard Da Silva intros will be included as an extra on theWarner Video NTSC R1 DVD release of The Ark In Space when it is released in the US & Canada in August 2002.

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These were re-created from Time/Life edit logs of the edit seesion at Teletronics on August 1978

Episode #M12005
(Fade up: shot of Dr. Who meeting Wirrn from Part 4)
cue v/o: "Dr.Who is attacked by the wasp-like Wirrn on Space Station Nerva, where the only survivors of Earth, sleep in a deep-freezed state. The giant insects human face gives the Doctor cause for alarm..."

sound full: Sarah screams "run Doctor, Run"

(Grass Valley sawtooth wipe pattern #16)
((shots of space men shooting bubble-wrap))

cue v/o:: "When Harry and the rest of the revived crew, find the Wirrn larvae - the Doctor's fears are confirmed, they are seeking human hosts, in which to grow to adult-hood"

cut to Vira/Noah: "What has happened, sommander are you there - Wirrn are
here, they will destory the humans, the Eath shall be ours"

(Grass Valley sawtooth wipe #18)
((scene of suspended space people))
cue v/o:: "The humans, still suspended in the deep freeze chamber, are easy prey for the insect army, and a new edition to their group, is very dear to Harry and Dr. Who"

sound full" Harry - "Doctor.....Dr.Who says "Sarah, oh Sarah Jane"

(commercial stopdown :15 recue)

END OF PART ONE TEASER
(shot of Noah shooting larvae)

"The commander of the space colony is to impectious for his own good, rushed by the larvel mass of the Wirrn, his body becomes a host for its growth, by stages - the human will evolve into an adult insect"

PART TWO - #M12006
(opening credits)
cue v/o:: "After finding Sarah in the deep freeze vault, a less familiar face attracts Harry's attention"

PART TWO: CLOSING TEASER
(shot of Vira and Dr.Who meeting Noah on space walk)

"Dr.Who suspects the larvae have found there human food source"

sound full: "keep back, dont touch me"

(edit - cut to larvae moving)
cue v/o: "But the rest of the parasidic mass, needs other living beings to devour"
END CREDITS

PART THREE: #M12007
cue v/o (after open credits): "What was once a human hand, is now a feeding ground for insect larvae. AFter persisting 10,000 years in space - the sole survivors of Earth, may never live to return home".

END OF PART THREE TEASER
*No voice-over recorded for this episode*
(scene features Sarah being attacked by Wirrn through grill)

PART FOUR #M12008
"Dr. Who comes face to face with a mature Wirrn, who was once the commander of Space station Nerva, not only has the creature absorbed Noah's human body, it has retained his human mind"....

EDIT NOTES:
*Ark In Space was one of the last episodes to have been shipped from England to the Teletronics producers for screening and reformatting for commercial US syndication. Since the backlog was so intense for a September 30 launch, a 2nd editor was brought in to assist Ruth Newald in finishing the project in time for the series debut.

This created a few problems:

The new editor, was not familiar enough with the format standardized by Ruth and the Time/Life producers, and made some edit decisions out of haste - since the prodicers were split between writing, tracking (recording audio) and editing all 98 episodes over 8 weeks - the last few weeks got sloppy, sadly Ark In Space suffers from a lack of care and attention the majority of the package received under the primary editor/producers supervision for the reformatting job at Teletronics.

#1 - the standard length was 23:56 for the episodes, since the edit decisions made in haste caused an over-run in timings for episodes one and two - each credit from the principal actors were trimmed by 2 secons to accomidate late "crash" fades into the end credits following the teaser scenes. This could have been avoided by an earlier audio cross fade -or corrected in the sound mix, but wasnn't - and aired this way throughout the life of these versions on U.S. commercial TV.

*Note: For the original 98 episodes, only 4 episodes (Ark In Space 1&2 and Genesis of the Daleks 1&2) feature shortened credits - this was a decision made by the 2nd editor of the 1978 syndication package as his solution for a timing issue.

#2 - A bad edit for the ending teaser for Episode One (logo flies back prior to commercial break) existed on some tapes in US commercial TV distribution, whereby :03 of the ending audio sting was faded early, while the video played silent

Some copies (aka "prints" - but not really "prints" since its all 2" tape "dubs") feature an early fade of the video (logo flying back fades early to match the audio) - This was the edit used for the DVD, since this was the original editors "fix" chosen, though not fully executed for commercial TV distribution.

#3 - The voice over for Part 3's ending teaser was accidentally erased, during the final mix session. (that new editor again) This is the only episode of the original 98, that does not contain a full voice-over for Part Three's ending teaser.

Some dubs distributed in US syndication featured a short "Next Time" tag (lifted from another session track mixdown), while most copies in commercial syndication featured no track at all - just the preview scene. The DVD samples the rare-edit "Next Time" tag, slammed in by the Time/Life tapehouse during mass duplication of the bycicle tapes.

Special thanks to: Ruth Newald, and the VCA Teletronics staff for their memories of a job they "slammed" together for their clients at Time/Life more than 24 years ago. Thanks to The Da SIlva estate for permission to edit and re-record Howard's voice. Special thanks to the staff at BBC Video - dedicated fans that care about our show, and having the care to make this exclusive U.S. extra possible for us in the states, that remember Howard's introductions - as our weekly guide to the series.