The Macra Terror

4 episodes
Aired between 11th March 1967 and 1st April 1967

Written by Ian Stuart Black
Produced by Innes Lloyd
Directed by John Davies

Synopsis

In a colony on a faraway planet, a troop of majorettes practice for an upcoming festival.  The colony leader, referred to as the Pilot, compliments the band leader.

Suddenly, an escaped prisoner called Medok bursts through the procession and escapes out of the colony.  Ola, the colony's Chief of Police gives chase with a handful of his officers.

One outside in the rocky wilderness, Medok hides until he see's a strange blue box appear from nowhere.  He watches as from it, Jamie, Ben, Polly and the Doctor emerge.  Jamie is carrying a big wooden stick, conscious of what they saw on the time scanner.  Ben teases him until Medok jumps on Jamie out of nowhere.  Jamie and Ben sort him out in short order and capture him, just in time for Ola and his guards to show up.

The Chief of Police assumes that the TARDIS crew are from another colony, and thanks them for assisting him in capturing Medok who has refused to obey orders. Ola invites the crew back to the colony where they will be thanked by the Pilot.  The Doctor is a bit curious about all this, so agrees to go with Ola and the guards.

When they get to the colony, they are thanked indeed.  The Pilot is overjoyed and makes a big show of how happy everyone is to both work and play in the colony.  Even the shift change is signaled by a happy jingle and a song!

As Medok is dragged back into the colony, his old friend, Questa approaches him and begs him to just conform, hinting that the man has been hallucinating.  Medok looks disdainfully at his friend and insists that there are things, horrible things in the colony that come out at night.  He refuses to conform and Ola drags him away.

The Pilot insists the TARDIS crew forget all about Medok and hooks them up with all manner of luxuries.  Polly gets a shampoo and a haircut, Ben and Jamie get a massage by beautiful women...

 and the Doctor settles for a dry clean of his clothes.  Ben and Polly are loving it, Jamie is intimidated by all the women and wants them to leave him alone, and the Doctor is upset when his suede shoes are buffed to a shine.

The Pilot arranges a reception party for the strangers, at which the Doctor manages to slip away and visit the prison where Medok is being held.  He sneaks his way into the cell and questions Medok about what he's seen.  Medok is suspicious of the Doctor but does reveal that he's seen creatures that crawl around the colony at night.  He gets panicked talking about them and takes advantage of the Doctor's visit, shoving him aside to escape.  Alarms go off, and the Doctor is confronted by Ola and the Pilot, and joined by Polly, Jamie and Ben.  Ola wants the Doctor punished for releasing Medok, but Polly convinces them to give him the benefit of the doubt because he didn't know the law.  The Doctor thanks Ola for being lenient, but slips in a phrase about people crawling about the complex.  Ola reacts paranoid to the phrase and warns the Doctor that  he will end up in the hospital for "correction" if he's not careful.

The Pilot diffuses the tension by suggesting that the visitors should learn more about the colony, and orders that they are taken to the labour centre.  On their way, they pass a new construction site, where the Doctor spies Medok hiding, but says nothing.  Once there, the group are told about how the colony work in shifts to capture and refine poisonous gas.  The Doctor asks why they do it, but they can't seem to get a straight answer.  As they are discussing this, an intercom noise comes over unseen speakers and they see an image on a nearby monitor of a man.

It turns out that the Pilot isn't the overall ruler of the colony, it's this guy - the Controller.  He informs the rest of the colony about Medok's escape and warns that there will be a curfew that night to protect everyone.

Two of the workers suddenly stagger in, suffering from gas poisoning.  Polly is distraught but Ola and Questa brush it off, insisting that the work must be done.

The Doctor meanwhile, used the commotion of the poisoned workers to slip away and go back to the construction site.  He finds Medok, who explains that the things are giant insect like creatures with big claws (just like the one's seen on the time monitor when they were on the Moonbase).  Medok also tells him that others have seen the creatures, but anyone who claims they have are sent to the hospital for correction.

Medok gets anxious and forces the Doctor to leave him alone and get back to the group.  The Doctor reluctantly agrees and rejoins his friends just as the curfew is put into effect.

The TARDIS crew are put up for the night in the refreshment department (the place where they got pampered), but it's not long before the Doctor has sneaked out again to find Medok.  On his way, he hears another announcement by the Controller to the guards insisting that anyone found out after curfew may be shot on sight.  As the Doctor moves through the colony, he does indeed see Ola and his guards patrolling, looking for the escaped prisoner, but the Doctor finds him first in a half built house.  The guards net closes in and it looks like Medok and the Doctor are surrounded until they find an escape route.  They are about to take it when Medok sees a hideous crab like creature below them.  Medok is so excited that he begins shouting about it, which ultimately leads to them getting captured by Ola.  Medok insists to the Police that he's seen a Macra, but Ola dismisses it out of hand and drags him off to correction whilst the Doctor is taken before the Pilot.

The Pilot is disappointed in the Doctor, and asks for an explanation.  The Doctor begins to reveal what he's found out, but is interrupted by Ola's arrival.  Ola announces that Medok has made a confession stating that the Doctor was trying to convince Medok to give himself up.  In light of this, the Pilot allows the Doctor to return to the refreshment dept. whilst Medok is sentenced to correction.  As the Doctor leaves, the Controller calls the Pilot and decrees that the visitors must be "adapted".    The Pilot decides to do this before the Doctor can get back and stop them.

Sure enough, hypnotic gas is pumped into the refreshment dept, and subliminal speeches are played through the speakers.  Jamie doesn't sleep too good, so begins to resist the commands.  He tries to wake Ben, but Ben is too tired, and says that they must work in the morning so they need sleep.

The Doctor hears the messages as he passes Polly's room, and decides to break in and stop them.  He does this by smashing a circuit embedded in the wall.  The procedure wakes Polly up and stops her being brainwashed.  He makes sure she's free from control by making her promise to disregard anything she might have heard in her dreams, before rushing off to Ben and Jamie's room.  Once there, he smashes the circuits there, which really, really angers Ben.

He reckons it's an insult to the colony and after having a quick set to with Jamie, he rushes off and tells Ola what the Doctor's done.  As a result, the Doctor and Jamie are arrested.

Polly is furious and give Ben a piece of her mind before she legs it to get away from him.  Ben pursues her to the construction site and grabs hold of her, violently dragging her back towards the refreshment dept.  He's stopped when she begins to scream hysterically, insisting that she saw a large crab.  He is dubious until he spots it himself, albeit too late.

The Macra grabs hold of Polly and starts to eat her, leaving Ben to fight desperately to rescue her.

 He manages to wrestle her free, but they soon find that they are surrounded by the giant crabs.  Despite this, they use their size to their advantage and manage to duck away and run back to the colony.

Jamie and the Doctor are once again brought before the Pilot.  The Doctor proudly owns up to what he's done and even smashes the circuit near the Pilots own bed.  As they argue, Ben and Polly arrive.  She tells everyone what's just happened and looks to Ben to back up her story.  Ben however denies it.

Left with no option, the Doctor, Jamie and Polly begin to demand answers from the Pilot, insisting that if the colony have nothing to hide then there's no reason why the Controller should not show himself, rather than just the still image that normally accompanies his announcements.  This gets Pilot questioning the stuff he's been taught to believe, and indeed prompts the Controller to show himself.

The Controller before them is not a powerful young man, but an old, unkempt one.

He can barely speak, and when he does, it's clearly not the same voice as the announcements.  He looks terrified towards the edge of the screen as a large claw suddenly looms into view and drags him away.

Polly screams that the Macra are in control.

The screen quickly changes back to the young leader.  the Controller orders that the Doctor, Jamie and Polly are all sent to the pit to work in the Danger Gangs.  Once they're taken away, the Controller then orders the Pilot to forget everything he saw.  The Pilot obeys, and in turn, orders Ben to keep an eye on his friends and report what they say and do to him.

Once at the pit (a mine entrance), they meet Officia who with a name like that, can only be the one in charge of the mining and gas refinement processes!  He tells them that they will go underground and help mine the gas, where it's most poisonous (hence the name - danger gang).  He calls the shift leader out of the mine to lead them, and it turns out to be Medok.  He says that the hospital deemed him incurable, and so he was sentenced here.

Medok insists that if they are to work down in the pit, then they are to be allowed someone to supervise their work from up top.  Officia thinks it tedious, but agrees to let one of them direct their efforts from above ground using the machinery.  The Doctor agrees to do this whilst Medok, Jamie and Polly get to work.  As he's examining the controls, the Doctor sees Ben hanging around.  He tries to reason with Ben, but the boy is clearly obeying orders from the Controller now.

Down in the pit, Medok reiterates that although they're harnessing all this gas, they've no idea why. As he explains, a strong leak breaks out and they work to contain it.

The Doctor meanwhile has been making use of the machinery readouts to workout the chemical formula of the gas.

He smiles and gives himself 10 out of 10 for showing his workings out in chalk on the wall.  The Pilot enters and sees the formula.  He's angry and insists that the Doctor has been snooping around and found the secret formula.  The Doctor is overjoyed that he's figured it out exactly and changes the 10 to an 11!  The Pilot insists that the Doctor wash the chalk off the wall immediately.

With the gas leak contained, Medok, Jamie and Polly begin searching for another pocket of gas.  Jamie discovers a newly constructed door, but it's locked.  Officia turns up to inspect their work and as he meddles with Medok's pipe, the gas bursts out again, momentarily knocking him out.

Jamie takes full advantage of this and steals Officia's keys.  Ben quickly turns up and helps Officia back out of the pit.

Fearing that Ben saw him take the keys, Jamie decides to skulk off right away and use them to unlock the door.

Back up top, Officia recovers and realises that his keys are gone.  Ben suggests that he must have dropped them.  Officia is forced to leave the pit area to get it sorted.  When he's gone, the Doctor gets Ben to confess that he actually saw Jamie take the keys but decided not to rat him out.  Despite this, Ben fights the ugly truth and decides to go and correct it by informing the Pilot.

Polly and Medok notice that Jamie has gone, and so decide that Medok should go after him, whilst Polly helps the Doctor.  When she gets back up top, she begins helping him analyse the gas.

Medok in turn finds only a Macra and is killed.

Officia raises the alarm about Jamie escaping, and orders guards to the old shaft area, but the Controller countermands that order, insisting that no guards are to go anywhere near the old shaft area. Instead, a large proportion of the gas is to be directed into the old shaft.  The Doctor overhears this and theorises that this maybe some sort of food supply as well as a poisonous agent.

Inside said shaft area, Jamie is searching around and soon finds the body of Medok and one of the Macra that is unusually still.

He throws a rock at it, but all it does is open its eyes briefly before going back to sleep.  The gas begins to pour into the old shaft, which awakens the creature.  Jamie coughs and splutters his way back down the corridor, but soon comes face to face with another Macra.

The Doctor's aware that Jamie is in trouble, and in desperation, begins spinning wheels and flicking switches in the vain hope of stopping the gas.  Officia turns up and makes the Doctor stop, accidentally revealing the purpose of said devices, thus giving the Doctor a clear idea of which controls to mess with.

He wastes no time and begins reversing the flow (not the polarity), and pumps fresh air instead of gas into the old shaft.  Officia is furious and runs off to get some guards.  Unfortunately for him, Polly has retrieved the keys from the old shaft door, and as soon as he leaves, she locks Officia out of the room.

Back in the shaft, Jamie's only hope of escape is to flatten himself into a crevice in the rock face.  The Macra pinch and dig their claws in after him, eventually dragging him out but causing a landslide in the process that buries them.  This, combined with the sudden inflow of oxygen makes the crabs drowsy, which gives Jamie the opportunity to escape.

Ola and his Police have been sent to beat down the door and reverse the oxygen flow.  The Doctor and Polly know it's just a matter of time before they succeed, so they in turn close the door to the pit shaft and lock themselves in it, leaving their only option to go into the old mine shaft.

Jamie meanwhile finds his way out of the shaft by using a grate unusually leading to a cupboard.  As he exits this, he finds himself in the middle of the majorette troop rehearsing for the upcoming festival.  As guards wander past, Jamie is forced to pretend he's an auditioning dancer and does the highland fling, much to everyone's joy.

Unfortunately for him, Ben sees him doing it and leads the guards in to capture him.  As Jamie is led away though, Ben is clearly struggling and full of regret.

Inside the shaft, the Doctor and Polly wander around until they discover a chamber.  Inside they see one of the Macra operating a bank of controls and speaking into a microphone with the voice of the Controller.

The Doctor confirms that they are really in control of the colony, and use the gas to survive - it's food to them.

Ola takes Jamie to the Pilot, but begins criticizing the leaders incompetence at all these escapes.  He points out that two of the strangers are still missing and pose a threat, but as he does so, the Doctor and Polly simply walk into the room and greet everyone with a smile!  Jamie is horrified and Ola demands that they be arrested, but the Doctor insists that they can't be arrested if they give themselves up.  He manages to get the ear of the Pilot and convinces him to follow the Doctor into the old shaft.  The Controller appears on screen, shouting and screaming orders for the Pilot not to obey the Doctor.

The Pilot and the Doctor leave for the old shaft, refusing to stop.  The Controller takes command from the Pilot and gives it to Ola, but by the time he organises enough guards to go after them, the Doctor and the Pilot have reached the Macra's chamber.  Eventually, they are captured along with Jamie and Polly and they're all shoved into a pipe room which is sealed.  The Controller announces that everything will be back to normal in exactly four minutes.  The group ponder why the Controller was so accurate in his timing, but soon find out when gas begins to hiss into the room.

Despite their best efforts, the Doctor and his friends cannot escape and begin succumbing to the gas.  Luckily they hear a knock from outside.  It's a fully recovered Ben!  Wasting no time, the Doctor talks Ben through the process of reversing the gas flow, pumping oxygen rather than the vital gas into the Macra chamber.

The Controller appears on screen and desperately pleas with Ben, insisting that the process will cause an explosion, killing everyone, not just the Macra.  Ben hesitates for a moment, but ultimately pulls  the lever, destroying the gas pipes and killing the Macra.

Much later, the colony gathers for the festival, and the TARDIS crew get to enjoy the colonies idyllic hospitality once more.  The Doctor is happy to lounge around a bit longer until Ben tells him that the colony plan to make him the new Pilot.

The Doctor nearly has a heart(s) attack and picks himself up off the floor.  Together he, Jamie, Ben and Polly all dance the highland fling and continue dancing until they dance their way out of the colony, back to the TARDIS.

Trivia

• This was the very first Doctor Who story to have the Doctor's face in the title.  It would become a staple from this point until the end of the seventh Doctor's run in 1989.

• The Macra creatures cost 500 quid to create.  Given that each episode was budgeted at £2500, it shows they were a major cost.  As a result, questions were being asked whether they needed to stay with Shawcraft Models anymore.

• The production company were forced out of Riverside Studios and back into the minuscule furnaces of Lime Grove.  

What worked

• The suspense of "things crawling" around the colony at night

• The screams and pleas of Polly as she's being eaten by a Macra really add tension

• The screams and pleas of the Macra as they're being blown up add a humanistic character to them, which really puts a darker edge on the Doctor

• The happy lyrics for shift changes are brill.  I want them in my work!

• Ben's brainwashing added a bit of depth to his character

• No better time to do the highland fling than when you're hiding from guards - this must have been brilliant to watch!

What didn't work

• The way everyone discusses their plans at normal volume in front of brainwashed colonists.  They can hear and react you know

• The way Officia just stands by whilst the Doctor screws up his entire gas flow machinery

• The bit where Jamie is going through the secret door.  

• It suffers from Bond Villain syndrome, where the people who cause most trouble for the bad guys are consistently kept alive to mess around another day

• It's a bit quick for Medok to become shift leader in the mine isn't it?  Especially since he's been such a liability

• Where does the Doctor's logic of gas as food come from?

Overall Feelings

My initial reaction is that this is almost identical to the Savages.  It's by the same author, and deals with outsiders revealing ultimate truths to a false paradise and thus overcoming evil at it's heart.   But then again, I loved the Savages, so....great!

Despite it being a copy, it's not necessarily better, just different.  William Hartnell was given the opportunity to relax and be out of it for a bit, but Michael Craze is positively thriving on his chance to be a bad guy.  Ben suddenly goes from a one trick cockney pony to a character with a bit more depth, especially when it looks like he's going to do the unthinkable to Polly when he's trying to drag her back to the colony in episode 2.  The only disappointing bit in this, was that Polly didn't show as much concern about him as I would have liked, especially when the earlier stories before Jamie hinted at them being a sort of couple.

The Macra are built up nice and spooky, and I love the authority that they command people with.

The soundtrack is strange but welcome too.  It's like something more at home in the Pertwee era, or on a Super Mario game, but it delivers when it needs to.

The best bit about it is that it keeps all the tension and mystery of the Moonbase, but has more logical decisions about it.  With the exception that almost all of episode 3 is filler scenes, the rest of the downsides are mainly cosmetic.  They were forced back to lime grove, so the sets were limited, and they unnecessarily went waaay over budget on the Macra themselves, and even then didn't do them justice.

Rating

8 out of 10

Great story, only slightly let down by its appearance

Rewatchability Factor

7 out of 10

Watch this if you liked...

• The Savages

• The Happiness Patrol

• Delta and the Bannermen

• 1984

• Any episode of the Prisoner 

• Logan's Run

• They Live

Consulting the Matrix

Was Butlin's ever this scary for you?

The Moonbase

4 episodes
Aired between 11th February 1967 and 4th March 1967

Written by Kit Pedler
Produced by Innes Lloyd
Directed by Morris Barry

Synopsis

The Doctor wrestles the TARDIS into a landing where they find themselves amidst a lunar landscape.

 Sure enough, to his annoyance, the Doctor confirms that they are on the moon rather than Mars (where he was aiming).

The Doctor reluctantly agrees to explore the place, and they all go out after putting on the trusty TARDIS space suits that just happened to be lying in the Doctor's dressing up chest.  Once outside, they have lots of fun jumping about in low gravity until Jamie does a super jump and flies over the lip of a crater and knocks himself out.

As the group approach the crater, they see that it hides a large space station, where two human males emerge from a nearby doorway and carry Jamie inside.  Polly, Ben and the Doctor rush (as fast as they can in a vacuum) to the door and enter the base too.

The base is actually an international weather control station that .... you guessed it, controls the weather on Earth.  One of the technicians at their station suddenly becomes ill and develops marks on his body like black veins.  The Base Commander, Hobson, orders him to be taken to sick bay to join the rest of the staff that's come down with this mysterious illness.

Shortly after, the TARDIS crew meet Hobson who is a bit puzzled at where they've come from, but agrees to let Polly tend to Jamie (who has also been taken to sick bay), whilst the Doctor and Ben are made to stay close to Hobson until he can work out what to do with them.  He takes them on a tour of the base, showing them the Gravitron - the device that they use to control the weather, and also mentions the mysterious virus.  The Doctor offers to help and Hobson is only too happy for it, given that the base's own doctor is one of the patients.

Hobson radios in his report of the newest cases of the virus to Space Control back on Earth, to which one of the crew working the broadcast says that he thinks it was listened in on by someone close to the base.

The group all meet up by Jamie's bed.  The knock has sent the young Scotsman delirious and he keeps banging on about the phantom piper of the McCrimmon's coming to get him.

Whilst Polly calms him down, the Doctor tells Ben to go and help on the command deck, if only to keep an eye on the goings on there.

Ben does as he's told and gets sent to the storeroom to help a guy called Ralph do a stock check as some of the food seems to have gone missing.  As Ben is off counting bags of sugar, Ralph is electrocuted by a metal hand and dragged away.

Ben eventually notices that Ralph has gone.

Back in the sick bay, Evans (the base doctor) suddenly screams out, warning people about a silver hand before he collapses dead.  The Doctor is curious about it, and decides it's best to tell Hobson that the poor man is dead.  When he gets to Hobson, he finds Ben reporting Ralph missing.  The Doctor suggests informing Space Control of what's going on, but Hobson is reluctant to radio in until he knows what's going on. Instead, he goes with the Doctor to check Evans' body.

When they get back to the sick bay, they find Polly screaming.  She tells them that Jamie began calling out saying he could see the piper and when she turned, she saw something leaving the room from the door behind them.  When the group explore, they find nothing and dismiss her as being hysterical until they discover that Evans' body is missing.  Hobson doesn't like this one bit and threatens with kicking the TARDIS crew off the base if they cannot find the body.

The Doctor goes off to explore for the cadaver, and Polly goes to get Jamie a drink of water, leaving him alone in the sick bay.  He comes to just in time to see a silver monster coming towards him.  He cries out that it's the piper and collapses.

"The piper" hovers over him for a second before taking another body and leaving.  Polly returns to see it going out of the door and screams again.  The Doctor and Hobson hear her and come rushing back again.  She insists she saw a Cyberman, but Hobson scoffs.  He says every kid knows about the Cybermen, but is positive that they were all destroyed.  Hobson even goes so far as to begin suspecting the Doctor for all the trouble as it only started occurring when he arrived.  Ben is happy to leave them to it, but the Doctor is adamant that they need to stay and fight this "evil".  Hobson gives him 24 hours to find the culprit, or they will be thrown out.

To find the evil, the Doctor believes that the key is in finding the cause of the virus, and thus explains to Ben and Polly that they need to test everything to be sure.  Polly asks him if he's actually a Doctor then and he says that yes, he studied under Joseph Lister in Glasgow in 1888.

The disgruntled Hobson returns to the control deck and finds that the Gravitron is playing up, causing hurricanes to drift close to America.  As they work hard to control the weather, the Doctor potters about, taking samples from clothes and boots, much to Hobson's annoyance.

Back in sick bay, Jamie and Polly are attacked by a Cyberman when Ben goes for some more supplies.

In the end though, it decides to take a different body, and leaves just before the Doctor returns.

Unknown to everyone else, the Cybermen are shown to be entering the base via a disguised hole in the food storage area, which is consistent with the occasional drop in air pressure when one enters.  Hobson has reports of this, alongside evidence to suggest that the Gravitron's antennae is damaged.  He links it all back to the Doctor's arrival, and decides that he needs to get thrown off the base.

The Doctor is at a loss as to knowing where this virus is from.  He's tested all the samples and they've come up negative.  When Hobson storms in to throw him off the base, the Doctor bluffs that he's almost on a breakthrough and shoo's Hobson out again.  He asks Polly to make some coffee for the crew to keep them occupied and buy him some time, or in other words... Polly put the kettle on.

Outside, two of the crew go to fix the antennae, but are attacked by Cybermen, knocked out and dragged away.

When Polly serves the coffee, one of the crewmen takes a drink and immediately falls ill.  This leads the Doctor to realise that the virus is in the sugar.  Hobson is dumbstruck and asks how it got there.  The Doctor suggests that the Cybermen laced it.  Hobson cannot accept the explanation though, as his men have searched the base top to bottom.  The Doctor asks him however if he searched the sick bay, and Hobson goes pale  - no they haven't.

The Doctor, Hobson, Polly and Ben search the sick bay and find two rather large silver boots poking out from under a blanket.  They back away as a Cyberman dives off the hospital bed and points a gun at them.

It radio's in and announces that their plan is complete.

Hobson rants at them for killing his men, but the Cybermen say that they haven't killed them.  They're using them.  The only reason why they haven't used Jamie is because he's got a knock on the head so he's sort of damaged goods.  The Cybermen leave Ben and Polly in the sick bay and tell them that if they leave, they will be killed, and order Hobson and the Doctor to take them to the control deck. When they reach the control deck, the Cybermen explain that they will use the Gravitron to destroy the Earth and eliminate their potential threat.  They also reveal their means of entrance into the base.

Jamie finally comes fully around and he, Polly and Ben discuss how to rescue the Doctor.  Ben knows from their last encounter that the Cybermen hate radiation, but Polly suggests using solvents to dissolve their plastic accordion looking respirators.  After a quick look around, they find some nail varnish remover, along with some other chemicals and mix them together to make a "Polly Cocktail" to beat the Cybermen.

Meanwhile, the Cybermen bring the sick crewmen (now under their control via electronic headsets interacting with their virus) to the control deck.

The crewmen take over the operation of the Gravitron.  Space Control radio the moonbase and ask what's happening, but the Cybermen refuse to respond.  Space Control tells them to deploy a flare if they acknowledge the transmission.  Hobson tells them that if they don't respond, Space Control will send a relief crew to the moon.

Whilst all this is going off, the Doctor starts tampering with the Cybermen's sonic control device, the thing they use to control the sick crew.  One of the crew controlling the Gravitron seems to go a bit weird, and the Cybermen get suspicious.  At that point though, Polly, Ben and Jamie rush in to save the day with squirty bottles of Cocktail Polly.  They spray the stuff at the cybermen's respirators, which starts to spew foamy stuff out as they die a horrible death.

Once they're dealt with, Benoit the token Frenchman of the crew suggests that he should go out and look for the missing crew sent to repair the antennae.  When he gets out there, he sees two empty suits on the moons surface and radios in just before he comes face to face with a Cyberman.  The Cyberman points his gun at Benoit, but it just so happens not to work in a vacuum.  Benoit doesn't miss the opportunity and legs it back to the base.

Ben sees the danger and pours some Cocktail Polly into a glass bottle and rushes outside, launching it at the Cyberman as it chases Benoit back to base.  The bottle shatters and  kills the Cyberman.

With the immediate threat dealt with, the remaining crew of the moonbase prepare for more assaults.  Sure enough, they eventually see a troop of Cybermen making their way over the surface of the moon towards the base.

They try to radio the base and do a bit of trash talking, but Hobson is determined they won't get in again, especially as he's found and blocked up the entrance in the food store.  He cuts them off mid flow and prepares for their attack.

The Cybermen detect the approach of a relief crew craft sent from Earth and decide that they need to deal with that first.  They use their sonic control machine to awaken one of the sick bay crew members and send him to operate the Gravitron.

Hobson and the rest of the crew are overjoyed to see the relief craft, but suddenly realise that it's going off course, being propelled towards the sun.  They can't understand; one of them speculates that the only thing that could do such a thing is the Gravitron....then they look over to see Dr Evans at the controls.

The Doctor sends Jamie and Ben off to lock the rest of the sick crew in the sick bay, ensuring they don't start wandering too.  They try to reason with Evans but find it doesn't do any good, so they prepare to bust in.  Just before they do, the Cybermen fire a laser cannon at their air tight dome and pierce it.

Only the quick thinking of Benoit and a tea tray save them all from suffocating.

One good thing about the near asphyxiation is that it's knocked Dr Evans out too.  The Doctor rushes him off to the sick bay, and correct the Gravitron.

Hobson notices that a second cybership has arrived with another laser cannon.

Everyone dives for cover, but the Doctor stands his ground, saying he has a hunch they will be alright.  Sure enough, the laser bounces off the anti-gravity field caused by the Gravitron.  Triumphantly, the Doctor orders the device to be pointed at the surface of the Moon.  After some mishaps and re-calibration, this is achieved.  The Gravitron is activated and the Cybermen are all surprised as they suddenly float away into space, along with their flying saucers!

Everyone is happy and Hobson immediately begins work to focus the Gravitron back on Earth, lest any more hurricanes are caused.  The Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie all get their space suits back on and make a quick exit before they're missed.  As they make their way back to the TARDIS, the group see a shooting star which the Doctor speculates is the Cybermen's saucers leaving.  He reckons that this isn't the last they've seen of the metal monsters.

Once inside, the Doctor decides that it's perhaps better to look before he leaps.  He elects to use the time scanner to see where they are going next.  Jamie isn't sure about using "second sight" but the Doctor is happy enough to go ahead.  As soon as he switches it on, Polly screams at the sight of a hideous claw on the screen.


Trivia

• Patrick Troughton apparently loved walking around new sets when they were built so he could get a feel for them.  When he did this on the set of the Moonbase, the Gravitron suddenly fell apart and came crashing down to the floor, narrowly missing him by inches.  He was quite shaken up by the near death experience, but had a good laugh about it in the pub afterwards.

• All the Cybermen were typically played by tall guys.  One of these men just so happened to be destined to be in Doctor Who for a long time afterwards.  It was John Levine, better known to everyone as Sergeant Benton, beloved star of the UNIT stories.  We'll be seeing him for a while dressed as monsters first though.

• Some people say that Kit Pedler hated the Jamie character and intentionally made him bedridden to avoid explanations about mundane objects all the time.  I think that it may have also been that the writers were still trying to recover from Innes Lloyd's spur of the moment decision to keep Jamie on, and didn't have much for him to do.  Don't worry though, Frazer Hines was only too happy to lay on his back for the next three weeks, being looked after by Anneke Wills!

What worked?

• The jumping around on the surface of the moon - what kid wouldn't see that in 1967 and get excited, especially with the space race going on and dreams of doing it when they grew up?

• SOME of the incidental music is quite good.  The Cyberman theme tune (as it will come to be known) is not.  In fact, I believe some of it has been used in the Daleks.

• The Cyberman skulking around on the ship builds tension nicely, especially when you consider that the monsters have totally new suits, so it's possible that young children wouldn't make the connection between this and the tenth planet until they see the full Cyberman at the end of episode 1

• Great that Hobson remembers the Cybermen arrived at Earth, like most humans alive or born after 1986.  It would have been easy to conveniently forget that fact.

• It's nice to see the Doctor putting his scientific brain to work when he systematically tests stuff to find the nature of the plague.  

• The model of the Moonbase with the movable Gravitron is pretty cool.

• The idiotic smile Patrick Troughton gives when he's caught messing about with people's clothes is just fantastic!  

• The Cybermen walking around the moon looks really good.  And whilst I'm at it, the landscape set is pretty good too.

What didn't work?

• The Cyberman theme tune.  My friend loves it, but I hate it with a passion!

• Why exactly do the Cybermen feel the need to wander around the base openly in the first episode?  It's a bit brazen isn't it? and too much like pantomime "he's behind you!"

• Also, I know Jamie's delirious, but there's nothing remotely like a bag pipe on the Cyberman, so why does he assume he's the phantom piper?  If anything, judging by the chest respirator,  he's the phantom accordionist!

• The Cyberman approaching Jamie time and again in episode 2 for no reason whatsoever.  This is made worse by the fact that nobody seems to think its a good idea to protect the sick bay in case the thing comes back (which it does)

• The Doctor makes out that the Cybermen are evil. Are they?  Really?  The one's from Mondas didn't seem to be.  

• Ok so why do Cybermen have a lay down on hospital beds?  And how come everyone panics when they see its silver boots, when the rest of the crew are wearing very similar ones?

• My favourite one is when the Cybermen take control of Evans and use the Gravitron to the point where no one can stop them, but then decide to mess it all up by shooting a hole in the dome and thanks to a nearby tea tray (which is also preposterous), manage to succeed only in stopping Evans!

• To be honest, there's lots more, but there's simply too many things that don't make sense to list them all here.

Overall Feelings

If you cast your minds back (or go ahead and click the link) to the Planet of Giants, you'll see that I said that it should deserve a ten, but there's just something about it that keeps it lower.  Well, the Moonbase is the opposite.  There are so many stupid decisions and actions that the Cybermen make in this story that any sane person would be saying "no, I absolutely hated this - how dare you even suggest that any of Matt Smith's stories are crap when you show me this in comparison?"

The thing is, it very much has a jenesequa about it.  It's just loads of fun to watch.  Yes, there's HUGE plot holes in it, just like Tenth Planet, but at least this time the Cybermen know what they want to achieve.

I'll try to quantify what I mean by all of this for you.

Ok lets start with the effects.  Much of them are crap (check out the flying saucers landing if you don't believe me).  Even back in the day, they were probably still crap, but with this story, you can tell that the production team are trying - look at The Web Planets version of a space suit, and anything Star Trek could come up with.  These space suits are much closer to what we want when we're messing about on the moon.  The same could be said of the Cybermen when you compare them to the Tenth Planet.  Much more robotic, especially in their voices.

The acting - The Moonbase is the first story we can "see" where Patrick Troughton is comfortable in the role.  He's both comical and lovable with his facial expressions.

It is a huge, huge shame that the production team didn't spend that little bit longer making the Cybermen more rounded, because my word, it could have been one of the best Troughton stories made.  As it stands, it is just a lot of stupid fun.

Rating

6 out of 10

Could have been a similar score to the Tenth Planet, but the fact is this should have scored as high as a 9 if Kit Pedler had only taken a little bit of time to make the plot logical

Rewatchability Factor

8 out of 10

Ignore the plot holes, this is the most fun Troughton story yet

Watch this if you liked...

• The Tenth Planet

• The Wheel in Space

• The Seeds of Death

Consulting the Matrix

What's your favorite Cyberman suit?

The Underwater Menace

4 episodes

Aired between 14th January 1967 and 4th February 1967


Written by Geoffrey Orme
Produced by Innes Lloyd
Directed by Julia Smith

There's currently a petition to get the DVD released here.  It would be awesome if you could support it.

Synopsis

As the TARDIS dematerialises, the group have fun explaining the ins and outs of space and time travel to their new companion, Jamie.  When they land, they go out to explore and find they're on another beach near some cliffs.  Polly expects they're in Cornwall again but Ben isn't so sure.

They decide to scramble up the cliff to see if there's anything around them, but Polly soon gets exhausted.  Ben, Jamie and the Doctor leave her behind to catch her breath whilst they go on.  As she rests, she finds a bracelet on the floor near some caves.  She soon enters the cliff side, and is accosted by some robed men.  She screams out which brings the boys running back.  They enter the cave and are soon accosted themselves and thrown into a small room where they find Polly, bound.  They tell themselves that it's fine so long as the Doctor's free, only to have him shoved into the room a second later.

The room turns out to be an elevator, that begins to descend below sea level.  As they go, a gas is released into the elevator and they are all knocked unconscious.

When they awake, they find they are alone in a compression chamber.  Together the group work out that they are in approximately 1970, as the bracelet Polly found is from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico.

A guard enters and leads them to a dining hall where they are given plankton to eat.  The Doctor loves it, but Polly isn't keen.  They are shortly joined by a priest called Lolem.  He announces that their arrival has been prophesised by the goddess Amdo, and they are to be sacrificed.  Ben, Polly and Jamie are all taken away, but the Doctor buys them all some time by deducing from the plankton that the genius professor Zaroff is in this place.  He says that the Professor would be most displeased if the group were killed, but Lolem is skeptical.  He even refuses to pass on a note from the Doctor, but the Doctor manages to convince the serving girl, Ara to deliver it instead.

The Doctor is taken to join the rest and they are tied onto tilting platforms that lead to a shark tank.

When Ara finally delivers the note to Zaroff, he sees that it talks of a vital secret ,and so he rushes to stop the sacrifice.

Ben, Polly and Jamie are take away to labour, whilst the Doctor is taken by Zaroff to reveal his secret.  When they're alone, the Doctor confesses that he doesn't really have a secret, but manages to flatter Zaroff by bigging up his scientific achievements and the fact that he successfully disappeared 20 years ago and managed to get everyone to blame each other for it.  As a result, Zaroff decides not to overturn his decision.  Zaroff begins gloating about his work and reveals that they are all in Atlantis.  He reveals his goal to raise the sunken city once again.

Meanwhile, Zaroff's scientific assistant, Damon meets Polly, Ben and Jamie.  He is in charge of the labour force, and so orders that Jamie and Ben go to the mines, whilst Polly is to have plastic gills installed on her, so she can be a fish person and farm the plankton that they use for a food supply.

The serving girl, Ara discovers Polly's fate and rushes off to tell the Doctor in return for his kindness to her.  The Doctor asks Ara to go and help with Polly's procedure, but as soon as she has a chance, get her away from Damon before he can perform the surgery on her.  Unfortunately for them, Damon and his doctors have captured Polly and are holding her down on an operating table to sedate her.

As Ara goes off again, the Doctor is taken to Zaroff's lab to see his ongoing work.  Whilst there, the Doctor spots some conveniently placed wire cutters lying around and begins to secretly snip wires whilst Zaroff rambles on about his plans, which are to raise Atlantis by drilling a hole into the Earths crust so big, that the ocean will drain into it.  This will create lots of steam that will effectively blow Altantis sky high (thus raising it), but at the cost of everyone alive both in the sunken city, and across the entire world.

The Doctor's meddling trips the electric which make's Damon's lab too dark to operate on Polly.  In the confusion, Ara is able to slip away with Polly, whilst Damon storm in on Zaroff, demanding to know why he's draining so much power.  Zaroff denies it, and soon they work out it's the Doctor's fault.  The Doctor tries to bluff his way out of it, but Damon is furious.

Zaroff agrees to keep a careful eye on him from now on.

In the mines, Ben and Jamie come  across Sean and Jacko, sailors who were shipwrecked and ended up in Atlantis.

They quickly forge a friendship, and work together to hide a stolen compass from the guards. The compass is to help find their way through the tunnels when they try to escape through a shaft that they've discovered.  As the prisoners are being split up into work parties, the group manage to slip away unnoticed.

Back in the lab, the Doctor escapes by throwing a couple of chemicals together and creating a stink bomb, leaving Zaroff choking.  He runs into Ara who says that Polly is fine, They overhear a priest called Ramo talking to Damon about how they distrust Zaroff.  The Doctor gets Ara to lead Damon off on a goose chase to find Polly, whilst he approaches Ramo.  He manages to get the priest to listen to him, and demonstrates what will happen to the world if Zaroff's experiment is allowed to go ahead.
Ramo agrees to bring the Doctor to their ruler, King Thous, but warns that the king is a fan of Zaroff. Ramo finds the Doctor a set of ceremonial robes, and they go off together.

Meanwhile, Ben, Jamie, Sean and Jacko have made it through the tunnels until they come to a secret door.  When they emerge they find themselves back in the Atlantean temple, where they meet up with Polly.  They are all forced back into hiding however, as priests begin to enter the temple.

The Doctor and Ramo confront King Thous with the truth of Zaroff's plans, and the King is skeptical, but takes the word of his priest seriously.  He asks for some time to think and is left alone.  After a short while, he summons the Doctor and Ramo back, only to hand them over to Zaroff to do with as he pleases.

Zaroff orders them to be taken away and fed to the sharks.  When they're gone, Thous questions Zaroff, but the mad scientist assures him that the Doctor's claims were untrue.

The Doctor and Amdo are lead to the temple where Lolem begins a ritual to cut their heads off before feeding them to the sharks.  As they prepare to execute the traitors, a booming voice issues out of the stone face of the goddess Amdo, commanding all to bow their heads in reverence.

The priests all obey, allowing the Doctor and Ramo to escape into the secret compartment that's opened up.  When the priests arise and find the prisoners gone, they proclaim it as a miracle.  The group are all reunited inside the secret tunnels and reveal that their idol had a tube with a mouthpiece installed, used to fool the natives.

Zaroff is confirming to Thous that the raising of Atlantis will take place two days from now when they are interrupted by Lolem.  The high priest is very happy and explains the miracle to the King.  Zaroff sees through the ruse and is furious, demanding that the guards search for the Doctor.

King Thous is reluctant, but agrees.

Now they're all together, the group come up with a plan.  Sean and Jacko are sent to the fish people to convince them to strike (with no way to refrigerate the food, it cannot be stored therefore, striking farmers means that people will begin to starve).  The rest of them come up with an elaborate plan to kidnap Zaroff in order to ensure he cannot carry out his experiment.

Sure enough, Sean gets the fish people's attention by insulting them.  Then he convinces them that they're all slaves because of Zaroff and gets them to agree a strike.

Ben and Jamie don wet suits and disguise themselves as guards.  Polly dresses like Ara and the Doctor dresses like... well, you can see.

Working together, they all trick Zaroff into chasing the Doctor back to the temple where they kidnap him and take him into the secret tunnels.  Zaroff laughs at their plan and says the experiment will go ahead even without him,

The Doctor doubts it and sets off with Ben and Jamie to check the progress in the lab.  They see another ceremony underway and so disguise themselves as fish and hide until it's done.

Ramo and Polly are left to guard Zaroff.

It's not long before Zaroff fools Ramo and the pair fight, ending in Ramo being stabbed.

Zaroff grabs Polly and escapes into the tunnels.

The ceremony has just finished, and a dying Ramo comes out to warn the others of Polly's abduction.  The Doctor sends Jamie after Polly whilst he and Ben go to the lab.

Jamie rushes after Zaroff and finds him in the tunnels.  The pair fight and it looks like Jamie might lose until Sean and Jacko turn up.  Zaroff escapes into the tunnels, but leaves Polly behind.

Zaroff's totally bonkers now, but makes it back to the King's throne room where Damon is updating him on the  sudden strike of the fish people.  The King orders that they enter negotiations with the fish, but Zaroff denies it, insisting that any dissidents will be killed.  The King realises that Zaroff is stark raving mad, and goes to arrest him,  Zaroff laughs maniacally and shoots the King and his guards dead.

He then announces that "nothing in zi vorld can stop me now!" before rushing back to his lab.

The Doctor and Ben stumble upon the bodies as they go on their way to the lab.  Knowing that Zaroff has made it back to his lab, and seeing that Thous is only just alive, they decide to bring the King back to the temple.  Once there, the Doctor decides that the only way to stop Zaroff is to flood the lower portions of the city (where the lab is).  He tasks Sean and Jacko with evacuating all the civilians whilst the Doctor and Ben set off to instigate the flood.

They go to the generator room, bluffing their way past a guard to do so.  Once inside, they set the generator to overload (and presumably start the flood).  Once complete, they set off for the lab.

Meanwhile, Jamie and Polly are lost in the tunnels.  As they work their way through them, they see the walls start to crumble, and water come through them.  Frantically, they speed up their journey to avoid the flood.

As the city begins to flood, instead of evacuating people, Sean and Jacko decide to take Thous and leg it to the surface.  They're joined by Damon who is gutted at losing his life's work.

The Doctor and Ben make it to the lab, where they see that Zaroff has shifted the experiment forward, with detonation taking place in the next five minutes!  He convince's Zaroff's people of the true effect this experiment will have on the world, and the fact that the rumbling they hear is the city being destroyed.  The lab technicians all flee, leaving Zaroff, the Doctor and Ben alone.  The Doctor thinks he's won, but Zaroff brings down an iron gate, sealing himself in the lab so that the Doctor cannot stop him from pressing the big red button.

The sea is raging ever closer, which makes Ben anxious to the point where he drags the Doctor away to escape in time.  As they leave, the Doctor cuts the lights to the lab, making it harder for Zaroff.

The mad scientist cannot see anything, so he is forced to raise the gate to switch the light on.  As he comes out, Ben suddenly rushes back into the lab, hits the button for the gate, and ducks out of the lab as the gate comes back down, leaving Zaroff trapped away from his big red button.

Ben catches back up with the Doctor who is adamant that he wants to go back and save Zaroff, but Ben won't let him, saying it's too late and they've got to go now if they stand any chance of escape.

Zaroff is raging at the injustice of it all, and reaches desperately through the bars towards the button, but is slowly drowned by the rising water levels.

With no other option, Jamie and Polly are forced to climb their way out of the tunnels to the surface.  Polly has a hissy fit saying she can't do it, but Jamie forces her onwards until finally, they reach the surface.

Jacko, Sean, Thous Damon and Ara all made it outside too.  They lament the fact that the Doctor is likely dead.  Thous says that they will have a monument for the Doctor built in the new temple of their new city.  Damon says that there will be no new temples in the new city, suggesting a new age of Atlantis.

Likewise, as Ben and the Doctor make it to the surface, Ben is sad that Polly might not have made it.  He needn't have worried however, as they soon meet up with Jamie and Polly.  Ben gives Polly a big hug and they all set off back to the TARDIS.

As they wander on the shore, Sean and Jacko come across the Police Box and cannot believe their eyes.  Even more so when it dematerialises.

In the TARDIS, Jamie says that he likes it on board the ship as it feels safe, unlike outside!

They all make fun of the fact that they don't know where they're going, and the Doctor takes offense suddenly claiming that he can take them wherever they want to go.  He tries to prove it by taking them to Mars, but something goes wrong and the TARDIS begins to go out of control.

Trivia

• Episode 2 of the Underwater Menace was discovered at the same time as episode 3 of Galaxy 4, but has never been released to the public.

• The release of the Underwater Menace on DVD has been a bit of a debacle.  Proposed to have episode 2 on it, it's been tied up in what's called the omnirumour.  Last year there were pictures tweeted by the Dr Who restoration team stating they were working on T.U.M. and it's appeared on multiple release schedules from BBC worldwide....and then been taken off it.  The final release date of this DVD is still unknown.

• Anneke Wills, Michael Craze, Frazer Hines and Patrick Troughton had already sparked up a great relationship, and as they entered this strory, they knew full well how cheezy it was.  To top it all, Troughton didn't get on with Julia Smith, the Director.  The result was that he took the whole cast on to give Julia as hard a time as possible - they even reduced her to tears at one point.  

• This was one of the most overspent episodes of Doctor Who made during the black and white era, going £2,000 over budget.  It would be nice to know where that money went, because it certainly didn't go to the costume department!

What worked

• Ok, a lot of the soundtrack has just weird buzzing noises at dramatic points, but at times, it feels like something from Jon Pertwee's era, like a precursor to the Sea Devils.

• The fish people's costumes may suck, but compared to the Arridian's (see The Chase), they are positively Hollywood blockbuster effects

• The bit where Polly is going to get operated on is suitably tense

• I'm stretching a bit here, but the temple and lab sets were a good effort, and the location shots were done well

• It was a lovely sight to see Ben care for Polly (I haven't really mentioned that every single story he's been in, he's always the one desperate to find Polly when they're separated).

What didn't work

• I didn't especially notice it, but apparently, Jamie takes a leaf from Dodo's book and starts changing accent to become more mainstream Scottish, rather than use the sing-song style Scottish accent that was typical of highlanders.  

• The shell costumes looked awful, and Anneke Wills said that they dug in to her terribly anyway

• Whilst I can forgive the fish people, I can't forgive their ballet style swimming on cords.  They go backwards and forwards for absolutely no reason.  I bet a significant part of the budget was spent doing this pointless scene too.

• The part where Sean goes to convince the fish people to strike is beyond awful

• Whilst we're on fish people, they must have had budget problems in that dept, because half of them just have cellophane finns at their waist, and then diving masks on.  Crap.

• It's never explained why Zaroff would choose to kill everyone on the planet (including himself).  Earlier scripts suggest that he's mad because of the death of his wife, but we're never told on screen

Overall Feeling

I went into this story with a feeling of utter dread.  I took a deep breath and prepared myself.  Why?  Just about the entire Doctor Who fandom decry this story as rubbish, but yet hold special mockery for the fish people, which they paradoxically most want to see on the DVD!  So, I heard all this propaganda and feared the worst.  When I actually watched it though, I came to a bit of a different conclusion.

First off I'll start with the bad - there's a lot of poorly executed stuff in it, and considering the budget that was spent on it, the effect of the money was negligible.  The production company needed much, much more money to make this story as epic as it should have been, so we're bound to think bad of it.

If you come at it from the angle of what you think the ultimate Doctor Who story should be, then the plot itself is "hokey" from the get go,  What I've found with the Underwater Menace, is although it's played serious, it really isn't meant to be.  This story is a homage to the Saturday morning serials like Flash Gordon; it has more than a vague resemblance to Stingray, and at times mirrors the Batman TV show that was running at the time in America.  To enjoy this story for what it is, you must put yourself in that mindset.  We're not just in Atlantis, we're in a world where the villains are obviously mad and obviously German.  We're in a world where a normal level of mad scheming isn't good enough, they have to destroy the entire planet; and why simply doesn't matter.  Likewise, the heroes schemes can't be mundane either,  They must come up with crazy Scooby-Doo level plots to disguise themselves and run around corridors, and flood entire portions of the city.

This is enjoyable only if you go into it celebrating its flaws, and with the mindset that it's on a par with the Romans, the Time Meddler, and other such nonsense.

Rating

5 out of 10

I liked it a little less than Galaxy 4, where there's also catastrophic events for no reason.

Rewatchability Factor

2 out of 10

There's only so much maniacal madmen and fishy antics I can take.  I could possibly watch it again, but not for a good long while.

Watch this if you liked...

• The Romans

• Galaxy 4

• Fury from the Deep

• The Time Monster

Consulting the Matrix

Is the Doctor a killer?  What was the point in flooding the city and surely dooming many citizens?  Also, what do you think happened to the fish people?