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...
Consulting the Matrix
What's your favorite Cyberman suit?
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