2.4: The Moonbase
In which the production team just remake a story from the previous autumn and hope that none of us notice.
Broadcast: February-March 1967
Watched: August-September 2019
Note: episodes 1 and 3 are missing, so this one’s half live-action, half animated.
The Moonbase, Episode 1
I quite like the stupid sound effects [there’s a “boooooing!” noise every time the regulars bounce on the lunar surface]. Although the way the Doctor finds the moon sinister before anything bad has happened is a bit weird, like he can hear the incidental music.
I don’t really understand how controlling the tides controls the weather. Not sure Kit Pedler does either. [Pedler was the writer, and also the show’s unofficial “scientific advisor”, despite being a medical doctor with apparently no understanding of physics.]
Is that the same siren as from Tenth Planet? Which they’re also pretty much remaking? FFS.
[Okay, I don’t go big on this in my viewing notes, but: this is what really annoys me about this era of Doctor Who. The show was designed to be one in which you can do pretty much anything, and the first three seasons really take advantage of that, bouncing from alien worlds to ancient Greek myth to comedy western and so froth. Then Innes Lloyd arrives as producer, and they start remaking the same basic story – the “base under siege”, in which monsters attack an isolated base, generally one with a security chief, even if it’s a Buddhist Monastery – over and over again. This story, which is basically a repeat of one broadcast four months earlier, is an absolutely shameless example, and it winds me right up. Anyway.]
The Moonbase, Episode 2
“You can all get off the moon now!”
Jamie’s delirium about the piper is fucking annoying. Benoit’s “look, I’m french!” cravat is cool. Nils is not Danish.
This is appallingly plotted, obviously, but it is sort of gripping in a dumb way. The music, the gradual ramping up of tension. The sets are good too. It’s well made just stupid.
The fact the base is staffed by an international crew composed entirely of white men is very retro now.
The bit where they realise there’s a cyberman there and everyone looks scared of his shoes is kind of hilarious. Possibly not as hilarious as the cybermen’s clever plan to poison only those members of the crew who take sugar, however.
[A week or two passes. I have a lovely time on the French riviera. Empires rise and fall. And then:]
The Moonbase, Episode 3
Okay after delaying for ages because I was on holiday and/or bored I actually really enjoyed that. The Doctor talking to himself is great. The music on this one is terrific. I also enjoyed the random science lesson about how solvents and spray bottles work.
It really is the exact same story as Tenth Planet though isn’t it? Right down to the first wave of Cybermen being defeated with surprising and pathetic ease, and the next lot showing up afterwards.
It’s sort of odd that these very first cybermen stories don’t really play with the conversion idea. I thought we were heading that way on this one, but the adaptation is more like the robo-men. The idea that this is the truly distinct thing about the cybermen, that they can turn humans into monsters, is something that’s a lot more present in the spin-offs and the new series, isn’t it?
Roger is an idiot if he can’t see a monster approaching him on a lunar desert. I refuse to believe that Nils has ever heard a Dane speak. [The actor, Michael Wolf, was in fact German.]
The Moonbase, Episode 4
The thought occurs that, for a story that was novelised as Doctor Who and the Cybermen, neither Doctor Who nor Cybermen do very much really. At least he’s involved in the ending, as silly as it is.
The bit with the scanner and the ship deflecting into the sun is hilariously bad - no way is the sun’s gravity that strong within 15 seconds’ flight of the moon. Also to show the scanner is pointing at the sun it shines. FFS. The Cybermen’s cannon effects are quite cool though.
Nils is definitely German, yes.
I think the last three are the worst run yet - not sure we’ve had three sub-par stories on the trot before. Oh well, the next few are good.
