The Moonbase (TV story)

"There are some corners of the Universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things which act against everything we believe in. They must be fought."

- The Doctor

The Moonbase was the sixth story of Season 4 of Doctor Who. The return appearance of the Cybermen solidified their place as one of the series' key villains. This story was the first in Doctor Who history with sequences taking place on Earth's Moon.

Synopsis
The TARDIS arrives in 2070 AD on the Moon, where a weather control station under the command of a man named Hobson is in the grip of a plague epidemic - in reality the result of an alien poison planted by the Cybermen. Jamie succumbs to the plague and is contained to the infirmary leaving the Doctor,Ben to fight off a mass Cyberman attack.

Plot
Episode 1

The Tardis makes a bumpy landing on the Moon in the year 2070,and dressed in spacesuits the second doctor and his companions Jamie Polly and Ben venture outside and enjoy the low gravity enviroment.Jamie is injured when they fool around.

The only building on the moons surface is the moonbase a weather tracking station.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Patrick Troughton
 * Ben Jackson - Michael Craze
 * Polly - Anneke Wills
 * Jamie McCrimmon - Frazer Hines
 * Hobson - Patrick Barr
 * Benoit - Andre Maranne
 * Nils - Michael Wolf
 * Sam - John Rolfe
 * Voice from Space Control - Alan Rowe
 * Ralph - Mark Heath
 * Dr. Evans - Alan Rowe
 * Scientists - Barry Ashton, Derek Calder, Arnold Chazen, Leon Maybank, Victor Pemberton, Edward Phillips, Ron Pinnell, Robin Scott, Alan Wells
 * Voice of Controller Rinberg - Denis McCarthy
 * Cybermen - John Wills, Sonnie Willis, Peter Greene, Keith Goodman, Reg Whitehead
 * Cybermen Voices - Peter Hawkins

Crew

 * Assistant Floor Manager - Lovett Bickford
 * Costumes - Sandra Reid, Mary Woods, Daphne Dare
 * Designer - Colin Shaw
 * Film Cameraman - Peter Hamilton
 * Film Editor - Ted Walter
 * Make-Up - Gillian James, Jeanne Richmond
 * Producer - Innes Lloyd
 * Production Assistant - Desmond McCarthy
 * Script Editor - Gerry Davis
 * Special Sounds - Brian Hodgson
 * Studio Lighting - Dave Sydenham
 * Studio Sound - Gordon Mackie
 * Theme Arrangement - Delia Derbyshire
 * Title Music - Ron Grainer

Cybermen

 * Cybermat

Earth technology

 * The Moonbase was established around 2050 to control the Earth's weather via the Gravitron.
 * The Gravitron runs on thermonuclear power and manipulates gravity.

Food and Beverages

 * The virus is in the sugar.
 * Polly serves much Coffee and Tea.

Planets

 * The Moonbase is on the Moon.

Science

 * The Cybermen shoot a hole in the Moonbase, suddenly making it lose oxygen.
 * The Cybermen's chest unit appears to be made of a kind of plastic.

Timeline

 * The Doctor mentions that he studied under Lister in Glasgow in 1888.

Story Notes

 * Working title; The Return of the Cybermen.
 * This is the first story in which John Levene (who later played Sergeant Benton) appears.
 * In an early edit of the script the Cybermen had names.
 * Talkback from the headphones of the crew on the studio floor is clearly audible at times during episode four (the same problem as had earlier caused the opening episode of the first Dalek story to have to be remounted) - for example, a voice can be clearly heard saying 'cue' at the start of the scene where the controlled scientists are first activated by the Cybermen.

Ratings

 * Episode 1 - 8.1 million viewers
 * Episode 2 - 8.9 million viewers
 * Episode 3 - 8.2 million viewers
 * Episode 4 - 8.1 million viewers

Myths
to be added

Filming Locations

 * Ealing Television Film Studios, Ealing Green, Ealing
 * Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London
 * Lime Grove Studios (Studio D)

Discontinuity, Plot Holes, Errors

 * The Cybermen's spaceships look like paper plates held up by string.
 * In episode four, when Evans sneaks into the Gravitron control room, he puts the cloth helmet on back to front (in the next scene it's the right way round).
 * Why bother to infiltrate the Moonbase by stealth, using the virus, when they have the means all along to capture it by force?
 * You can always tell a Cyberman by his footwear.
 * Episode two's cliffhanger involves the discovery of a Cyberman who has been hiding under a sheet in the medicentre for the last 25 minutes. When he gets off the sickbay bed, he nearly takes the whole thing with him.
 * The addition of Jamie to the cast leads to a sharing of lines, so Ben becomes a scientist for a story (he knows that the Gravitron uses thermonuclear power, that interferon is a viral antibody, and that acetone is present in nail varnish remover).
 * In episode two, when a Cyberman tries to zap Polly while she tends to Jamie, he misses, but she falls anyway.
 * Why make only one hole in the dome?
 * And just how strong is that tea tray?
 * Throughout the episode, the gravitron is pointed at the Atlantic ocean. Many hours pass, during which the Earth would revolve on its axis until the Atlantic would be pointed away from the moon.
 * The climax of the episode seems rather far-fetched. A cyberman is revealed to have been concealed under covers on one of the sick beds. It seems unlikely Polly or anyone else would have failed to notice an extra body in the sick bay!
 * Hobson notes they need to keep a hurricane in the Pacific Ocean. However, the Gravitron is pointed at the Atlantic and the hurricane is threatening Miami.
 * closeups of the transparent dome from the outside only show the Gravitron, not any of the desks, controls, people, etc.
 * The examination tables in the sickbay are very light and wobble frequently. The most obvious cases are when the Cyberman takes one of the crew off one and later when he hops up off the table, almost knocking it over completely.
 * About five minutes into the episode one of the injured crew is in the infirmary when the Cybermen reassert control. He gets up off of his bed and sneaks behind the guard, who's watching the door, not the beds. The guard is at the foot of an empty bed, and when the mind-controlled crewman reaches the left side of the foot of the bed (about one inch behind the guard) he then walks all the way around the bed (via the head of the bed) to get to the right side foot of the bed and hit the guard from behind. Not only is he no closer than he was on the left side of the foot of the bed, he could've just stepped one step forward to move to the right side.
 * Stars are visible from the moon during lunar day when the lunar surface would be far too bright.

Continuity

 * The final clip of the episode leads into DW: The Macra Terror.
 * The Cybermen shoot energy from their hands, this style is later repeated in DW: Rise of the Cybermen.
 * There are various references to DW: The Tenth Planet.

Timeline

 * This story occurs after The Underwater Menace
 * This story occurs before The Macra Terror

DVD, Video and Other Releases

 * The two surviving episodes (2 and 4) were released on the Cybermen: The Early Years video.
 * The surviving episodes were also released on the Lost in Time DVD, along with full audio of the two missing episodes.

Novelisation

 * Main article: Doctor Who and the Cybermen


 * Novelised as Doctor Who and the Cybermen by Gerry Davis in 1975.