Episode 152: The Moonbase (4)

Synopsis:

Hobson scans the lunar surface and spots a large force of Cybermen marching towards the base...

They break into the base radio frequency and demand that the main entry port be opened. Nils tries to call Earth for assistance but they find that their radio has now been blocked by the Cybermen. They are destroying the antenna on the surface nearby.

Hobson and Benoit discuss the relief rocket and agree that it is probably already on its way. They order that the scanner be trained on the rocket flight path. The vessel has been detected by the Cybermen, however.

In the sickbay, the control unit used on Dr Evan is activated remotely, and the medic once again falls under Cyberman mental control. He is ordered to slip into the Gravitron control chamber, where he knocks out the technician on duty and takes his place.

The relief rocket appears on the scanner, approaching the Moon. The base personnel are shocked to see it suddenly break away and speed off into space - heading in a direct course for the Sun.

The Doctor realises that only one thing could have caused this - the Gravitron - and they see that Dr Evans now has control over it.

Ben and Jamie are sent to barricade the sickbay to prevent any other conditioned men emerging. Within, a couple of them are stirring.

As Hobson attempts to reason with Evans, the Cybermen once again demand access to the base - otherwise they will destroy everyone.

There is a loud bang and the oxygen level suddenly plummets, causing oxy-masks to drop  from panels above the controls. The Cybermen have used a powerful laser cannon to blast a hole in the base's protective dome beside the Gravitron.

Hobson and Benoit are able to make a temporary repair by placing a plastic tray over the hole.

The loss of air has led to Dr Evans collapsing, and they are able to regain control of the Gravitron. The Doctor switches this on and lowers its gravitational field before the Cybermen can fire their laser cannon again. This results in the laser beam being deflected into space.

The Cybermen give up this attack but begin to close in, intent on breaking in by force.

The Doctor has Hobson disable the Gravitron safety cut-out, which prevents it from being directed horizontally across the Moon's surface - to stop it from affecting the base itself.

It can now be used on the Cybermen and their spacecraft. All are sent flying off into space.

Hobson and his men celebrate their victory, and straight away set about getting the Gravitron back in normal operation again. The Doctor encourages his companions to slip quietly away.

Out on the lunar surface, just before they re-enter the TARDIS, Polly sees a shooting star and wonders if this is the Cybermen and their ships.

His companions complaining that they never know where they are going to end up next, the Doctor explains that there is device on the TARDIS which can give them a glimpse of what they may see at their next destination - a component known as the Time Scanner. The superstitious Jamie cautions against "second sight" as the Doctor operates a control on the console and the scanner activates. They see a huge crab-like claw emerge from out of a dense mist...

Next time: The Macra Terror

Data:

Written by: Kit Pedler

Recorded: Saturday 25th February 1967 - Lime Grove Studio D

First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 4th March 1967

Ratings: 8.1 million / AI 58

Designer: Colin Shaw

Director: Morris Barry

Critique:

As we mentioned when looking at the opening instalment of this story, Innes Lloyd wanted a story set on the Moon due to the topicality of the Cold War Space Race. Whilst countries like Britain had dabbled in space research, launching rockets from the Outback of Australia, the race was very much led by the Soviet Union and the United States.

In 1986, the Snowcap Space Tracking Station at the South Pole had been commanded by an American General, and at least two of the military guards were American, though the scientists appeared to be British and only one of the three astronauts we saw were from the US (the American one being the son of the base commander). 

By 2070, we have a base on the Moon, controlling the Earth's weather - including that of the United States - but there isn't a single American crewman present (unless it's a non-speaking background character, but we certainly don't see any Stars & Stripes badge on any crewman's tabard in the surviving episodes). The Moonbase is 

What has happened to the US between 1986 and 2070, for its involvement in space technology and exploration to be so curtailed? It may be a situation like the one presented in Moonbase 3, the drama series created by Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks just before they left Doctor Who. In this, each major political power bloc had its own base, so the Americans will have been off somewhere else. The problem with this is that we still have non-Americans controlling their weather. It may just be that the alliance between the US and Europe at this time is so strong that they can be trusted to do this, whilst the Americans are tied up doing something else. Another fan theory is that some great catastrophe befalls the USA in the first half of the 21st Century, leading to them no longer having a significant role to play in international events.

The main filming for this episode took place on Thursday 19th January 1967, when a grand total of 11 Cybermen assembled on the lunar surface set at Ealing.

The press were invited to take photographs of the new design, most of which were taken outside the studios at a number of locations around Ealing Green. Cybermen posed at bus stops and telephone kiosks, and were seen turning up for work at the studio gates. A pair were pictured walking along with 10 year old Anthony King.

The principal Cybermen on this occasion were portrayed by John Wills (Maxim), Sonnie Willis, Peter Greene, Keith Goodman and Reg Whitehead (who had played Cybermen in The Tenth Planet). 6 extras were also hired to bring up the numbers, and amongst them was a young man who would go on to play a significant role in Doctor Who.

John Woods (then using the name Levine) was attempting to get into the acting profession after being spotted in the West End gent's outfitters where he worked by Hollywood star Telly Savalas. The future Kojak star was in England making The Dirty Dozen and thought that Woods might make a good extra or stuntman due to his physique. Levine would amend his name to Levene and, after mentoring from director Douglas Camfield, would go on to become famous as Sergeant Benton of UNIT.

Filming included the massed ranks of Cybermen marching across the lunar surface and spreading out to take positions overlooking the base. Sequences with them using their laser cannon were also filmed. These shots allow us to see the forced perspective employed to depict the Moonbase model in the background with actors in the foreground.

Some photographs show the saucer-like Cyberships at their feet, as these models were filmed or photographed at the same time.

Some of the more gimmicky publicity shots appeared in the newspapers the following day.

In the week leading up to studio recording, Morris Barry wrote to the principal Cyberman actors to tell them to remain on standby as another story featuring the metal giants was in the pipeline, which he had been asked to direct. He also wrote to Peter Hawkins, expressing sympathy for the discomfort he had experienced with the throat microphone in providing their voices, but asking him to take care of the equipment as he would soon be using it again.

Saturday 25th February saw the series return to its original home of Studio D at Lime Grove. Despite their limitations, the antiquated Lime Grove studios would remain the programme's main base for the next couple of years.

Four Cybermen were required for studio recording - Willis and Greene, along with extras Ronald Lee and Barry Noble. They were shot on a small lunar surface set, for group close-ups.

A circular mask was used for the sequence where two of the Cybermen smash the radio antenna. 

If you look closely at the graphic showing the relief rocket approach, you can see that its escape route is already evident, curving up towards the top right.

Other captions included the Cyberman saucer and an image of the night sky with a transparency showing a shooting star passing across it, as seen by Polly at the conclusion of the episode.

The regulars, returning to the TARDIS, had been filmed with material for Episode One on Tuesday 17th January.

The episode closed on the material shot at Ealing by John Davies on Friday 17th February, of the Macra claw seen on the TARDIS scanner. 

This episode sees the very first use of filmed optical effects in the series. A strip of film depicting the beam of the laser cannon was combined with original footage of the Cybermen handling the prop, using an optical printer to blend the two film components together.

When he came to edit the episode on Monday 27th February, Barry discovered that there was a considerable amount of talkback on the soundtrack. This occurs when the microphones pick up the voices of the gallery from the crew's headphones on the studio floor. He tried to edit this out as much as possible. Unfortunately, this was a known problem with Lime Grove Studio D. It had previously led to the remount of The Dead Planet.

The new claustrophobic format of base-under-siege, requiring only one large central set and smaller casts, had proven to be successful once again, and so Innes Lloyd and Gerry Davis planned several more stories of this type for the next season.

The Cybermen had also proven their popularity, and would be back.

Before the final episode of The Moonbase had been broadcast, Gerry Davis commissioned Kit Pedler to write their third story - tentatively titled "Dr Who and the Cyberman Planet".

Trivia:

• The main thing to notice about the ratings is that appreciation figure, the biggest seen since Desperate Measures - the second instalment of The Rescue back in January 1965.
• Junior Points of View on 10th March was largely negative about Doctor Who. Troughton did have some fans who liked his "top hat and flute" - neither of which had been seen in this story. It was already decided that the hat would not be returning.
• 29th March saw a BBC audience research report on this episode produced. The climax was criticised, with some thinking that the Cybermen had been defeated far too easily. Some thought the conclusion lacked credibility, and that the heroes winning by accident was unsatisfactory. Futuristic stories were favoured over historical ones, and the sets and props were praised. One scientist thought the use of solvents to attack the Cybermen had been silly. There were concerns expressed that the "extra-sinister" Cybermen might be too frightening for children.
• The ending has come under some criticism by fans as well. It's all very well unruffled Yorkshireman Hobson demonstrating the typical British "stiff upper lip", but the way in which the Moonbase crew simply shrug off recent events and get on with their job is taking this imperturbability a little too far.
• According to Kit Pedler, Hobson was inspired by the British explorer Sir Vivian Fuchs (1908 - 1999), who led the first overland crossing of Antarctica in 1958.
• Barry Noble had a successful pop music career, enjoying a 1968 hit with I've Got My Eyes On You. Previous appearances in Doctor Who had included an Egyptian soldier in The Daleks' Master Plan, a Parisian citizen in The Massacre, and a patron of the Inferno nightclub in The War Machines.
• Episodes 1 and 3 of The Moonbase are missing, and have been since 1974 when it was last put forward for overseas sale. For the story's DVD release these instalments were animated. The company made good use of telesnaps of the missing material, so that sets, costumes and likenesses closely match what viewers would have seen in 1967:

• Titbits magazine published one of the January publicity shots of the Cybermen posing at a bus stop on Ealing Green along with a bit of humorous dialogue. Interestingly, they give the Cybermen monosyllabic names - just as Pedler had originally planned.

What's Wrong With... The Five Doctors

Bullet points for this one I think...

• The Eye of Orion looks just like North Wales, and the atmosphere is similar to Earth after a thunder storm. What's so special about it if North Wales offers everything it does?
• All the monsters in the Death Zone are out in the open, apart from the Dalek. Why is it in a separate metal-walled chamber when the place is a wilderness, and why only one of them?
• How can a Yeti be wandering around if they're simply robots which require the Great Intelligence to animate and guide them?
• The Cybermen wander into the hall of the Dark Tower whilst the First Doctor and Tegan are standing in the middle of it talking to the Master - yet they fail to see them both.
• There are different groups of Cybermen but relatively small numbers in each - so why does every group need its own Cyber-Leader?
• What makes the prepped Cybermen think a bomb can destroy a TARDIS - and why do Turlough and Susan think it can harm them?
• The Doctor fails to react to Susan (and she to him) as one would expect if she was his grand-daughter whom he hasn't seen for many, many years. At least she sort of smiles at the Fifth, but she doesn't even acknowledge the Second and Third.
• If she's a Time Lord, she should react equally to all of the incarnations of her grandfather, not just the Doctor who looks like the one she used to travel with.
• So he only recently saw the Brigadier again, but the Fifth Doctor also fails to react in any expected way to seeing best friend Sarah Jane Smith again.
• (Later we will have to ask the question why none of this story gets referred to in School Reunion, where Sarah talks as though the last time she saw the Doctor was when he left her at the end of The Hand of Fear).
• The current Doctor tells the First that he has regenerated four times, so the latter says "So there are five of me now!". But how does he know that this is the current? Numbers Six to Twenty might be kicking around the Death Zone somewhere for all he knows.
• Why does everyone treat the First as the oldest and wisest when he's the youngest and only looks older? (Same thing happened in The Three Doctors).
• Just why does Borusa put so many hazards in the Doctor's path if he wants him to deliver something as important as immortality to him?
• Two Time Lord councillors we don't see are Thalia and Zorac. Where they the ones Borusa sent into the Death Zone first? Thalia and Zorac?! Why not an army of Chancellery Guards?
• The Doctor is suspicious of the Harp of Rassilon as Borusa doesn't play music - yet he couldn't in his First incarnation but could in his Second, as Time Lord skills change with regenerations.
• How does the Second Doctor know what happened at the conclusion of The War Games if he was forced to regenerate straight after? Him working out that Jamie and Zoe are phantoms depends entirely on knowledge that he shouldn't have.
• How does he know that they haven't simply been removed from an earlier timestream just as he and others have been?
• How does the Second Doctor know that he's bending rules by visiting the Brigadier when he could simply turn up at any point in his life whenever he felt like it? Is the Brigadier's life somehow interconnected with his own as with the Master and other Time Lords, so that they always meet up in order?
• And why does the Third Doctor not twig straight away that he's also facing phantoms, as he ought to know that Mike Yates resigned from UNIT?
• If Time Lords could get new regeneration cycles all along, why didn't the Master simply go after this instead of the whole convoluted Deadly Assassin / Keeper of Traken schemes?
• And why does Borusa need immortality if he can just regenerate all over again for another twelve times?
• And why does he keep speeding through regenerations these days anyway?
• Why does everyone simply shrug off the destruction of the Black Scrolls if they've been preserved since the Dark Times?
• Flavia seems remarkably well-informed about what has been going on in the Dark Tower. She just wanders in and confers the Presidency on the Doctor moments after Borusa has been defeated.
• Surely she must know he's not going to suddenly turn politician and stay behind in the Capitol?
• As originally broadcast, the first three Doctors all depart in versions of the TARDIS at the end. That's the TARDIS - not other Gallifreyan TT capsules. As they already have their own back where they were abducted from, doesn't that mean they've now got two each?
• And if the Fourth got picked up from a punt on the Cam, what's he doing lying under a fence miles away? And why does he seem so happy about it?
• So, is Rassilon dead or isn't he?
• I'm sure there are many more, so feel welcome to comment!

O is for... Osgood (2)

Petronella Osgood became UNIT's Scientific Adviser shortly before a bizarre incident took place at the National Gallery in London. A number of paintings appeared to have had their glass broken from the inside, and several marble statues had been smashed. 

Osgood was a big fan of the Doctor and often wore items of clothing based on his own tastes. On meeting the Doctor at Trafalgar Square she was wearing a scarf similar to the one he had worn in his Fourth incarnation. Left alone with a colleague to investigate the Gallery, Osgood was attacked by Zygons. It transpired that thousands of Zygon refugees had arrived on Earth in Elizabethan times, and had hidden themselves within stasis cubes - used by some races such as the Time Lords to create living three-dimensional art, in which the viewer could physically immerse themselves.

The Zygons had now emerged into the Gallery, with some of their number hiding under sheets, after having first smashed the statues which they were covering.

One of the Zygons then took on her form, but Osgood managed to escape. In their efforts to forge a peaceful alliance between UNIT and Zygon, a trio of Doctors used an amnesiac gas to make both sides forget who they were - human or alien. Osgood was the only person able to know as she required an inhaler for her asthma. As part of the peace process, they elected not to tell anyone which was which.

Osgood remained on the Zygon repatriation scheme, with her duplicate and together they devised the "Osgood Boxes". One was said to contain a virus which would destroy every living Zygon - developed by Harry Sullivan at Porton Down - whilst the other would expose all the disguised Zygons, as the scheme agreed with UNIT involved the aliens living incognito amongst humans.

Some younger sections of Zygon society resented their having to live hidden lives, and a militant group wanted to simply reveal themselves and take over.

The Doctor and Clara were reunited with Osgood when UNIT laid a trap for Missy at St Paul's Cathedral in London. The female incarnation of the Master was working with the Cybermen to unleash an army across the Earth. Missy was captured, but whilst being transported on a UNIT aircraft managed to escape her bonds. She killed Osgood - but it was never known of this was the original human one or the Zygon duplicate.

When the young Zygon militants finally began to take action against their elders, Osgood was abducted by them. Their leader - Bonnie, who had taken on Clara's form - wished to gain control over the Boxes - intending to use the one that would eliminate their human identities. 

The Doctor rescued her, and at one point the pair had to parachute from a crashing aircraft, shot down by Bonnie.

The Doctor refused to say which Box was which, so that Bonnie would be forced to choose. It transpired that the Boxes were fakes - designed simply to maintain the peace as there was an equal chance of killing them all as of exposing their true identities. Realising the futility of her actions, Bonnie elected to take on Osgood's appearance, so that once again there appeared to be two of them - and still no-one would ever know if they were both Zygon, or human and Zygon. 

When the Grand Serpent attempted to assassinate Kate Stewart after taking over UNIT, it was Osgood whom she called on for help.

Played by: Ingrid Oliver. Appearances: The Day of the Doctor (2013), Dark Water / Death in Heaven (2014), Invasion of the Zygons / Inversion of the Zygons (2015).

• Oliver auditioned for the role wearing her boyfriend's thick-rimmed spectacles. She was asked to retain them as they fitted the "nerdy" nature of the character.
• As mentioned under "O is for... Osgood (1)", Steven Moffat intended that she would be the daughter of Sergeant Osgood from The Daemons, though he chose not to make this explicit - but spin-off literature has messed this up.
• Oliver first came to fame as one half of the comedy duo Watson & Oliver. The pair had met at school.
• She's the partner of the host of Richard Osman's House of Games. They met when she guested on his celebrity game show.

O is for... Osgood (1)

Sergeant Osgood was a member of UNIT's technical support crew, who was brought by the Brigadier to the village of Devil's End after it was cut off by a mysterious heat barrier. UNIT's Scientific Adviser - the Doctor - was in the village, cut off from any technical resources and so could only offer advice on how to breach the barrier. This involved the building of a dynothermic energy exchanger which would create a tunnel of cooler air through the phenomenon, which should permit UNIT vehicles to pass through. The Doctor had to come out to the barrier site to explain the process and advise on circuitry to Osgood in person as the soldier couldn't understand what he was talking about. 

The Brigadier was concerned at his lack of confidence in completing the device and he did fail on the first attempt, but eventually mastered it. The Doctor wanted the energy exchanger brought into the village so that he could use it to attack the Daemon Azal, but the Brigadier had Osgood bring it through the barrier last, and by this point it had overheated and was running out of control. Osgood stayed with it until the last moment but the Brigadier ordered him to jump to safety before it exploded.

Played by: Alec Linstead. Appearances: The Daemons (1971).

• Steven Moffat indicated that he intended Ingrid Oliver's Osgood, UNIT's Scientific Adviser introduced in The Day of the Doctor, to be the daughter of Sergeant Osgood. He decided not to make this explicit so as not to alienate newer fans unfamiliar with the show's history.
• Spin-off material has spoiled this by naming her father Frank, but giving Sgt Osgood the first name Tom. One audio  story suggests that Sergeant Osgood was her uncle.
• Alec Linstead returned to the series in Robot, where he played Jellicoe.
• A third appearance was as Arthur Stengos in Revelation of the Daleks.

Re-entry Forbidden / Reuse Allowed

Those of you who follow the Talking Pictures TV channel will be aware that they have been showing episodes of Doomwatch on Friday nights at 9pm. We've already seen the two that everyone remembers - The Plastic Eaters, written by the show's creators Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis, and Day of the Rat, written by Terence Dudley. The show has many Doctor Who connections.

This Friday, 7th February, sees the broadcast of Re-entry Forbidden, which was originally shown in March 1970. 

I mention this because the episode shared a set with The Ambassadors of Death. With the advent of colour, the BBC's design departments elected to make some savings by sharing props, costumes and sets across several productions - provided that there was a suitable gap between broadcasts, and minor changes made to disguise their re-use.

Scenic Design spotted that the producers of Doomwatch and Doctor Who were both going to be featuring a space capsule around the same time, and so Barry Letts and Dudley agreed to share the set with the costs split across their respective budgets. 

Thus Doomwatch's "Sunfire" rocket returned a few weeks later as Doctor Who's "Mars Probe 7" / "Recovery 7" - director Michael Ferguson reusing a reused set.

Episode 151: The Moonbase (3)

Synopsis:

A Cyberman has been hiding in plain sight amongst the patients in the sickbay. It clambers down from one of the beds where it had been concealed and aims its weapon at the Doctor and his friends...

A technician named Bob circles around the intruder to attack it with a metal bar, but a second Cyberman appears and shoots him dead.

The first Cyberman contacts its spacecraft by radio, declaring that this stage of their plan is complete. The next stage can begin.

The Cybermen inform the Doctor that they know of him. They notify Hobson that he will be required as he is in command here. They tell him that his missing men are not dead. They will be returned, but have been "altered". Seeing that Jamie has not been given their Neurotrope X, they are about to administer it when Polly mentions his head wound. This renders him useless for their plans so they leave him alone.

Ben and Polly are ordered to remain in the sickbay, whilst Hobson and the Doctor must accompany the Cybermen to the control room.

In the saucer-like Cybership, Dr Evans, Franz and Ralph have been mentally conditioned to obey the Cybermen. They move like automatons as they are given instructions. Once satisfied of their control, large metal helmets are placed over their heads, for transportation across the lunar surface to the base.

Benoit and Nils are shocked by the arrival of the Cybermen in the control room. They explain that they are going to use the Gravitron to devastate the Earth, as the planet poses a threat to them. They wish to exploit its resources. They have been breaking into the base through a hatch they made in the base's dome - the cause of the brief pressure drops. This brought them into the storeroom, where they could easily contaminate the sugar supply with their artificial virus.

As Jamie begins to recover, Ben and Polly discuss their previous encounter with the Cybermen in search of a weapon to use against them. Unlike Snowcap Base, the Moonbase does not have removeable nuclear fuel rods, as they recall how the Cybermen were susceptible to high radiation levels. As Polly examines her fingernails she has a sudden thought, asking Ben what their chest units are made of. He thinks some form of plastic, and she explains that nail varnish remover is a solvent which acts on plastics. They will make up a quantity of a similar substance using the sickbay chemical stores.

In the command centre, the mentally conditioned men arrive and are ordered to take up positions within the Gravitron control room. 

The Doctor sidles up to the Cyberman communications device and alters the frequency, to see what effect it has. He realises that the men are being controlled by sonic impulses.

He wonders why the Cybermen need the humans to operate the Gravitron and runs through a number of possibilities. It becomes clear that the Cybermen must be susceptible to intense gravitational fields.

As their tampering begins to affect Earth's weather, Hobson's superiors attempt to contact him. Hobson explains that if they do not respond then a relief rocket will be despatched.

In the sickbay, Jamie has recovered enough to insist that he accompany Ben on their attack on the Cybermen using "Polly's Cocktail" of solvents. This has been decanted into a couple of fire extinguishers so that it can be used as a weapon.

Polly insists on following them and they head for the control room.

The Doctor disrupts the sonic control as his companions burst into the room, firing the solvent directly at the Cybermen's chest units. "Polly's Cocktail" is effective, and they are destroyed as the units dissolve. The controlled humans collapse.

Benoit goes outside to find out what happened to the two technicians sent out to check the antenna. He discovers their empty spacesuits. He is attacked by a Cyberman who attempts to shoot him, but its weapon fails to work in a vacuum. He flees but the Cyberman relentlessly gives chase. Seeing this via telescope, Ben dons a spacesuit and goes outside to help, taking a glass bottle full of the solvent with him - knowing an aerosol will not work. Before the Cyberman can seize Benoit, Ben launches the bottle which smashes into its chest unit, destroying it.

Their subterfuge exposed, the Cybermen decide that they must invade the Moonbase and take it by force. They begin to file out of their ship.

Nils detects radio interference nearby and Hobson scans the horizon in that direction. He sees a squad of Cybermen marching towards them...

Data:

Written by Kit Pedler

Recorded: Saturday 18th February 1967 - Riverside Studio 1

First broadcast: 5:50pm, Saturday 25th February 1967

Ratings: 8.2 million / AI 53

Designer: Colin Shaw

Director: Morris Barry

Additional cast: Edward Phillips (Bob), Keith Goodman, Reg Whitehead (Cybermen), Peter Hawkins (Cybermen Voices).

Critique:

In his script for Episode 3, Pedler described the Cyberweapon as a slim metal rod, with a thicker rod, white in colour, at the end which illuminated when activated. The sound was that of a metallic rattle (which Gerry Davis used in his novelisation of the story). The victim - Bob - collapsed after smoke began to rise from the openings in his uniform. This effect had previously been employed in The Tenth Planet.

For the attack on the Cybermen using "Polly's Cocktail" Pedler, ever the scientist, explained exactly what was going on in technical terms - describing how the bottle flung by Ben would travel as if in slow motion due to low gravity, how low pressure would cause the chest to emit vapour like a cloud of steam, and how the Cyberman should scream soundlessly. These scenes were intended for studio but Morris Barry realised that they were best completed on film since the action had to be slowed down and involved messy effects.

Pedler hoped that the budget would run to several Cybermen as he had a grand vision for the cliffhanger. Oddly, he specified that the Cybermen should march in unison, but not in step - unusual for a robotic race. They should be armed with new weapons resembling oxy-acetylene torches.

For the second story in a row we have a "thinks" track, where one or more actors record dialogue earlier in the day which is then played onto the set later to indicate something which they are thinking about. In this case it's the Doctor, wondering why the Cybermen aren't operating the Gravitron themselves.

The TARDIS crew had all wondered about their next destination at the start of The Underwater Menace.

Cyberman dialogue is odd, to say the least. After challenging the word "revenge", claiming they are unfamiliar with the concept, the lead Cyberman is first rude and then sarcastic.

Describing their scheme, it claims "Only stupid Earth brains like yours would have been fooled", before mocking Hobson with "Clever, clever, clever" when the penny drops about the pressure fluctuations.

Last time we spoke about sexism in the story. Here Polly is the one who devises the weapon to destroy the Cybermen (ironically based on her cosmetics), only for Ben and Jamie to refuse to allow her to take part in their attack.

Ben actually describes what they are about to do as "men's work". As it is, she refuses to stay behind and follows them anyway.

Back in The Tenth Planet Ben had shown a degree of scientific knowledge which went beyond that expected of a young Able Seaman. Then, it was because he had to pick up some dialogue intended for the sick William Hartnell. However, we don't have that issue here, yet he seems to know a lot about nuclear reactors again and he's very quick to realise that the aerosol won't work outside the base.

Filming for this episode took place at Ealing on Wednesday 18th January, when Andre Maranne joined John Wills and Peter Greene, playing Cybermen. This was for the scene in which Benoit is attacked then pursued across the lunar surface. Jack and John Lovell, who had produced the Cyberman helmets and chest units, also provided adapted chest units that would appear to dissolve on cue. Fire extinguisher foam was pumped through the unit as the actor writhed on the ground, whilst pre-damaged units were then affixed to the costume.

We'll discuss the filming of the massed ranks of Cybermen on the Moon next time, as that's the episode in which most of these scenes appear. In this episode we simply see a group of Cybermen emerge from their saucer, and the episode closes on shots of their marching feet - highlighting the fact that they are wearing lace-up boots.

Friday 17th of February saw director John Davies visiting Ealing to film shots of a giant crab-like claw. He was the director of The Macra Terror which was to follow, and the shots were to be shown on the TARDIS scanner at the end of Barry's fourth and final episode.

From this episode for the next few weeks Daphne Dare took over as Costume Designer, as Sandra Reid was still unwell. Dare had previously worked on The Daleks through to The Smugglers.

Joining the production was Peter Hawkins, once again providing Cyberman voices as he had done on The Tenth Planet. That time he had worked alongside Roy Skelton, but for this story he worked alone.

He employed a dental palate such as that used by people who had lost their voice box, which had a small microphone attached. The vibration from this device gave Hawkins headaches and nausea.

One new set was the Cyberman conversion unit on their saucer (image above). A new prop was a large helmet which covered the head and shoulders of the converted humans. Only a close-up of their control panel on the wall had been seen previously.

A camera flare was superimposed over the shooting of Edward Phillips, playing the unfortunate Bob. You'll recognise him in Episode 2 from his distinctive thick black NHS spectacles.

There were three planned recording breaks - the first after the melting chest units, to replace the Cybermen actors with empty costumes. The other two were to allow Maranne and then Michael Craze to change into spacesuits.

Amongst the music cues employed by Barry, one from The Daleks' Master Plan, by Tristram Cary, was used for the shooting of Bob.

One establishing shot of the Cyberman saucer on the Moon's surface was a still photograph from Ealing filming.

As noted in "Trivia" below, this episode ran to more than 26 minutes, and this was after cuts. One of these was a significant piece of dialogue whose deletion would lead to many arguments in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine, in relation of the true origins of the Cybermen. One of the very first issues of the old Weekly incarnation had claimed that they came from Telos, ignoring what was stated in The Tenth Planet. In this episode, when Benoit points out that their planet - Mondas - blew up in 1986, the Cyberman replies:

"We were the first space travellers from Mondas. We left before it was destroyed. We have come from the planet Telos." 

It then goes on to state: "We have returned to take the power you used to destroy Mondas". In other words, they want the Earth's energy. This also goes to explain the dramatic change in their appearance - these being an explorer class of Cybermen who must be physically hardier than those who remained at home on Mondas.

This was the final episode of the series to be recorded regularly at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith. From the following week, the series would be demoted to its original home at Lime Grove...

Trivia:

• The ratings see a dip of around half a million, but the appreciation figure rises to an impressive (for the time) 53. As we've often noted, sometimes fewer people watch, but those who do really enjoy what they've seen.
• This is the longest episode of this serial, clocking in at over 26 minutes (26' 11").
• The Assistant Floor Manager of this story is the future director of The Leisure Hive, Lovett Bickford.
• A couple of obvious questions arise from this episode. Surely space-going Cyberman explorers would know by now that their weapons don't work in a vacuum; and why do they remove the spacesuits of the technicians on the lunar surface if they want to keep them alive?
• Ironically, the order to wipe the original video recordings of The Moonbase was issued the day following the first Moon landing, on 21st July 1969. 
• TV Comic had, in 1965, predicted the first manned lunar landing to 20th July in the strip "Moon Landing", but was exactly one year to the day out.

The Art of... The Moonbase

The Moonbase was the basis for the first ever Cyberman novelisation which is why the book, when published by Target in paperback in February 1975, was simply titled Doctor Who and the Cybermen. As the first one, author Gerry Davis took the opportunity to include a "Creation of the Cybermen" foreward, and made a few changes whilst he was at it. Having introduced the Cyber-Leader in his recent TV submission - Revenge of the Cybermen - Davis includes one here, with black helmet markings. He caused no end of problems by claiming that the creatures originated on Telos - leading to many letters by confused readers to DWM's "Data Matrix Bank" back in the 1980's.

He does then go on to mention the destruction of Mondas, and places it in 1986 which is what it said on screen. However, when he later novelised The Tenth Planet he set it in 2000...

Artist Chris Achilleos was given the wrong reference images and so used a striking portrait of the wrong type of Cyberman. This one is from The Invasion. It's a case of serendipity for me, as this is probably my favourite Target novelisation cover.

The Troughton portrait originates from the Radio Times photoshoot for The Three Doctors.

The novelisation had 8 internal illustrations by Alan Willow.

This particular cover was reused for a reprint in 2011, but an earlier reissue was given a new cover by Bill Donohoe:

This was published in July 1981. Donohoe gives us more accurate Cybermen but... There's something not quite right about their faces. Like Willow he takes the baggy costume look too far. They were more streamlined than this.

More rather odd looking Cybermen, in the foreground at least, on the BBC audio soundtrack which was issued in April 2001. The Doctor / companion images actually derive from the story - a photograph of them in the TARDIS from the first episode. This does mean that we see Ben and Polly in outfits which they only wore for a single scene of The Moonbase. Frazer Hines provides the narration, despite only really featuring in two of the episodes and missing out on the cover.

The surviving episodes 2 and 4 appeared on the Cybermen: The Early Years VHS compilation in July 1992 and later on the Lost In Time DVD set.

The missing episodes were animated in 2014 for a DVD release of its own. The cover art is by Lee Binding. The Cyberman derives from a photoshoot for DWM. Unlike more recent efforts, the animation was very faithful to the broadcast material, making use of telesnaps.

Achilleos' cover was used for the audiobook of Davis' novelisation, read by Anneke Wills.

Finally, Alister Pearson took the opportunity to correct the Cyberman design for a version of Achilleos' cover. This was in the Autumn of 2023 for a DWAS event at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, where three of the four episodes were originally recorded. This was the third "Time & Riverside" event and featured the two surviving episodes with guest Q&A panels in between.

Technically, Pearson is just as wrong as his predecessor, in that he's taken an image from a later Cyberman story. However, this one is from Tomb of the Cybermen, which at least used a nearly identical design.