The Moonbase

‘The Moonbase’ is notable for being the first of several Troughton “base under siege” stories, but is the second such story to feature in the series as a whole. The reason for it being the second such story is that it is largely a retread of ‘The Tenth Planet’. Despite this however, it is a rather different beast from Hartnell’s swan song. In my opinion, it simply isn’t as good as its predecessor, since despite being only four episodes long, it somehow manages to feel padded. This is due largely to episode two. The first episode of ‘The Moonbase’ establishes the story’s setting well and has a suitably chilling feel to it due to the unexplained disappearances of the moonbase personnel, helped by the eerie incidental score. The problem is, at the end of episode one, we see a Cyberman, and although it looks somewhat different from the Cybermen in ‘The Tenth Planet’, Polly is on hand to tell the viewer what it is in case they didn’t recognise it. After this however, we get approximately twenty minutes of pure padding, as the Doctor tries to find the source of the mystery illness that is striking down the moonbase staff, during which time he mostly clowns around irritating everybody by stealing their boots. The occasional cameo by the Cyberman reminds us of the creatures’ presence, but since we already know that they are lurking, any potential tension is diffused and the viewer (or at least, this viewer) merely wants the plot to advance. This eventually happens just before the end of episode two, as the Doctor identifies the sugar as the source of Cybermen’s virus, and then a Cyberman emerges from its hiding place under a sheet. This cliffhanger is actually fairly daft, especially as the Cyberman gets out of bed in a way that suggests that it badly needs its first cup of tea of the day. The first half of the story would have been far more effective in my opinion had the presence of the Cybermen been maintained a secret up until this point. From the start of episode three onwards however, things improve somewhat. A sense of claustrophobia is created by the fact that the human occupants of the base are well and truly trapped, with rampaging Cybermen outside and their mind-controlled servants within. The importance of the gravitron to Earth is well conveyed, and tension is maintained throughout the latter half of the story as the Cybermen relentlessly attack in one way or another. Even after the first three Cybermen in the base are destroyed, more appear outside in even larger numbers, and continuously terrorize the humans in the base, whether by cutting off their communications or taking remote control of the gravitron via Evans and using it to plunge the rescue ship into the sun, or by drilling a hole in the dome and thus letting the air out. The direction and incidental score are both crucial to maintaining this tense atmosphere, and do so most effectively, especially the dramatic Cyberman theme reused from ‘The Tenth Planet’. In particular, the bizarre appearance of those base personnel who have succumbed to the Cybermen’s neurotrope X is highly effective and rather disturbing. The moon surface sets and model work (except for the rather feeble Cybermen space ships) are also impressive and recreate the surface of the moon more than adequately. The utilitarian sets used for the actual moonbase are rather drab, but intentionally so. 

The Cybermen have been extensively redesigned since ‘The Tenth Planet’ and both lose and gain from this. 

They are far less human, and no longer have fleshy hands or cloth-covered faces, resulting in a more robotic appearance. This removes some of the grotesque body horror impact of the creatures and unfortunately makes them seem more like actual robots and less like surgically altered humans. On the other hand, their faces are more blank and impassive than previously, which makes them seem more intimidating, and the script and direction combined with this succeed in making them scarier than before. The scene in which a Cyberman chases Benoit across the moon’s surface is particularly gripping, but other scenes of note are the remorseless march of numerous Cybermen towards the moonbase and their casual tearing apart of the radio antennae which is made more sinister than might be expected by the sudden and chilling musical sting that accompanies it. Their new voices are more monotonous and less macabre than their singsong lilt from ‘The Tenth Planet’, and are far more menacing. The less human appearance of these Cybermen is partly compensated for by the fact that we actually see them altering humans for the first time, by using the neurotrope X to make them susceptible to mind control. The zombie-like state to which Evans and the others are reduced is the first time we actually see a hint of the process of cyber-conversion and the resulting dehumanization that inspired Kit Peddlar when he created them. Unfortunately, their lack of emotions, a supposedly distinctive feature of the Cybermen, is rather undermined by some atrocious scripting in episode three as one of the Cybermen takes the piss out of the humans (“only stupid earth brains like yours would have been fooled”) and also employs sarcasm (“clever, clever, clever”). This lapse is confined to one scene, but is incredibly irritating. 

The regulars do not benefit especially well from ‘The Moonbase’. The Doctor spends most of the time prevaricating, although he does identify the source of the neurotrope X, and also comes up with the means to defeat the Cybermen at the end. Nevertheless, the story is plotted in such a way that he really doesn’t seem to do much. On the other hand, Troughton gets the oft-quoted lines “There are some corners of the universe that have bred the most terrible things. Things that act against everything we believe in. They must be fought”. As in ‘The Power of the Daleks’, the Doctor could probably leave in the TARDIS if he wanted to, but refuses, preferring to stay and root out evil. Compare this to his attitude in ‘100,000 BC’ and ‘The Mutants’, and it reminds us how much he’s changed since the series began. As for the companions, ‘The Moonbase’ suffers from the same problem as ‘The Underwater Menace’ in that Jamie is surplus to the requirements of the script. The solution to this problem here is slightly better than in the previous story in that he spends two episodes in bed rather than just acting as a silent shadow to Ben. His need to recover from his head injury at least provides initial justification for the TARDIS crew to remain on the Moon, and his (slightly embarrassing) “phantom piper” scenes at least play a role in revealing the story’s protagonists to the viewer. Polly at least gets to shine briefly by coming up with the means to defeat the first wave of Cybermen, although the fact that none of the solvents mentioned would attack any type of plastic likely to be included in the construction of the Cybermen never ceases to annoy the lab-worker in me (in the unlikely event that the Cybermen’s chest units are made primarily of polystyrene, some of the solvents might have an effect, but certainly not that quickly). 

The supporting characters are fairly forgettable. The attempt to show a multi-national moonbase crew is admirable if rather inadequate, but none of them get much characterisation; only Hobson is even remotely memorable. On the whole, ‘The Moonbase’ more-or-less succeeds as a claustrophobic thriller, but is ultimately flawed. Nevertheless, it establishes the Cybermen as recurring monsters and for that at least is notable.