Doctor Who, season 4 continues …

The Moonbase is a 4-part early Doctor Who adventure that is missing some episodes from the BBC archives.

In order to watch the serial, I’ve found the “Loose Cannon” reconstructed version of the missing episodes 1 & 3.  This version employs the audio of the story matched against telesnap (still images), descriptive text captions, existing footage where available, and sometimes a little added pieces of CGI/animation.

The Moonbase makes no attempt to connect the Cybermen here with The Tenth Planet beyond the moonbase’s commander making some vague reference.  No one notices either that the Cybermen look different (but, given that they apparently recognise the Doctor without mentioning that he looks different, is probably just something that’s going around).

For the first half of the story, we’re treated to an almost horror tale of the moonbase operatives being taken mysteriously ill.  The Doctor & co arrive and they are, in parts, helping and then blamed.

The moonbase operates a gravity device that controls Earth’s weather systems, and this is the main focus of the plot.  The motives of the Cybermen are a bit vague.  They want to convert some of the humans, thanks to the illness, so that they will operate the gravity device for them, so that they can destroy Earth for some reason.

Maybe there was an explanation for their actions but, once the Cybermen start talking, it’s very difficult to understand their voices.  The mechanical monotone is sometimes audible, but other times too indistinct to pick out the words.  The melodic tone of the previous Cybermen was much better.

The first couple of episodes of The Moonbase is later mirrored almost exactly in the 4th Doctor adventure Revenge of the Cybermen (cybermats notwithstanding), only the target of their destruction alters (Earth here, Voga later).  So, if you’ve seen the Tom Baker story, you don’t really need to see The Moonbase.  However, other than Polly still not being given much to do (not that Ben or Jamie get much to do either), it’s good as a continuation of Patrick Troughton stories.

Next time … The Macra Terror