Wednesday 18 March 2015

The Moonbase


MAW Holmes@MAW_H Does the first "Dragon's Egg" comment get a chap barred..? 


50dw50@50dw50 it just gets a chap a massive omelette 
Darth Marenghi@DarthMarenghi Shouldn't this story be retitled The Eggbase?#DoctorWhoMoonScience 
*QI Klaxon* Oh, I'm going to have to deduct you 5 points, Alan. 

Darth Marenghi@DarthMarenghi I'm as unrepentant as Peter Harness himself!

Peter Harness ‏@mrpeterharness Science is different up there.

Absolutely! :-D


Still the original title sequence at this point, no Trout face yet...

Simon G@SHGB001 This was the last story originally planned/written for Hartnell. He was due to be on hols in eps 2 & 3. I think is why this is the last story to feature the Hartnell titles. Next story had Troughtons face on them.

Yes, though strangely the new theme arrangement didn't arrive until episode 2 of The Faceless Ones, making The Macra Terror something of an oddity in that respect!  
Mark Walker@Mark_Walker the Target novel of this story is one that I remember thinking was really good and wanting to see the episodes.

MAW Holmes@MAW_H Oh yes... but then Gerry does give the Doctor a cravat...


atruedrwhofan@atruedrwhofan the Second Doctor gets a cravat in The Wheel of Ice novel too. Did that author read The Moonbase novel?


Seems very likely!


So as The Moonbase begins, we've become a bit animated... 
50dw50@50dw50 do we like the animation in this one?

2nd best of all the animations, after the Invasion, for me.


Mark Walker@Mark_Walker the animations are definitely the next best thing to having the actual episodes.


50dw50@50dw50 is this the one where jamie gets eaten by the spider germs?


Leaving Atlantis, the Doctor and his friends, including new arrival Jamie McCrimmon have landed on the moon! 

50dw50@50dw50 polly looks like she is wearing a dress made of Cornish pasties
Polly thinks they've landed on Mars. Funny to think when this was made we hadn't landed on the moon... 
Mark Walker@Mark_Walker did we ever.....?

MAW Holmes@MAW_H Some say we still haven't...

Ben's space geography is terrible, though at least he recognises the moon.


The Doctor's been hanging around with Ben too long. "Go ashore" indeed. 

Jamie's spotted a base... on the moon! 

But not the whacking great spaceship spying on them from over the horizon... 
Quite possibly the most simultaneously naff and cool space suits ever!

Steve Powner ‏@StevePowner  Need one in my wardrobe lol 


It's the aviator shades that make the look. Makes them look very insectoid.



Left: Patrick Troughton in The Moonbase, Right: Bono as The Fly


Jamie's taken a tumble... 



...and a couple of moon people appear and take him into their base. Quick, after them! 
Kosmic Kris@KosmicKris I would like a hat like that! 
It's a shower cap. Wouldn't want to go into a radioactive graviton chamber without a shower cap. 

The Moonbase has problems, that guy's got the lurgy. All his veins are showing up black, his blood's infected. 

Troughton's Doctor is very cagey about the TARDIS. Unlike Davison's who shows it to all and sundry to get out of a tight spot. 


Bek Hobbes ‏@Greebobek  Intergalactic man of mystery 

We'll have a weather controlling Graviton on the moon by about 2050 apparently. Can't come soon enough. 



Oh dear, another moon man's collapsed. 

There don't seem to be any moon women anywhere on the base. What's that about? 

Kosmic Kris@KosmicKris The Moonbase gives a nod to multi-nationalism, but it still looks like it’s staffed by grumpy middle aged men!

Benoit has worked out that someone's bugging them. 


Whoever's listening has those holey plastic golf ball thingys on their arm. What ARE those thingys actually called? 

MAW Holmes@MAW_H What a load of old, erm, ballcocks...? 

March Phorwards@DaftPhully Whiffle golf balls. The Whamo company made baseballs, as well. 

Jamie's under the electronic doctor. He'll be up and chasing the electronic nurses in no time, knowing him. 

The Doctor's already got his suspicions about this mysterious affliction going round the base. 

Every time the Graviton twitches, the weather on Earth goes for a burton. Maybe we *have* got one already? 
"We could do with an extra pair of hands." The Cybermen can sort you out there, Benoit. 

Ben came make himself useful by going to the supply store to help Ralph, who's busy being menaced by silent shadows. 

When Ben leaves, Ralph is zapped by a mysterious silver interloper... 

50dw50@50dw50 Ben is wonderfully handsome, i really love this Tardis team even if polly rather wet in this one 
Though to be fair, her cocktail comes in useful!

MAW Holmes@MAW_H Madam...!

50dw50@50dw50 it helps to redeem her!


Mark Walker@Mark_Walker and her scream can repel a cyberman!


One of the 'plague' victims screams out and dies... but not before pointing the finger at "the silver hand"... 

MAW Holmes@MAW_H That's very Conan Doyle...!

There are only nineteen of them on the moon. N-n-n-nineteen. 

Polly screams as another shadow prowls around the sick bay. Jamie thinks it's the phantom piper! 

MAW Holmes@MAW_H Ah well, Jamie does only have experience of Scotland things... lucky he didn't call it the Phantom Accordionist... 

If it was Ben in the coma, it'd be the Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town.

The phantom piper is some sort of silver robot that looks a bit like those "Cybermen" from when the Doctor changed his face! 

He's not going to change again, is he? We've only just got used to Troughton, and he's really settled in well now. 

Kosmic Kris@KosmicKris clever use of that uncertainty though to throw the viewer off guard! This would have kicked things off on 1960s Twitter 

50dw50@50dw50 i rather like these Cybermen 

Have to say, I adore all the creepy pieces of stock music they use for this serial. 

Adrian Last@LeffeAt49DS It's fantastic isn't it? Used on various ITC shows - certainly The Prisoner too. 



Polly comes in and has a scream and the silver man disappears. She thinks it's a Cyberman too. 

"Stop this Cyberman nonsense!"


Thanks for the recap, Hobson. Don't know why we bothered watching episode one. 





Kosmic Kris@KosmicKris Maybe they knew there was going to be missing episodes - so popped in these handy explanations for yet to be invented DVDs

Yes, I'm sure that must be it :-D

Kosmic Kris@KosmicKris That Kit Pedler had the learning ;)


Hobson is sceptical. How can Cybermen - who were all wiped out - have got into the base? 

The Space Pirate ‏@Space_Pirate_73  A fatal mistake that others will continue to make far into the future...

Bek Hobbes ‏@Greebobek Meanwhile... The Cybermen are grooving on down to Saturday Night Fever


Timewarp? He's indicating a step to the left! Though, you can tell by the way he uses his walk he's a woman's Cyberman.

*Classic speech klaxon* 


Bek Hobbes ‏@Greebobek  "But in the meantime, let us bounce about upon the surface of the moon. Oh my giddy aunt!"
atruedrwhofan@atruedrwhofan im glad this speech survives. It really sums up the Doctor and has truly earned its place in Who history. 

Hobson gives them just 24 hours to discover the cause of the disease. 

The Controller of space command on Earth is on the blower. Sounds like a frightful bully boy, what what! 
Kosmic Kris@KosmicKris Good to see that in the operations manual of Moonbase para 2.1 “Chaps must speak like WW2 RAF Officers at all times” 
MAW Holmes@MAW_H Didn't like old Hobby... Fancied his missus. Got him out of the way by sending him to the moon... 
atruedrwhofan@atruedrwhofan oh yes. "we've got a bit of a flap on up here" always gets a giggle. 

Kosmic Kris@KosmicKris Tally Bally Ho! 


Back to a bit of whimsy for the Doctor as he winds Benoit up by taking samples from his shoes. 

50dw50@50dw50 if the cybermen already have a lovely hole in the wall of the base and are already inside why don't they just kill everyone? 

And wouldn't there be more than just a slight drop in air pressure...! Doctor Who and moon science just do not get on. 

The Cyberman returns and shocks Polly and Jamie spark out, then nicks another plague victim. 

Hobson is determined to pin all this on the TARDIS crew. 

Polly wonders if the Doctor's medical knowledge from Lister is entirely reliable. 

The Doctor sends Polly to make the coffee. Oh dear. 


Kosmic Kris@KosmicKris and probably exactly what would happen in the 1940s RAF Squadron that is the Moonbase!

Steve Powner ‏@StevePowner  At least he didn't say Polly put the kettle on

Gareth Kavanagh ‏@Garethothevworp  Oh that would have been priceless.

Who made the coffee before she turned up? There's no other women on The Moonbase for them to patronize! Mind you, at least the Doctor can trust Polly to get it right - would you trust any of these clowns to make a cup of coffee without burning the base down?


It was in the sugar & they've been dropping like flies so *someone* must have been making it! 

Steve Powner ‏@StevePowner  The Phantom Piper strikes again! 2 sugars please! 




The moon men are that thick they've probably been injecting the sugar into their eyeballs in their attempts to make coffee. 

MAW Holmes@MAW_H Wasn't Lister responsible for the vending machines on Red Dwarf #EverythingIsConnected

Bek Hobbes ‏@Greebobek  This story is pretty much an improved copy of The Tenth Planet. This should have been Hartnell's swansong.

I like that idea. I imagine Hartnell having to go into the Graviton chamber alone and overwhelmed by its forces, collapsing...

The Doctor realises the only place that hasn't been checked is the sick bay.


And sure enough, the Cybermen music starts ominously... 

Angry at having his kip disturbed, a Cyberman springs out of bed and nearly takes the whole thing with him. 
atruedrwhofan@atruedrwhofan "Back, everyone back!" Cyber jump. CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK End titles. What a cliffhanger :)

Matt Badham@mahdaBttaM Cybermen, one of the best monsters (cool and creepy) and the worst (rarely well-used). Still waiting for a good new series Cybermen story. I know you're doing the Moonbase and this is Tenth Planet but if I ran new series Who I would have gone back to the Tenth Planet Cybermen with a slightly modern 'sheen/semi-makeover'Or amalgamated Tenth Planet and Moonbase like Junkyard Demon.
Yes, they need to be more mummy-like. Moffat misses the point whinging about 'jumpers for faces' - they're surgical bandages!
Matt Badham@mahdaBttaM They're cloth, metal & flesh: a decaying race on run from their own ideological purity. Fascinating, but mostly ill-used. At a time when young people are running off to join cults the Cybermen, with all their allegorical/metaphorical possibilities, should not just be tin soldiers. And this is why, even if I worked in telly, they'd never let me run new series Who. Although... Zarbi with modern effects... imagine how creepy that would be...
I absolutely believe there are tonnes of old school monsters whose great concept could now be done justice. Though, having said that, the Silurians... :-(

50dw50@50dw50 its rather charming that they animated the bed wobble

Ooh, their voices have changed! (What did he say?) 

50dw50@50dw50 The cybermen look really good in animated form even if there dialogue seems a bit rude 

The Cybermen are running the base now. They're dead good at it too, like in the 10th Planet. Oh, wait... 


"Revenge? What is that? Show me your human feeling of 'revenge', Captain Kirk..."


Dr. Evans has risen from his sick bed to do the cybermen's bidding... Physician, upgrade thyself! 

"Clever. Clever. Clever." Love the sarky bastard cyberman.


Jamie's better now that all his rewrites are done. 

Really odd hearing the Doctor's thoughts as a voiceover track. 
 

Kosmic Kris@KosmicKris It’s no ‘Captain’s Log’ is it? 

"Doctor's 500 Year diary. Foiled a few invasions, met a few historical figures, definitely didn't rewrite history, wink wink." 

MAW Holmes@MAW_H Stopped writing before Valentine's day, year one... 

Plus some bugger seems to have ripped out most of the pages between 1964 and 1969... 

atruedrwhofan@atruedrwhofan the underwater menace had spoken thoughts too. Its interesting to see the Doctor have a chat with his inner thoughts. 

Meanwhile, Polly whips up a batch of a plastic dissolving "cocktail". 


The Cybermen plan to use the Graviton to attack Earth. This lot talk about themselves as if they are survivors of Mondas. 

The Cybermen are using their plague victims as zombie slaves, controlled via the plague & a little headset. 

The lead Cyberman (not sure he's actually a Cyberleader?) tells Hobson to shut his trap. Narky for an emotionless being... 

Here's Polly, Ben and Jamie, though, with the plastic dissolving cocktail to overcome the cybermen. Take that, moon men! 



The melted Cybermen look grim. 


Benoit goes on to the moon's surface to effect some repairs but there's a silent shadow creeping up on him... 


This Cyberman has a separate handheld gun instead of a sparky hand. But it doesn't work so Benoit legs it. 


Ben throws some Polly cocktail at its chest unit. That *does* work in a vaccuum. 



The Cybermen might not have individual names like last time out, but there are distinct characters. Sarky, Narky...

The Cybermen have decided it's time for a show of force so they turn their theme music up to 11 and march across the lunar surface. 




atruedrwhofan@atruedrwhofan  seriously love that ending and opening to 4. The fact there is about 20+ makes it very dramatic and the music is so creepy  

"They can't just march in here can they?"


"Not now we've shoved some sacks up against that hole in the base wall!" 

So far we've had Sarky Cyberman, Narky Cyberman and now on the line it's Crank-call Cyberman. "We are in it already, suckers! Lolz!" 

50dw50@50dw50 Attack of the Snider-men? 

MAW Holmes@MAW_H What about the Parky Cyberman, the one who'd sit you down and interview you to death?
Lost at the battle of the Emu.

The relief rocket's on its way, but the base is really under siege now.

Evans is up to no good again. In his shower cap. 

Evans has used the graviton to set the controls for the heart of the sun... 

The Cybermen blast a hole in the base, but they manages to whack a plate over it & the vaccuum seals it. 

You've been scienced. 
Matt Badham@mahdaBttaM How many people failed their Physics GCE from the sixties to eighties because of Doctor Who I wonder? 

Not as many as will do so now with "egg" related joke answers, I bet! 

MAW Holmes@MAW_H[KLAXON!!!] :-)

That Cyberman has a massive weapon. Fnar fnar. 

Did the Cybermen not expect that the Graviton would deflect their laser? They might be shiny but they're not the brightest. 
50dw50@50dw50 so gravity can repel light, would that much force not also shatter the Moonbase?

Tsk. This is Moon-science. Completely different.

"What will they cook up next, I wonder?" <insert egg-related joke here> 

The Doctor uses the Graviton... 

...to send the Cybermen out into space... 

...and that's the end of them. Or is it? 

And a lovely "where've that lot gone?" ending as, job done, the TARDIS crew slink off. 


They trundle back to the TARDIS in their crazy space suits. 


"Let's have a look at the time scanner that I've never used before or since!" The equivalent of the modern "Next Time" trailer. 

NEXT WEEK: Doctor Who and a bad case of crabs. 

YOU WERE ALL THINKING IT, I JUST SAID IT. 


MAW Holmes@MAW_H "Twinkle, twinkle, cybermat, now I wonder where you're at..."


Thanks for joining in everyone, you've all been very good eggs ;-P

Kosmic Kris@KosmicKris What-ho Squadron Leader! It was a wizard-wheeze of an episode. Now back to blighty!

TTFN! K.
Coming Soon... The Romans

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