The Moonbase: Doctor Who: Season 4
| SYNOPSIS |
| DETAILS |
| CAST & CREW | REVIEWS |
 Goldby |  Boland |
The Moonbase SYNOPSIS:
The Doctor and crew land on the moon in 2070. Venturing outside in spacesuits they find the moonbase, a weather control station. Jamie is injured in a fall and is placed in the sick bay. While the Doctor discovers the base has been quarantined due to crew members dying of a space virus.
The base's Gravitron controls the Earth's weather and is now difficult to maintain with a reduced crew and the afflicted men have gone missing. The Doctor discovers the 'virus ' is actually a poison in the food supplies and Jamie's ramblings of a phantom piper reveal the cybermen have infiltrated the base via the in sick bay.
The cybermen's aim is to destroy all life on Earth with the Gravitron. The virus afflicted men are now their mentally controlled zombies who break in with a squad of cybermen and take over moonbase. Ben leads an attack and manages to destroy the squad of cybermen with makeshift weapons. But this prompts an army of cybermen to attack the Moonbase in force.
If the Doctor and his human allies continue to resist and not allow the cybermen near the Gravitron, the cybermen will destroy the base.
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The Moonbase DETAILS:
| Episode | Broadcast | Run Time | Viewership (In Millions) |
| Part One | 11-Feb-67 | 24:12 | 8.1 |
| Part Two | 18-Feb-67 | 24:42 | 8.9 |
| Part Three | 25-Feb-67 | 26:11 | 8.2 |
| Part Four | 4-Mar-67 | 23:28 | 8.1 |
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The Moonbase CAST & CREW
Stars:
The Doctor:
Patrick Troughton(Second Doctor)
Companions:
Michael Craze (Ben Jackson)
Anneke Wills (Polly)
Fraser Hines (Jamie McCrimmon)
Guest Stars:
Patrick Barr — Hobson
André Maranne — Benoit
Michael Wolf — Nils
John Rolfe — Sam
Mark Heath — Ralph
Alan Rowe — Voice from Space Patrol / Dr Evans
Denis McCarthy — Voice of Rinberg
Barry Ashton, Derek Calder, Arnold Chazen, Leon Maybank, Victor Pemberton, Edward Phillips, Ron Pinnell, Robin Scott, Alan Wells, Mark Heath — Scientists
John Wills, Sonnie Willis, Peter Greene, Keith Goodman, Reg Whitehead — Cybermen
Peter Hawkins — Cybermen Voices
Production Staff for Serial HH:
Writer - Kit Pedler
Director - Morris Barry
Script editor - Gerry Davis
Producer - Innes Lloyd
Missing episodes 1 & 3
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The Moonbase REVIEWS
Goldby
Finally got round to those missing episodes. Now there's only episodes 1 & 3 of this story missing. Let's see, well first the vidfiring makes it look top notch, the picture is great but sadly although it makes it look like it was made yesterday, the fashions & designs of the time definitely look 1966, especially the 'Shower cap' headgear the Graviton operators wear. It's only the second appearance of the cybermen and they look much better and more robust then the Tenth Planet versions. Basically seems like the set up of the Troughton era of the first ever 'base under siege' plot.
Troughton is on top form with his "there are evils which must be fought" speech, Polly looks good, screams and makes lots of coffee and Ben walks around all small and tough in the worst shirt fashion the 60's had to offer and Jamie is asleep most of the time, even when he was awake he walked around pinching other characters lines here and there. It's ok but looks seriously dated compared to other surviving Troughton material. Even the cybermen are blatantly shown to be wearing footy boots. Do they play kick to kick in between invasions?
All I could find out of this story is it sort of has a claustrophobic atmosphere but why are the cybermen on the moon? Because they want a Gravitron? Why not take some photo's and go home and make their own one? Why use humans as mind controlled slaves when this time round there's clearly a dozen of them. They have already infiltrated the base why not just sneak in, take over and kill everyone? They are hiding under sheets on a hospital beds in this one. They just seem to attack at the end because they've run out of options.
Maybe it would be better if the other episodes were there to fill in the gaps..but my gut feeling says no they wouldn't in this case.
5/10
Boland
Ahhhh The Moonbase. Could have called it ‘Return of the Cybermen’ or something equally as thought provoking. Then we have some of the most imaginative costumes in the history of the series. Yes, genius – t-shirts. I guess the gravitron took the rest of the budget.This simple little story is pretty well done and presents us with a host of unbelievable accents. Good sets, new Cybermen, they must have spent a bit on this one. Then there’s the funny synchronised swimming caps, what’s with them?The effects budget was probably stretched a bit too far when it come to the flying saucers and the Cybermen floating upwards, but I have to give them credit for really pushing the boundaries of what could be achieved at the time with this one. I doubt that a plastic plate could possibly block off a hole in the dome somehow...6/10
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