I think this is possibly one of the best stories of Season 4. It's a complete rewrite of The Tenth Planet but superior in every way. For a start The Doctor is at the forefront of the action rather than taking a back seat and the improved Cybermen design is much better than on their debut.

What I like about this story is the atmosphere, which in conjunction with the creepy incidental music portrays a real sense of menace, like towards the end of Part 2 where The Doctor is searching the beds and realises there's a Cyberman in the room. I also like that Cybermen Theme which also adds to the tension. Plus the scenes set on the Moon's Surface which actually look quite realistic for 60's Who. The music used for those scenes, which originated from The War Machines, adds to the story as well.

I also think this is the story Troughton really gets to grip with playing The Doctor and we see less of the clowning about which dominates his first three stories. I think it's from this point on that we see his more standard interpretation of the Second Doctor.

And the excess companions is well highlighted here with Jamie practically knocked out for two episodes and when he does recover, he ends up line sharing with Ben again.

It's a shame the whole story doesn't exist but from the two surviving episodes it sure looks as if it was a good one.

With only 2 missing episodes i really hope they give it the Invasion treatment . if only to get more screen time for those space helmets .

agreed, I know some people will argue the missing 2 episodes are on the Lost in Time, dvd but with so little Troughon in the archives it would be nice to get another story out on dvd even if 2 of it's 4 episodes are animated. I remember first reading The Cybermen (which was it's Target book title) way back when I was just a kid and first saw it's two very grainy surviving episodes on the Cybermen Early years video and enjoying them.

It must of been quite a surprise for the viewers at the time to of seen the Cybermen undergo such a radical re-design and I have to say the these Cybermen are amongst my favorite design.

I agree with Davey about the two missing episodes as The Moonbase, looks to be one of the best Cybermen strory of the classic series. And of course it contains one of The Doctors most memorable speechs when he tells Polly about places in the Universe that have bread the most hrrible evil and must be fought,

I have to disagree. I think the original Cyberman design is still the greatest. They were prefectly sinister and unsettling as CyberMEN in that story. With each reappearance they seemed to become more and more ike robots. I think the ones seen in the Moonbase are still excellent compared to later versions but the downgrade had already started.

Regarding the story itself: it's no.2 in a series of identical Cyberman stories beginning with 'The Tenth planet' and ending with 'The Wheel in Space'.

I think that novel perfectly captured the feel of the transmitted story. Very few novels do that but for some reason a lot of the Troughton novels did.


Why doesn't that surprise me?!

All I'll say to that is the original design is far from awful. As I said in the other thread, there was enough there to make them menacing. These later designs that covered this, Tomb and The Wheel In Space are more effective and look less cumbersome as well. I see where you're coming from on the man side of it but for me the less man they showed the more scary they were.

Isn't this the story where the Doctor has a spoken conversation with his own thoughts in one scene? That was a bit odd but I can't quite remember what it was about.

Jamie was out of it for a while but his 'Phantom Piper' bit was a nice way to move the plot along towards discovery of the Cybermen without actually getting there.

I honestly don't do it on purpose! Actually, we do both agree on one important Doctor Who issue: we're both big fans of the classic series.

The Wheel in Space Cybermen are downright weird. They're basically wearing fetish gear, but no-one seems to have noticed! They have corsets, thongs and suspenders on and little moue lipstick mouths. Basically, 1920s prostitutes. I've always found it odd that no-one ever talks about this bizarre design.

http://windycitynerd.files.wordpress...yber_wheel.jpg

Absolutely! It's always good to read other opinions from my own.

As for the Cybermen design, can't really say I've noticed it that much really, I mean I've noticed the changes but none of that, will have to watch more closely in future......

I hadn't noticed the Wheel fetishness either ...!

Moonbase is rather fun. Nice to watch/listen to the whole thing. There's a sense of a community on the Moonbase, adn the Cybermats are creepy.

I rather like Moonbase and Wheel, even though they're rather similar, and I have never understood their bad reputation. They're old fashioned sci-fi with space rockets and moon walks, and they're both quite cute, all-in-all.

Hi Daveyboy,

I've listened/ watched the first three episodes of this last night on the Lost in Time DVD and agree with everything you say. I love it !
The Cybermen are creepy and the musical notes when they are around in really add to the atmosphere. Their voices are quite creepy. (I notice when they speak they pronounce every word and syllable).

Only thing I will say which is unrelated to the actual story is when listening to the audio episodes I would have like some direction whether pictures, written or spoken as to what was happening. I think this is a poor oversight.

Glad you enjoyed the story, it certainly is a good one.

How did you listen to this story? If you buy the CD or look on a certain website, you can find telesnaps with audio commentary at the same time. May be worth checking it out. As is the case for a lot of the other missing stories.

I fell in love with the book. Got the book,the vhs/DVD/the audio release. Looking forward to being able to own a 5th version of this story.

First of all it is fantastic to get to see this story, it has two animated episodes and the two surviving episodes. There is a nice balance to the four-parter, with the first and third being animated. On first watch I couldn't wait to see how the animation was an accurate or sympathetic recreation of the episode.

In general it is my favourite of all the animations I have seen, I do think as well the soundtrack available to the animators is quite favourable, say compared to the Ice Warriors. But also The Moonbase has enough detail to include, and of course the Cybermen themselves to see how they are replicated in the animation. The number of different characters also makes judging the detail of the animation favourable, and they are some good ones. Benoit, Jensen and Hobson are really captured well by the animators. Polly from the TARDIS crew is particularly well done, to the point where her animation is slightly more attractive, no mean feat either . The Doctor is captured well also.

Watching the animations leads me to the soundtrack, as I get a real feel for the soundtrack of the story whenever I watch the animated episodes in Doctor Who. Just due to the watching process as they are slightly more static action wise, hence focusing on the audio more. I like it and it is very much like a lot of late 60s musical scores, this allied to the eerieness of the sounds they have for the Cybermen and when the plague on the humans kicks in, it makes for a great overall soundtrack. I also liked the stomping type sound effect when the Cybermen were marching on mass over the moon's surface.

So to the story and plot, what I like about 1960s science fiction is some of the fantastical, sensational ideas you find. Here we have the Earth's weather controlled by a base on the Moon's surface by a device called the Gravitron. Need I say more, just like T-Mat being used to conquer Earth in The Seeds of Death, the Cybermen therefore have the human race's achilles heel to attack. Interesting to note here that in this serial the Cybermen's ambition in doing this is to eliminate a threat over conversion. Some conversions take place in trying to capture the operation of the Gravitron but basically they are quite happy to flatten the base if necessary.
The story ticks by at a steady rate, the third part has the most going on and contains most of my favourite parts. I go back to the cliffhanger at the end of this episode of the Cybermen emerging over the moon's surface. It is one of the iconic scenes of the Second Doctor era along with the Cybermen emerging in the streets of London with St Paul's Cathedral in the background.
My favourite moment is when we hear the Doctor's thoughts and answering himself in whispers. Very innovative and bringing the viewer into the action as it were.
I did like the attempt to give the Moonbase an international feel, however, the character Becket has a New Zealand flag on his suit yet he speaks in perfect Queens English, not a hint of a Kiwi accent.

When I watched this the first time I had a feeling that the Doctor was not it all that much, on rewatching I realised it is just his performance that is different. It is a very serious performance indeed The Moonbase as a story is a serious story, and on watching the Special Feature documentary it is stated that Morris Barry made every effort to tone down Patrick's performance.

With Ben and Polly I was really interested to see them in another story as they have limited stories available to watch them in. Polly gets much more scope and has several good moments, I like her questioning the Doctor's medical skills acquired in 1888 and the whole Polly Cocktail scenes, this brings me to Ben. I can't really judge him as a companion all that much as even though he gets much more than Jamie to do, he is a bit of a victim of there being three companions and the sidelining that can occur. I did like the Ben and Jamie squaring up to each other, and with Jamie his Phantom Piper ramblings on seeing the Cyberman coming towards him.

A very enjoyable, albeit reasonably straightforward base under siege type story. Well paced generally with a decent level of menace in the Cybermen.
Anyone who has not seen this or wants a story to dip into and sample the Patrick Troughton era, I would certainly recommend this one. Get yourself a copy now

Having watched all the animations now, I can honestly say that The Moonbase was one of the best that I watched. As you say, Part 3 was annoying in telesnaps as this was the episode that contained the most action and to see it animated just made the story so much more complete. I also enjoyed Part 1's animation when the TARDIS crew are bouncing about all over the moon in their suits so it's good we can see that as well.

I would certainly agree that it's worth a watch and would recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen the story yet.

The moonbase is definitely the best animated dvd. One thing that bugs me a bit is they have animated a star field for the moon scenes but on the surviving episodes its just black. The animation probably corrects production errors.. You probably would have seen the wires when they are jumping around in episode 1 and the cybermens mouths are in synch with the voices.

They seemed to have upped their game with the animations, I have just watched The Ice Warriors animated episodes, and the difference is quite marked.
Love the bouncing on the Moon scene, good light hearted fun, the sound effect they used to accompany it made me grin as well.


Very good point about correcting production errors, makes all these animated episodes great to watch I suppose.

Well I certainly had fond memories from first watching this story about three years ago and it certainly was as good as I remember watching it again. I know there's a lot of talk on these forums about how common 'the base under siege stories' would become but at this stage of watching I don't feel jaded by the format yet.




Hi Doublefour I agree totally about your favourite moment, very innovative and good to hear the Doctor's thought processes which we don't see in detail usually.

I must admit I didn't watch the animations for the missing episodes but the Loose Cannon recons and this is another story I'd love to see back in full. The episode 3 cliff hanger is pretty special with the shot of the Cybermen's feet. Morris Barry did a great job directing.

onwards to the Macra !