The Moonbase

[1967, Season 4, Serial 6]

Doctor: Everything's got a weak point.  It's just waiting until it shows up, that's all.


The Moonbase cemented the Cybermen, the villainous silver to the Daleks' gold, as classic Who villains.  They had appeared a few stories before in The Tenth Planet, where they were the last villains faced by the First Doctor, and where their home planet of Mondas melted.  With their second outing, they showed just exactly why they make such menacing and effective villains for the Doctor.  Unfortunately, they also show the failings that crop up in nearly every adventure they show up in.

 
The TARDIS lands on the moon in the year 2070.  Donning hilarious spacesuits, the Doctor, Ben, Polly, and Jamie wander the surface, having great fun with the low gravity until Jamie injures himself.  They seek medical attention at a nearby moonbase. It's a crucial base, controlling Earth's weather with its Gravitron; losing power over the Gravitron could destroy all life on earth.  Unfortunately, a mysterious disease ravages the crew and, far worse, the cybernetic horrors from Mondas assemble outside...


Wait, wait, wait... why are they controlling Earth's weather from the moon?

Even by 60s Who standards, that's just insane.  The moon is about 250,000 miles away from the planet.  Even if the weather-controlling machines were most effective from space, why would you even consider putting it a quarter of a million miles away rather than in a close Earth orbit?  Also, the moon only faces one side of the earth at a time, which would seemingly negate controlling the whole planet effectively.  And more importantly, why would you hang control of the weather on a single base?  Wouldn't you want at least one backup?

Further, why would losing control of the weather result in the sort of catastrophic damage they suggest?  The way it's set up here, a single system failure, and the entire planet is totally wiped out.

Soon, a crisis springs out when they accidentally send a hurricane off-course.  Why, if they're controlling the weather, are they creating hurricanes?  I could be misunderstanding, I suppose - they might be keeping a natural hurricane away from land, which I can definitely believe would form on its own if they're controlling the weather from the moon.

And are they controlling the weather with a giant gravity machine?  On the moon?

Did I mention that this was written by Kit Pedler, a real scientist?  Like, with degrees and published papers and everything?

I don't need much credibility in Doctor Who.  Heck, I can roll with the Daleks planning to hollow out the Earth's core and replace it with an interstellar engine because you know what?  The Daleks are insane, and it's awesome.  I really don't need much to go on.  But controlling the weather with a gravity machine on the moon?  The setting is ludicrous in so many ways that it's difficult to get drawn into the story. 

Anyway, there's the usual "let's have nobody trust the Doctor so we can procrastinate on having an actual plot for two episodes" stuff that plagues so many of Troughton's stories.  (To be fair, this is the first time they pull that one, so points for originality, I guess.)  The moonbase leader, Hobson, comes across as fairly daft, but he's likably portrayed by Patrick Barr.  The rest of the personnel are pretty dull beyond their international makeup, which mostly consists of Andre Maranne's French accent, which I swear sounds like a spoof accent, even though he really is French.  Maybe French accents just sound silly no matter how authentic they are.  And what with the cravat and the flag on his shirt, Maranne’s Benoit is such an incredible French stereotype I kept expecting him to fight off the Cybermen with a wine bottle and baguette.

Although, notably, he doesn’t surrender.  Presumably because he already surrendered to Hobson before the serial began.

Jamie, meanwhile, is barely conscious and hallucinating, terrified of the "Phantom Piper", according to the legends of his clan the spirit who takes you away when you die.  This leads to the great cliffhanger of episode one, when a Cyberman appears in front of him and he assumes it to be the Piper.

Episode two begins with a genuinely unnerving moment when the Cyberman, after approaching the delerious Jamie, walks over to one of the diseased men and pulls him away from the bed.  The man tries to resist for a moment, then goes limp, and is carried off quietly.  It's incredibly creepy, and all the more so for how quiet it is.

Back to the weather plot and... the setup for the earth’s danger is just so unconvincing and goofy, it's hard to care.  "We can't turn off the Gravitron.  It would devastate half the globe - hurricanes, whirlwinds, storms..."  I just can't take it seriously as a threat.  It's well directed, acted, and silly enough that it isn't boring, but it doesn't work.
Then the Cyberman returns and again, silently takes away one of the diseased men.  And again, its appearance is really frightening. 

The rest of the episode mostly involves more of the hilarious spacesuits to do something or other and get captured by the Cybers or something, I don't know, I was way too busy laughing.  There's also a slapstick bit with the Doctor trying to collect pieces of evidence and accidentally stealing someone's shoe.  It's amusing, but not half as funny as the spacesuits.

And again, the episode recovers with a gripping second cliffhanger as Hobson argues with the Doctor that they searched the entire base and haven't found any sign of the Cybermen.  The Doctor then looks around the medical ward and asks, "Did your people search in here?"  Patrick Troughton's delivery is riveting, and their slow search around the room builds very skillfully, until finally, the Cyberman is revealed, and the credits roll.  Granted, it doesn't make much sense, but I'll let the punch of the moment overcome that problem here.

And then... and then the Cyberman starts talking, and the more it talks, the less scary and less interesting it gets.  It turns out they just want to wipe out all life on earth.  They claim it isn't for revenge, but to "remove all danger."  (they plan to do this with the weather control.  Which is situated on the moon.) They also show strong signs of emotion, particularly the Cyberman gloating about his own cleverness - pure pride.  Further, they're incredibly stupid: they recognize the Doctor, but pretty much give him free rein to defeat their plans, and they don't realize until very late in episode 3 that their guns don't work in the vacuum of space.
 

What made them so creepy in The Tenth Planet was the very concept: these are people who kept replacing various organs and body parts until they were more machine than human, until finally they removed their own emotions, leaving little more than a human brain controlling a machine.  But they don't want to wipe out humanity: they want to make us like them because they believe it will improve our lives.  It's a great concept, and it adds a lot of creepiness to their appearances in episode 2 when they take people away to be converted.  Similarly, their cunning use of the disease is very effective.  But when their goal is just "destroy earth", they become B-rate Daleks without the crazed ambition, bizarre personalities, and unique, iconic design that makes those creatures so special.

To be fair, even as that, they are very physically threatening, and they work as villains.  They just don't live up to their potential.  Episode three picks up when the still-recovering Jamie teams up with Ben and Polly to try to take care of the Cyber-threat.  Up until now, the companions haven't really had anything to do, and they don't really have much to do afterward, but there's a nice segment where they work together, and it's one of the few occasions when the Doctor having three companions actually works.

Jamie suggests destroying the Cybermen with Holy Water (awesome!), which goes on to inspire Polly's ingenius low-tech way of fighting the Cybers.  Ben is also given a lot of usefulness in the scene.  It's an excellent bit that uses all three companions very effectively as a team.  I like their interaction afterwards:

Ben: Now, we'll need another one of these.
Jamie: Right, I'll get it.
Ben: No, you stand where you are.
Polly: Jamie, you're not well enough.
Jamie: It takes more than a wee crack on me head to keep a McCrimmon down.
Ben: Look, mate, we don't want you crackin' up on us.  I'm sure Polly's very impressed, but...
Jamie: I said I was better!  Now, you like me to prove it to you?
Ben: Anytime, mate.
Polly: Look, come on, haven't we got enough trouble without you two fighting each other?
Jamie: Well, I go!
Ben: Come on, then. [pause] Not you, Polly!  This is men's work.

That's a lot of characterization in a small bit of dialogue, aided by the actors.  Next time we see them, Polly insists on coming along, of course, and they argue a bit.  Ben doesn't need much convincing - after all, he knows she's perfectly capable.  Jamie gives up once Ben does and they attack. 

For all the problems the Cybermen have, again, they're certainly physically intimidating, and the companion's assaults are very exciting.  Their improvised weapons melt the Cybermen's life support systems, making their deaths a little disturbing, adding to the episode's overall emotional effect. (I'm really glad that shot survives in an otherwise missing episode)  Ben's rescue of Benoit a few minutes later is also excellent, as he figures out how to make the liquid attack work in the vacuum outside.

And then we get a cool scene of an army of Cybermen marching on the moonbase, which, again, is a very strong cliffhanger.  If nothing else, Cybermen make excellent cliffhangers. (this is really borne out in episode 4, when the cliffhanger for the next serial, The Macra Terror, falls totally flat) These are powerful, iconic images that make The Moonbase more memorable than it deserves.

The fourth episode builds very nicely as we await the Cyber attack... and nothing really comes of it.  They have a great plan at one point: shoot a hole in the station, causing the air to suck out.

Out heroes' solution: stuff a shirt in the hole.

Oddly enough, this works.  For several seconds.  Then it gets sucked out.  Finally, they put a glass plate up, and the crisis is completely resolved and never mentioned again.

Problem solved!  Back to work, people!

Which begs the question: even if that wasn't idiotic on several levels, why don't the Cybermen just make a second hole?  They do make an attempt some minutes later, by which point the Doctor has come up with a (ridiculous) solution, but why didn't they do it right away?  The entire sequence is great conceptually, but terribly executed.

Other things happen in the fourth episode, most equally dumb.  Benoit could have actually started fighting the Cybermen with a baguette and it wouldn't have lost any credibility.

The Cybermen get one of the diseased crewmen to take control of the gravitron, which would be very tense if he didn't just easily walk past everyone, despite not only having his nerves growing out of his face, but having a Cyber-hat-thing on his head, and obviously being deranged.  But he just saunters into the gravitron control...

Eventually, the Doctor solves the problem in a cartoonish finale, and the story wraps up very lightheartedly.

I kinda sound like I didn't like the episode, and I certainly wasn't a huge fan - it is pretty stupid.  But it's very watchably, entertaingly stupid.

And there's a lot of really good stuff in here.  When it focuses on the Cybermen being creepy, it's terrific.  The companions' counterattack in episode 3 is thrilling.  The stock music is excellent throughout, and the modelwork on the base itself is superb.  Frazier Hines doesn't have much to do as Jamie, and with Polly and Ben around, he hasn't really had time to develop the relationship with the Doctor that ultimately made him so engaging, but he's still very likable throughout.  Michael Craze and Anneke Wills don't have much more to really do than he does, but they make everything they can of the material given them.  Troughton is excellent, as usual.  The moon exterior is pretty decent.  And it's never boring, whatever else it may be.  While it may not be a good serial overall, it's pretty enjoyable.

... but are they controlling the weather with a gravity machine on the moon?

RATING:

* * ½


 SIDENOTES:

• The Cybermen recognize the Doctor, but he says they're "New to him," which is a nice little detail - the Cybermen have met the Second Doctor in their past, but his future.  This would be much cooler if they didn't let him free so he could easily defeat them...
• I love the telescope in the background of the base.  I like to think that even in an incredibly high-tech base of the future, they still have a low-tech telescope sitting on the observation deck.  Near the end, it becomes more important because it turns out that other than the gravitron, this is a pretty low-tech base, but hey, gotta love the idea.

• For what it's worth, the reconstruction of the two missing episodes I watched was an excellent one done by johnnyfanboy on Youtube.
• Regardless of my reaction, this is a very important story.  It really established the formula for the Troughton era.  
• It established the Base Under Siege format as the usual go-to plot.  It had shown up earlier in the season in Tenth Planet and Power of the Daleks, but this really shows what an all-purpose set-up it is - the perfect setting for any monster, even if the story overall wasn't as effective here than in those.  Formulaic stupidity is much more sustainable than the What-In-The-Void-Are-We-Doing plotlessness of The Highlanders or the fairly dull stupidity of The Underwater Menace. The over-reliance on this story device is one of the greatest problems with the Troughton era, since it de-emphasizes his revolutionary characteristics and makes the whole thing incredibly repetitive, but that doesn't make it unimportant.
• It also emphasizes that the era is, in many ways, about the monsters.  The First Doctor had numerous non-monster stories -- the various historicals, Planet of Giants, The Space Museum, arguably The Sensorites, depending on your definition of "monster" -- and outside of the Daleks, it struggled to come up with particularly memorable ones when it did go for it. (*cough cough chubblies cough*) With Troughton, on the other hand,  we get Macra, Chameleons, Cybermen, Yeti, Ice Warriors, Cybermen, and even Cybermen.  It's something carried down to the present day - the non-monster stories are the exceptions.  I suppose in that way, it shaped much of what the show became for more than 40 years.
• It gives Troughton his first watchable story where he's more or less stabilized from the regeneration.  He's still chaotic and unpredictable, but he doesn't seem like quite as much of a danger to his companions.
• All that doesn't make my like it any more - it's still just okay - but I do appreciate its place in context much better, and see its importance.

The Invasion

The Invasion

[1960 - Season 6, Serial 3]

So, if you watch the Patrick Troughton stories in order, there's a tendency to get a little burnt out.  Part of it is just how much of his first two seasons are missing, but this isn't the real problem.  The real problem is that from The Moonbase in the midst of season 4 until Wheel In Space at the end of 5, they're all exactly the same.  Except for David Whitaker's Evil of the Daleks and Enemy of the World, every episode is, literally, just The Moonbase: a small base is put under siege by a monstrous outside threat, but the stubborn leader of the base refuses, absolutely refuses, to listen to the Doctor about the threat, allowing the monsters to thrive.  Except in different locations, (sometimes) different monsters, and usually stretched to six episodes by making the base leader take even longer to listen.

It's not that these stories are bad.  All of them are at least moderately entertaining, and two of them - Web of Fear and Fury From the Deep - are superlative.  But they're so endlessly repetitive that by the time you get to Season 6, you're pretty burnt out.  And then you start 6, with the constant bases under siege behind you, and you get The Dominators.  Which isn't quite as bad as its reputation, but only because its reputation equates it with Time and the Rani and Fear Her.  The Mind Robber is, incredibly, brilliant enough to redeem all this, but it's a long, hard road.

Patrick Troughton himself was pretty burned out, and had already decided that Season 6 would be his last.  Producer Innes Lloyd had moved on, leaving Derrick Sherwin as producer; Sherwin, too, wanted to move on.  He was also presented a show with mediocre ratings, far below the heyday of the early Hartnell years, and an uncertain future.  The Invasion was created as an attempt to prove the viability of a new format idea: modern-day earth-set stories, which had been tried out already in The War Machines and (much more successfully) The Web of Fear.

This isn’t an idea I’m terribly fond of in theory: after all, part of the attraction of Doctor Who is that you have literally all of time and space at your disposal.  That said, it’s an understandable viewpoint that having literally everything, writers can easily fall into a rut of what they did last time.  It’s like one of my favorite movie quotes, from Legend of 1900: “On a piano with 88 keys, you can play an infinity of songs, but on a piano with infinite keys, there’s not a song you can play.”  So I suppose giving it such tight restrictions in theory would force the writers to be creative.

Granted, the writers ended up frustrated because there’s just only so much you can do with the Doctor on modern-day earth, all of which had been done by the end of their first season, and they kept trying desperately to come up with excuses to get him off-world.  But that’s in the future…

The Invasion has the Doctor land on Earth after barely surviving the events of The Mind Robber.  Also, having a rocket fired at them in orbit around the moon, which is a bit unusual, given that they’re in the ‘60s. (…or is it the ‘70s?) The Doctor, along with his companions, 18^th century Scotsman teen Jamie and 24^th century math genius teen Zoe, find that International Electromatics and its owner, Tobias Vaughan, are clearly up to no good whatsoever, but what, exactly, is going on?

You can tell he's evil because he can't open his eye all the way.

The Invasion is a well-structured, well-written action yarn, filled with vivid characters and exciting set-pieces.  It also benefits tremendously from one of Doctor Who's secret weapons, Douglas Camfield.  Camfield was, without question, one of the three greatest classic Who directors, and he drives The Invasion forward with an electrifying energy and atmosphere.

The TARDIS crew stumbles onto a vast conspiracy involving a secret alien invasion carried out by an electronics company.  They also meet a photographer,  Isobel, who is very well drawn and totally likable.  She’s one of those occasional supporting characters so likable you almost wish they would join and become a companion themselves.

It also helps that the second Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe all work very well together, and the actors have wonderful chemistry.  These are all fun characters, both together and individually.  Even with all the conspiratorial plotting and shadowy figures, it's them (along with Isobel) that carry the early episodes.

And then, there's Tobias Vaughan, the central villain of the piece, and an absolutely fantastic one, thanks largely the Kevin Stoney's wonderfully oily performance. Vaughan has been planning and aiding a secret alien invasion for years, quietly biding his time to double-cross his allies and take over the world himself.  It’s the sort of motivation that can be dull, but Stoney gives him life and depth, while remaining creepily unnerving.  His dialogues with Troughton absolutely crackle.

And then, in episode four, when the story really gets rolling, it's a doozy.  The twist at the end of episode four was spoiled for me (and, in fact, everything in the world has gone out of its way to spoil it for everyone, but I have some integrity for spoiling 41-year-old low-budget TV programs), but it’s still very cool.

SPOILER

It’s Cybermen.  Totally Cybermen.  They’re even more threatening than usual and very well used, mostly because they barely appear.  Their few scenes onscreen are gripping, and their emergence from the sewers is one of the iconic Who scenes from the ‘60s for good reason.

END SPOILER

What makes the surprise villains really work, oddly enough, is that they’re kept in the background.  The central villains are Vaughan and the beautifully designed computer controller. 

The awesome computer controller.

Patrick Troughton’s Second Doctor is near his peak here.  Troughton had an occasional tendency to be too clownish or overdo the bluster and bumbling.  But he has the mixture perfect here: just enough of the bluster to give humor and even vulnerability to the Doctor, but plenty of his darker, more serious side.  It’s a blast.

And the gradual reveal of the plot is terrific.  Episode four is absolutely gripping, building to a great cliffhanger.  The next two episodes match it for suspense, leading to that classic cliffhanger in episode six.  Those three episodes are just brilliant.  I especially like the long period of silence just before the invasion begins.

Unfortunately, the resolution isn’t nearly as strong.  The ideas are all good, but the desperate attempt to stop the invasion by the few conscious humans are far less riveting than they should be.  Camfield still fills it with exciting scenes, but the writing in the closing episodes just doesn't match that in the first six.  Still, the scenes of Troughton and Vaughan running through Cybermen-infested building complexes are great, and the stuff with the rockets is good.  It's not quite as thrilling or engaging as it should be, but it's still fun.

Especially this bit right here.

And its importance to the show is noteworthy: it was the dress rehersal for the early Perwee years, and it works pretty well.  It’s always a delight to see Lethbridge-Stewart (only a Colonel here), thanks to Nicholas Courtney’s always wonderful performances.  UNIT is fairly well-served in its first real appearance, and it’s obvious even here why Courtney became one of the regulars in the ‘70s.   

And look!  Sergeant, er... Corporal Benton!

A great yarn, all in all.

RATING:

* * * ½

SIDENOTES

·        I like the scene where Zoe kills computer with uncalculatable problems.  It’s a good variation on an idea that’s become a joke.

·        The music is strange.  It was written by Don Harper instead of series regular Dudley Simpson.  For a while, it’s good if a bit bizarre, coming off as a clever, eclectic way of approaching the series.  Unfortunately, while Harper’s music is fine during quiet suspense scenes, it’s poor during action, and ruins several key moments.

·        There’s a great little moment foreshadowing the Seventh Doctor: the Doctor here seems to know (or at least strongly suspect) exactly what’s going on pretty early, but refuses to tell his companions.  Later, when he tells Zoe, she says, “That’s what you suspected, isn’t it?”  The Doctor sort of avoids her gaze, and the scene moves on.  Obviously, it isn’t to the same extreme, since Ace eventually started getting outright furious at Seven’s constant manipulations of everyone, including her.

·        I praised Stoney very highly up there, and I’d like to emphasize how much his skilled, intriguing, and nicely restrained performance adds to the story.  But there is a moment in Episode 5 when he goes way, way over the top, and it doesn’t work at all.

This may just be the funniest moment in the story.

 ·        Love this dialogue between Isobel and the Brig:

ISOBEL: All I need is my cameras from the house and I’m all set.

BRIGADIER: Well, now, wait a minute.  This is hardly a job for you.

ISOBEL: Whyever not?

BRIGADIER: Well, uh, you’re a young woman.  This is a job for my men.

ISOBEL: Of all the bigoted, antifeminist, cretinous remarks!

BRIGADIER: This is no job for a girl like you, that’s final!

ISOBEL: Why, you… you… you Man!

·        Many of the ‘60s episodes are missing due to the BBC’s policy of wiping tapes for re-use in the ‘70s, apparently never thinking that people might want to watch them again.  Fortunately, fans recorded the audio of every missing episode during the original transmissions, so we have the sound from every missing episode.  For The Invasion, the missing episodes (1 & 4) were recreated for the DVD with flash animation, and for the most part, it works pretty well.

The Doctor, Jamie, and Bad Guy in cartoon form.

They generally do a nice job of following the filming styles of the series while occasionally taking advantage of the medium to do shots they never could have had the time or money for in the actual filming.

It doesn’t work as well in the scene following the above, unfortunately; bad guys shooting machine guns at the roof the good guys are standing on should be exciting and dynamic, but it feels like they ran out of time before this scene.  Ah well; most of it works beautifully.

·        Amongst its other special features, the DVD has the filmed narrations from Nicholas Courtney covering the missing material in episodes 1 & 4 created for the 1993 VHS release.  This is a nice addition anyway, but I smiled when I saw in the credits that John Nathan-Turner wrote and produced the linking material.  It’s always nice to remember that for all the mistakes JNT made producing the show (and he made some doozies), he really, truly cared about Doctor Who and did many things right.  Here, even years after the show was cancelled, he was still pouring his time and effort into a show that had practically become his life for over a decade.