Of course we watched the beautifully restored BBC DVD which features the reanimated eps 1 & 3.
Just a few too many physical science oopsies for mine.
Troughton is in his element as the Doctor now, while Polly is the put upon coffee girl but she comes up with the chemical Cyber attack plan in ep3.
The Moonbase is a workplace health and safety nightmare at nearly every turn. (e.g. Send 2 guys out on the lunar surface to check the antenna. They get killed by passing cybermen then forgotten about for nearly a whole episode before "Oh wait a sec, what happened to those guys? Oh well....") The basic design of the Gravitron control room seems to consume human beings as a resource. WHY? Build some robots FFS. Offer the job to some Cybermen? No wonder so many people are hurt or seriously killed in that place. Critical path planning and incident management is a fucking disgrace. The management should be sacked.
The characters of the various crew members in the base are pretty cardboard and forgettable. Hobson's character is the sort of lackadaisical boss who needs to be one of the first sacked. He lacks knowledge, he makes up stuff on the spot, he blames others when things go wrong. The guy is appalling. Unlike Cutler of Snowcap he does not have any familial protection motivation behind his craziness. So er.....
I wonder if the international crew thing is a nod towards Star Trek which had been going in the US for nearly 6 months when this was shown. The scriptwriters in DW obviously misunderstood the thing about women and coloureds but the international thing is obvious here where it wasn't at Snowcap.
The 'chemistry' of the "Polly Cocktail"is cack brained.
The acetone should be enough boys and girls. The adding of other stuff will just make it melt cyber plastic less quickly (i.e. reduce efficacy). Neither benzene or ethyl alcohol will dissolve plastic quickly... but they might catch fire. Given that the 'let's add more stuff' bit is arguably Ben's idea then Polly is not to blame I guess. The 'let's test it and see thing' is actually glorious though.
The handling and the delivery of the chemical is very thoughtless and cavalier too but possibly justifiable in terms of a combat situation. Given this is a kid's viewing show I am amazed there were no complaints about misuse of dangerous substances. (e.g. hey kids, let's squirt dangerous solvents in each other's eyes and blame the dog...) The first recorded complaints about horror and violence in DW are due later in 1967 and they will concern much more abstract problems.
Ben is right about using the Polly cocktail sprayer in a low pressure/vacuum environment late in ep 3. It would vaporise too quickly and be ineffective. But the modification shown (put it in a glass bottle and make a sort of 'water bomb' out of it) is not likely to work any better.
I'd have tried something very hot.
Tip: Radiant and Conductive Heat works in a vacuum. (Convective heat rather less well.) Is there an electrocautery rig in the medical bay? Or better still a microwave diathermy unit? What about a toaster? No? Well have a look in the tool shed for an electric arc welder. If you can carry it around it would absolutely wallop one of these early Cyberman. Boil their plastic surfaces and membranes and cut through their metal skin like soap suds. There's a thermonuclear (i.e. fusion) reactor power source running the Gravitron according to Ben. Enough current to burn and keep burning. Hook it up.....
The physics of deflecting a laser beam or photon energy weapon (of the Cybermen's in ep 4) with a gravity 'beam' or gravity field is at best a bit airy fairy.
Methinks Dr Kit Pedler, scientific adviser, is not working so well here. Maybe in the 60's fooling about with scientific and technical ideas was something you could let pass in drama terms. Problem is none of these ideas have suddenly become known since 1967 so "it was different back then" IS NOT an excuse. As SF this is kinda sloppy.
The plot is probably the worst aspect of this story. It's simple base under siege stuff obviously but consists of little more than the Cybermen attempting to sneak into the base to steal bodies or take them over (a couple of times), then they mount a full on march in and take over strategy. And the Cybermen fail easily each time. It's not compelling stuff.
When the Gravitron is turned on the Cybs in ep4 they gain upward momentum somehow and... is it antigravity that propels them from the surface of the moon? Why don't the rocks and dust near them do the same? In fact why doesn't the whole Moonbase fly upwards as well?
The music is atmospheric and sets a spooky, spacey mood. (Big improvement over The Underwater Menace.)
The sets in the Moonbase were quite futuristic and convincing. The lack of computers is strange looking to 21st century eyes. Similarly the knobs and buttons are all weirdly analogue. A major advantage of the base under siege story is that the meagre budget can be used on the single big set. This feature is taken **full** advantage of here.
This was the highest rating DW story in the Troughton era in the UK. (8-9 millions.)
The last episode was the first to be made when the production was moved back to Lime Grove Studio D. What a depressing come-down that would have been....
ABM Rating 2.50/4.00
LJM Rating 4.25/5.00
SPJ Rating 7.00/10.00
No. 8 (out of 33)
Link to Cumulative Rankings
Rankings Scoreboard
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