Time Stream #33 - The Moonbase

          I feel a little rusty in doing a Time Stream entry. Has it really been ten months? Yes, yes it has been close to a year, so I guess a little rustiness is to be expected. However, here we go!

          I’m welcomed back to my quest of watching every story with the mixed bad that is “The Moonbase”. I say it’s a mixed bag because while there are a lot of good things in it, I liked them just as well when they were used in “The Tenth Planet”. There are some updates to the Cybermen both visually and in their characterization in this story, but there is so much that is reused that it detracts from the story overall.

          What does not detract is the performance of Patrick Troughton. What a marked difference from his turn in “The Underwater Menace”! The character seemed firmly in place, he seemed at ease in his portrayal, and gone are the forced “character” bits that seemed to weigh down his portrayal of the Doctor, rather than enhance it. No funny hats, no ridiculous disguises, it’s just “The Doctor” in all his sublime Troughton-ness.

          Let me ease back into my Time Streams with my go-to entry enhancer, a list of things which, for good or ill, I will remember from this story.

1) I adore the groovy spacesuits and goggles that the TARDIS crew wears to explore the lunar surface. Totally impractical, and one of the most “60’s” thing in this story.

2) I like the redesign of the Cybermen here, although some design decisions are a bit hard to swallow. The tubing and wiffle ball look is a little bit sketchy, but the three fingered hands, while impractical, are a creepy new look. Also, thumbs up for the “buzzy” voices!

3) The Cybermen recognize the Doctor here. It happens almost without question in later years, but it’s a weird little moment here. Does this Doctor meet them later in his timeline but earlier in theirs?

4) Polly. Anneke Wills is a joy to watch as Polly, being the gung ho, let’s-do-all-we-can character. Ben seems there just to get riled up, and poor Jamie is still reduced to a lot of unconscious and bed-ridden scenes. Like in “Menace” we can chalk it up to the late addition of Jamie to the cast of characters, but he really needs Ben and Polly to get out before he really starts seeing larger pieces of the action.

5) OK, I need to ask. If “Polly Cocktail” is SO powerful that it dissolves the chest unit of a Cyberman, how does the bottle that holds it stay a bottle?? Shouldn’t that dissolve into a melty clump?

6) It will come back again in later stories, but I really like the Cybermen theme. It’s an evocative little tune and I’d kind of like to see it make a reappearance in the modern show.

          “The Moonbase”, overall, works. My main problem with it is the “base under siege” that we get here is really, REALLY like the one in “The Tenth Planet”. I don’t have a problem with stories being similar, but the international crew, the Cybermen march across the moon, the incompetence of Earth authorities. It’s just enough to detract from the story as I sat there half remembering scenes from “The Tenth Planet”. I guess a better word would be distracting. But the cast is all on point, the Cybermen themselves are wonderfully creepy, and I’ll even excuse the weird “bouncing on the moon” sound effect that sounded more like a Hanna Barbera cartoon. This write up was a long time coming, but in the end, it was good to slip back into the series with something familiar, even if that familiarity was a bit heavy handed.

NEXT EPISODE: The Macra Terror