As soon as I saw Kit Pedler credited as the writer for today's story, The Moonbase, I knew I was in good hands. He pitched the idea that led to The War Machines, and he also wrote The Tenth Planet. Where The Underwater Menace was a mishmash of amateur science fiction tropes thrown into a blender with no artfulness or even logical coherence, Pedler writes stories with a hard scientific edge and clearly defined characters. The only downside to the story is that the scripts had already been completed before Frazer Hines was asked to join the regular cast as Jamie McCrimmon. That leads to some issues.

Let's talk about that.

The Moonbase - Episodes 1 & 2

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

So how do you handle the fact that you have a fourth major recurring character in a script written for three? Well, you offload a few lines in the first scene from Ben to Jamie, and then you have Jamie promptly injure himself and spend most of the rest of the story either unconscious or else feverishly mumbling in the sick bay. Problem solved. You would think that would really diminish Jamie's contribution to the story, but I think they actually found quite a clever way to make him more relevant with very few lines or actions. More on that in a bit.

The story opens with the TARDIS materializing on the moon circa 2070, nearby an international weather control facility that uses a gravitronic beam to alter and optimize the Earth's weather patterns. The Doctor and companions go out in pressure suits to explore, and Jamie gets a little over-exuberant with his low gravity leaping. Thus he winds up inside the base sick bay recovering from his injury, while the rest of the group get embroiled in the unfolding drama. Base personnel have begun getting sick with a strange illness that leaves spidery black markings on their face and arms, and the weather control device has begun acting up. Soon enough people are actually dying, and the bodies are disappearing.

In the sick bay, Jamie keeps ranting about seeing the "Phantom Piper", who is his clan's equivalent of the Grim Reaper. He is convinced that he has died, and that the Phantom Piper is coming to carry him away. In fact, it is a Cyberman that is sneaking into the infirmary and carrying off the bodies. I am sure that the original script called for one of the scientists stricken by the virus to become feverish and to mumble about hallucinations of a strange figure in the room, but offloading that function to Jamie really ramps up the drama.

By the midpoint of the story, the Doctor has correctly deduced that he virus is being spread through contaminated sugar from the base storeroom. He also realizes that there has been a Cyberman hiding in plain sight all along in the infirmary, pretending to be one of sheet-covered bodies on the beds there. By the midpoint of the story, a pair of Cybermen have murdered two scientists out on a moonwalk to repair a faulty transmitter, and a third Cyberman has revealed himself to the Doctor and everyone else in the infirmary. So far none of the Cybermen have spoken, so I don't know if they will have the odd lilting-but-mechanical speech pattern that I liked so much in The Tenth Planet. Here's hoping.

The Cybermen in this story have certainly upgraded themselves since their first appearance. Their faces are now fully metal, instead of the fabric-covered Mondasian Cyberman faces, and their hands are now fully encased in the silver shell instead of being flesh. Also, they are not carrying around those cumbersome two-handed radar dish weapons. Instead, they are able to shoot bolts of electricity from their hands in able to attack their prey. 

For this story, only the second and fourth episodes still exist in the archives, so the first and third episodes have been reconstructed for the DVD release with animation. This is such a welcome improvement over the listless telesnap presentation of the missing episodes from The Underwater Menace. This story was released on home video a year before Menace, and before the animation studio went under. Clearly (and correctly) the early Cybermen stories were prioritized for animated reconstruction, which is fine. I would pick Marco Polo for reconstruction long before I ever got around to Underwater Menace. (Have I mentioned lately how much I liked Marco Polo? That fact might have slipped by unnoticed.)

Today's viewing is such a relief after two days junk. Here's hoping the back half is just as good tomorrow!

STATS:

Doctor(s): Second
Companion(s): Ben Jackson, Polly Wright, Jamie McCrimmon
Episode(s): The Moonbase - Episodes 1 & 2
Steps Walked: 7,025 today, 514,565 total
Distance Walked:  3.57 miles today, 243.59 miles total
Weight: 282.74 lbs (five day moving average), net change -24.56 lbs