Following their well-received appearance in "The Tenth Planet", the production team went scrabbling back to Kit Pedler, script-editor Gerry Davis' Chief Scientist, to ask for a follow-up. The mutton-chopped boffin came up with a mind-bending story - "The Tenth Planet", set on the moon. Dazzling.

To be fair, he does add the weather-controlling Gravitron to the mix. But why would the only base on the moon be used for something like this? surely if they can put a Gravitron base up on the moon, why aren't there any military installations? Still, I shouldn't knock this part, as it's the closest thing this story has to imagination... It's the same old story, with some isolated base (seemingly consisting of just two sets) being interfered with by monsters. That's basically the storyline there, complete with the usual padding of the TARDIS arriving at an inopportune moment and getting the blame from a blustering base commander; there's some reason they can't call in more conventional help, and so on and so forth.

Of course, despite these failings, it's always a shame that a Doctor Who story is missing (if nothing else, they all deserve existence more than "Colony in Space"...), though compared to most of its' Season 4 bedfellows, it got off lightly. Episodes 2 and 4 still exist, while Loose Cannon have reconstructed the other two from tele-snaps (the story's repetitive nature also leads to the cads inserting a scene from Episode 2 into Episode 1. Seamlessly.). The mix breathes some life into the thing, and the reconstructed segments link the extant episodes nicely. There are also a couple of nice effects added to the telesnaps, like the animated virus.

The virus is actually quite well realised, though The Doctor's intuitive leap that it's the base's sugar supply that is poisoning the crew is quite baffling. But this is quite an obtuse story... The Cybermen burrow a tunnel under the base's force field, and instead of just killing the crew and hijacking the Gravitron, they poison the sugar and steal the odd dead body... What? And that's not to mention the one who cunningly hides under a sheet in the base's medical bay for an episode. I get the rough idea of hiding in plain sight, but would anyone miss a seven-foot cyborg? They then tell the humans about this tunnel so it can be sealed, and line up with a big cannon firing at the base instead of just digging another one. When they manage to activate an agent inside, they get him to make just one hole in the base's protective dome, rather than shattering the thing, or just sabotaging the oxygen supply

It's a shame, as the Cybermen themselves are much improved. The design is a lot less bulkier, and thus more threatening - it's hard to imagine the original models being able to caper after Benoit without Cyber-hyperventilating. Actually, that might be a good thing... Though electrical zaps are an improvement on the front end of a car the Mondas lot had to swing around. Aside from wobbly spaceships on strings, it's well made, with a couple of respectable sets, and a decent lunar surface, for however much that counts.

The biggest problem, aside from the stupidity, is the total lack of anything happening for a lot of the time. As with "The Tenth Planet", the base crew are a multinational group showcasing Earth's unity - i.e. a bunch of tokenistic stereotypes with dodgy accents. Most offensive character? Benoit, with his French taunter accent and comedy necktie. The rest of them are just faceless. It's been well-documented that Jamie was a very late addition to the script, but that doesn't excuse the fact there's not enough material for one companion, let alone three. Polly spends most of the time making coffee, while Ben gets to know what's in nail varnish, Jamie gets to go "Och", and that's about it. There's not even a huge amount for The Doctor to do for the most part - considering Troughton is the team's greatest asset, this is shameful. Even the Cybermen don't really do a lot, especially in the remarkably flat last episode. The lack of tension is astonishing, as the Cybermen line up outside the base and do absolutely nothing before being defeated. It ends very suddenly, and the cheering of the crew is even more hackneyed when you remember their relief rocket is en route to the sun in the serial's one genuinely chilling moment.

"The Moonbase" manages to be fairly well produced, but utterly lacks soul. It's a badly plotted story which hinges on several implausible aspects, and wastes a decent cast. It's strictly formulaic, and feels padded and long even at four episodes. A poor story.

Review written: 25/07/06
Reconstruction @ Loose Cannon
"The Moonbase" Photonovel @ BBC.co.uk