The Moonbase episode 2 discussion:
R: No open door in space. Is bad! Air go WOOSH!
A: Just ask Katarina.
R: I’m pretty sure bags of flour WILL NOT SEAL YOU AGAINST HARD VACUUM!
P: I’m pretty sure bags of flour become hard missile.
K: Actually, I didn’t that hole went outside. I thought it was covering up the entrance from the storage room to how he was getting in the medbay.
R: There was a loud wooshing noise when he moved the bags that stopped when he put them back.
P: There’s a drop in air pressure for the entire base.
R: That happens when he moves the bags and stops when he puts them back.
P: So, cause an effect can be assumed…
K: ALRIGHT ALRIGHT!
P: … going somewhere here. Cause an effect is assumed by the captain of the Moon Base only in the case of the Doctor’s guilt with the broken antenna, but not in the coming and going of the air pressure. It’s interesting that the Cyberman is a childhood nightmare…
R: Bogeyman?
P: Yeah. Whenever they brought up the Cyberman Hobson was like “that’s childhood. Let’s focus on reality.”
K: It’s like blaming it on the bogeyman or the Loch Ness Monster. Oh wait, that’s later.
H: No, it’s like saying Gengis Khan is to blame. The Cybermen attacked in 1986, and it’s now 2070.
P: I found the control room to be interesting. It was more chaotic than needed. There were work stations, and in order to complete on task they had to move from one to the other.
H: Almost like the bridge of the Enterprise. That wouldn’t have been unusually in general in the late 1960s.
Cz: The lightning bolt was like real cool. How’d they do that?
H: They drew it on the film.
Cz: So why didn’t they do that so it arced down so it followed them down as they fell?
H: I don’t know.
P: I made me think that it wasn’t drawn on the film because it was static.
R: Yeah, they just rigged the poor guy in the metal suite to a Tesla coil. “Just hold still, Bob.”
P: What do you think of those fancy, dancy hats?
R: When they went into the radiation room for protection?
H: It’s actually not clear it was radiation.
P: It’s Higgs.
H: Bosons everywhere.
R: Yeah, non more so than the guy from earth. Boson joke… haha. Bozos… idiot… idiots?
H: I think we’re all bozos on this bus.
R: <posh voice> “You gentlemen out there on the moon don’t realize how tough we have it her on earth. I want you to straighten up and start fixing this thing. Twiddle some knobs or something.”
H: “Another drink sir?”
R: “Yes, thank you.” My point was, he just sort of assumes that they’ve been sitting up there going “Yay, we’re on the moon!” and not actually trying to fix it already.
H: But you see, he’s a government bureaucrat. Satire!
R: Yeah, I got that. But it was just kind of…
H: Anyway, how about that fantastic model. Not only was the model fantastic, but it actually corresponded to the set, which I thought was really, really cool.
R: Definitely stuck out to me!
P: So, this story plot revolves around the people in the med bay being mostly alone. And they got around that by the Cyberman lightning bolting Polly. And I think that the story plot is getting thinner as we go further down this episode because they’re going to run out of people and they’re not figuring it out as fast as they should.
H: It’s almost like it’s the second part of a four parter.
P: Ah, of course.
R: I did really enjoy the exchange between Polly and the Doctor about his current qualifications as a physician.
Cz: That was adorable.
P: “I think I got a medical degree in 1888.” The “think” part go me laughing.
H: I think Ronelyn was referring to the later part of the conversation, when Polly was saying “I wonder if there have been some advances since 1888?”
K: So, seriously? Cyberman hiding in med bay the WHOLE TIME? WTF?
R: In his sneakers.
K: Did they never examine the sick people ever?
Cz: Not if it was nap time.
H: Having seen this episode before, although that’s what the Doctor implies, it seems pretty clear to me that the Cyberman has been there since Polly got knocked out, and no on has checked the patients since then.
R: It felt like the writers had written themselves into a corner.
H: Yeah, that too.
R: “Cut to cliffhanger, I have to write more!”
Cz: Dun dun DUUUN!
P: So why would they leave the space suits and just take the men? That didn’t make sense to me.
H: Perhaps we will find out. Perhaps it is episode two of a four part story.
P: They would have been boiled away due to the pressure.
<discussion of decompressions. Gruesome discussion of decompressions. Ewww. I am not typing that. Upshot is, decompression sucks. Is bad.>
R: Air go whoosh.
P: Major problem moving a corpse through space, period.
R: Huh? On the moon? You just throw it.
P: Intact.
R: Maybe the Cybermen want people jerky.
P: …
H: I think we can agree that some of the space science in this show is not anywhere near reality. And we must let go of this an embrace fantasy.
Cz: Don’t Cybermen usually want humans to make more Cybermen?
R: Sure, just add water!
<laughter>
K: Yeah, they did talk about doing that in the Tenth Planet, didn’t they.
R: Yup, “You will become like us.”
H: We will just have to wait to find out what the Cybermen’s crazy, convoluted and ridiculous plan is, because face it, all of their plans are crazy, convoluted and ridiculous.
P: Then cool. Moving pictures! Also, not much music, or did I miss it again?
A: Yeah, there was.
H: It was subtle. So, are we up to final thoughts?
Cz: Too words: Awe. Some.
A: Two words: Awe. Full… No, just kidding. I liked it. Moving pictures is always good, and this particular Doctor is really awesome, when he’s moving.
H: Yeah, I liked watching Troughton’s face. He’s just very expressive.
R: There was a kind of iconic line that he delivered.
H: It’s one that get excerpted a lot. “There are some corners of the Universe which have breed the most terrible things. Things which act against everything we believe in. They must be fought.” When you read a thing about Throughton, that line always gets mentioned.
A: There’s some good physical comedy with Troughton when he’s trying to get people’s samples and shoes. I loved it when the guy stepped out of his shoe and didn’t seem to notice.
H: I loved the bit when Hobson was like “What are you doing?” and the Doctor says “Collecting samples” and hold up the shoe. And Hobson sees it and says “Carry on then.”
P: I think my inability to suspend my disbelief in the laws of physics have made this story difficult for me to digest. But, on the other hand, the quality of the set and miniatures and the detail upon which they placed each man’s country of origin brought me back to seeing the story as a story about people and not science.
H: Hopefully you can hang on to that, because honestly if you’re having problems with suspension of disbelief a lot of the rest of The Project is going to be like that.
P: I think the moon, and space travel, is different for me. I wanted to be there as a child, and I’m sure some people want me there now.
<uncomfortable laughter>
R: I’m just glad that “Bob, space nerd” got a couple of beauty shots in this episode.
H: Which actually reminds me. I started paying attention – there are people from the UK, France, Denmark, and Australia. I did not see any other flags on anyone.
K: I thought I saw Switzerland.
H: Are you sure that wasn’t the Danish cross?
K: Nope.
H: It was on Nils, their “Mad Dane” as I recall.
K: Okay.
R: That’s pretty much it. I enjoyed the episode overall. The only serious weakness that I saw was that very last bit. I thought that the empty space suits were quite creepy and spoke to the Cybermen’s lack of humanity. Actually, I wonder if that wasn’t done on purpose to intimidate the remainder of the crew? Oh, and one more laugh moment “Now that we’ve gone through this high-tech airlock, let’s climb these aluminum stepladders to the moon’s surface five feet above.”
H: Actually, I didn’t find that so ridiculous. Moon Bases portrayed in the 60’s, in general up to this time, features an airlock and then a ladder up to a hatch kind of thing. I didn’t think it was that out of line.
R: Given that they’ve established already in this storyline that they know about microgravity, a 5-foot ladder seems kind of silly.
<Discussion of moon gravity.>
H: I loved that they were looking at each other’s suits when they were going out.
R: That part I really liked. I can enjoy the silliness and the hokey elements, and at the same time independently, enjoy the bits that they got right and the solid parts of the writing.
H: I’m just saying that I don’t think they got the ladder wrong.
K: I thought the flags on the uniform as a concept was cool, but as a costume looked… well slapped on. Literally. They were just too big. Jamie was to sweaty.
Cz: What was wrong with him again?
R: He had a concussion.
H: He wasn’t in the original scripts, so they knocked him out basically.
Cz: Do writers these days do stuff so obvious?
H: Yes.
R: Have you seen the end of Lost?
Cz: No. I haven’t seen any of Lost.
H: Writers these days generally have a greater lead time. Remember, this story was still only recorded a week before transmission.
K: Like a soap opera.
P: That’s even more impressive.
H: Well, for my final thought I’m just going to say I continue to really enjoy this story. It’s probably… well… it’s probably the story where everything came together for the Troughton Doctor, at least in his initial season. It might not make a lick of sense by the end, but I’m really enjoying it and it’s a lot of fun.
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