The Classic Capitology team get a little sneaky with the presentation of new caps for The Moonbase. Following on from the experiment of mixing traditional caps with telesnaps first tried in The Underwater Menace, the new caps from episodes 2 and 4 fill in the gaps from missing episodes 1 and 3. It’s certainly an interesting mix.
The Moonbase is, in real terms, the first ‘proper’ Cybermen story. While the Cybermen appeared in The Tenth Planet, and it is the origin story for them, their look and way of expressing themselves is so different from what we would come to know that it almost seems an anomaly. Then there’s that ‘regeneration’ thing.
But there was clearly something important there, so in their return in The Moonbase the template is set for many future Cyber-stories with subplots of possession along with invasion and in so doing became to Troughton what the Daleks were to Hartnell, and they returned only four stories after their initial story, an almost impossible turnaround.
This was also a time of great flux within the TARDIS too. The Doctor got plenty to do in The Moonbase, but curiously the companions did not. Jamie was still being shoehorned into the proceedings and was sidelined so thoroughly that he spent episode 2 delusional in the infirmary. Polly was left to be a tea-bearer and could only react to what others imparted to her. Oh well.
These new caps help flesh out one of the lesser remembered but important stories in Doctor Who history. Wherever shall Classic Capitology wander off to next?
