Doctor Who - The Moonbase

With the Cybermen returning this week The Gallifrayan Gazette decided to take a look back at some of the classic stories featuring the Cybermen. Today The Moonbase.

DoctorWho:
The Moonbase
By Kit Peddler

“Funny. Funny. Go to all that trouble to make the men do the work. Why? Do it themselves, easy. They're using the men as tools. Why? Don't know. Yes, I do though. There must be something in here they don't like. Pressure? Electricity? Radiation? Maybe. Gravity! Now there's a thought. Gravity. Oh, yes. Gravity.”

After the events of The Underwater Menace The Doctor made the attempt to get Ben, Polly and Jamie to Mars.  Where they ended up was not Mars but in fact the moon.  The travelers have fun experiencing the low gravity of the moon until Jamie gets hurt.  Luckily there is a base on the moon that is there to help control the weather on Earth.  But there is a problem in the base.  A mysterious plague has swept over the base only infecting a certain few.  The Doctor has no idea what is causing the crew of the moonbase to get infected but once The Cybermen have been seen sneaking around it becomes all the more obvious what is going on.

Doctor Who - The Moonbase Worldwide Americas Region 1 DVD Release Error

Steve Manfred is reporting that there is an error in the authoring of Doctor Who "The Moonbase" region 1 DVD release for America.  The DVD story was authored at 24 frames per second instead of the 60 required to take advantage of the Vid-Fire process. The episodes play slightly slower than usual.

The DVD is still playable and Manfred states that he has not heard about any recall from Worldwide but thinks that there might not be one.

http://home.comcast.net/~smanfred/Latest.html

Doctor Who - The Moonbase DVD Review By @Paul_Bowler

Doctor Who:
The Moonbase DVD Review
By Paul Bowler

The TARDIS is thrown off course and makes a bumpy landing on the Moon in 2070 where the Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and companions Jamie (Frazer Hines), Ben (Michael Craze) and Polly (Anneke Wills) discover a weather control station where a mysterious plague has broken out. Jamie has been injured exploring the lunar surface, while he recovers the Doctor offers to help Hobson (Patrick Barr) deal with the epidemic. The Doctor discovers the illness was caused by an alien poison the Cybermen have used to contaminate the food stores after secretly entering the base.

After taking over the Moonbase and seizing control of the Gravaton with crewmembers they’ve converted into slaves, the Cybermen prepare to use the weather controlling gravity beam to destroy all life on Earth. Polly and her friends manage to destroy the Cybermen in the base using a cocktail of chemicals sprayed from the fire extinguishers, which dissolves their plastic chest units. As more Cybermen begin advancing across the lunar surface, the Doctor gets Hobson to use the Gravaton against them, blasting them and their ships into space with the gravity beam. The Doctor and his companions return to the TARDIS where the Doctor activates the Time Scanner - a device that can show a glimpse of the future - and the image of a giant claw suddenly fills the screen…

Doctor Who: Animated Clip The March of The Cybermen From The Moonbase

The Moonbase will be out on DVD this month in the UK and next month in North America and it is one of the last DVD releases in the Doctor Who range with The Web of Fear coming next month and The Underwater Menace and The Crusade animation being in limbo.  This clip is from episode three of The Moonbase which unfortunately has episodes one and three missing. I hope this stories missing episodes will be found some day as I would like to see this sequence as it was originally intended.

Doctor Who - DVD Details For "The Moonbase"

Here is the DVD details for the Patrick Troughton story The Moonbase.  This is the earliest Patrick Troughton story to be released so far to date unless there happens to be more stories recovered.  Unfortunately episodes 1 and 3 are still missing but do not fear they have been animated and now we can see the return of The Cybermen but most importantly another story with companions Ben and Polly. Below are the DVD details for this upcoming release.

Special features on the DVD include:

Fully remastered Episodes 2 and 4.

Newly animated Episodes 1 and 3, with original off-screen soundtrack recordings.

Commentary on Episodes 2 and 4: a traditional commentary with actors Anneke Wills, Frazer Hines and Edward Phillips and Special Sounds creator Brian Hodgson.

On Episodes 1 and 3, a series of interviews featuring writer Kit Pedler's daughters Lucy Pedler and Carol Topolski, archive interviews with producer Innes Lloyd, assistant floor manager Lovett Bickford, and Cyberman actors Barry Noble, Derek Chaffer and Reg Whitehead. Moderated and linked by Toby Hadoke.

Lunar Landing – Cast and crew look back on the making of the story. With actors Anneke Wills, Frazer Hines and Reg Whitehead, plus production assistant Desmond McCarthy.

Photo Gallery – Production, design and publicity photos from the story.

Coming Soon – A trailer for a forthcoming DVD release.
Radio Times listings.

Programme subtitles.

Subtitle production notes.

Doctor Who - The Moonbase DVD Cover Revealed and Release Dates

The Patrick Troughton Story "The Moonbase"  will be release in January in the UK and February in North America.  The story will be released with episode one and three animated as those two episodes are still missing at this time.  What is strange is that the UK release date has two different days as Amazon UK has it as January 20th while the BBC Doctor Who Shop has it as January 6th.  Take that as you may but it seems strange to move this release up to the beginning of the month after it was moved back from its original release with the 10th Planet back in October.  The North American release is on February 11th.  You can pre order The Moonbase which brings us the return of The Cybermen at the links below the synopsis.

In 2070, Earth’s weather is controlled with ease from the Moon. When the TARDIS arrives at the Moonbase, the Doctor, along with his friends Polly, Ben and Jamie, is accused of starting a plague that is killing off the base’s crew. It’s not long, however, before the time travellers discover the true cause of the deaths – a powerful, unstoppable race that the Doctor has met before: the Cybermen.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_18?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=doctor%20who%20the%20moonbase&sprefix=Doctor+Who+The+Moo%2Caps%2C289&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Adoctor%20who%20the%20moonbase

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-The-Moonbase-DVD/dp/B00H7WX790/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1387206720&sr=8-2&keywords=Doctor+Who+The+Moonbase

http://www.bbcshop.com/doctor-who/doctor-who-the-moonbase-dvd/invt/bbcdvd3698

Cybermen Highlight Doctor Who DVD Updated Release Schedule

The new Doctor Who DVD release schedule for the UK has been released in the new issue of Doctor Who Magazine and this Autumn sees a Cybermen fest.  It has been revealed that the Moonbase will have its two missing episodes animated and be released in October while the recently announced Tenth Planet will be out in November.  Both stories have their missing stories animated by Planet 55 Studios the same studio that did The Reign of Terror. 

DWM also reports that The Underwater Menace will be getting the animated treatment and we will see the recovered episode sometime in 2014.

                         UK Doctor Who Release Schedule

6th May	The Visitation (Special Edition)
20th May	Series 7 Part 2 (DVD/Blu-ray)
27th May	Inferno (Special Edition)
27th May	Dr Who and the Daleks/Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150AD (DVD/Blu-ray) (Aaru movies, released by Studio Canal)
3rd June	The Mind of Evil
24th June	Doctor Who: Regeneration (coffee-table book/DVD set of The Tenth Planet, The War Games, Planet of the Spiders, Logopolis The Caves of Androzani, Time and the Rani, Doctor Who: The Movie, Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways, and The End of Time)
8th July	The Monster Collection (individual themed DVDs: Cybermen, Davros, Silurians, Sontarans, The Daleks and The Master)
15th July	Spearhead from Space (Blu-ray)
5th August	The Green Death (Special Edition)
26th August	The Ice Warriors (animated episodes two+three)
16th September	Scream of the Shalka
30th September	Terror of the Zygons
21st October	The Moonbase (animated episodes one+three)
18th November	The Tenth Planet (animated episode four)