Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Moonbase

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The Moonbase doesn't fit well with other DWU narratives. You can also talk about the plot holes that render its own, internal narrative confusing.

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• Episode 2's cliffhanger involves the discovery of a Cyberman who has been hiding under a sheet in the medicentre for the last 25 minutes. When he gets off the sickbay bed, he nearly takes the whole thing with him.

The Cybermen aren't the most agile of creatures.

• • I could imagine them being rather heavy though. Estimate 250kg (wild guess), but instead of being in the size of a morbidly obese human body, it's in a mostly-metal frame that can get up off a bed reasonably quickly and carry full-grown men around "like a doll". It probably would make the average hospital bed wobble alarmingly at the very least.
  • There's also the possibility that with so many crewmembers getting the disease, they'd run out of beds and had to start using ordinary lab benches and things.

• The addition of Jamie to the cast leads to a sharing of lines, so Ben becomes a scientist for a story (he knows that the Gravitron uses thermonuclear power, that interferon is a viral antibody, that acetone is present in nail varnish remover, and that the spray from the fire extinguishers would evaporate in a vacuum).

He is in the navy, so he may have an elementary understanding of certain scientific fields. Most people know that acetone is present in nail varnish remover.

• In Episode 2, when a Cyberman tries to zap Polly while she tends to Jamie, he misses, but she falls anyway.

She may have fainted from shock.

• Throughout the episode, the Gravitron is pointed at the Atlantic ocean. Many hours pass, during which the Earth would revolve on its axis until the Atlantic would be pointed away from the moon.

• The climax of the episode seems rather far-fetched. A Cyberman is revealed to have been concealed under covers on one of the sick beds. It seems unlikely Polly or anyone else would have failed to notice an extra body in the sick bay.

• Hobson notes they need to keep a hurricane in the Pacific Ocean. However, the Gravitron is pointed at the Atlantic and the hurricane is threatening Miami.

• Closeups of the transparent dome from the outside only show the Gravitron, not any of the desks, controls, people, etc.

• The examination tables in the sickbay are very light and wobble frequently. The most obvious cases are when the Cyberman takes one of the crew off one and later when he hops up off the table, almost knocking it over completely.

• The Cybermen's spaceships look like paper plates held up by string.

How is this a continuity error? Even a well-shot good model wouldn't actually be a cybership, it would just be a well-shot good model in a TV show. Besides, as everyone knows, the real historical Cybermen ships were actually cyberplates powered by lengths of cyberstring, so it was a pretty good representation.

• Why bother to infiltrate the Moonbase by stealth, using the virus, when they have the means all along to capture it by force?

The virus is a necessary first stage in their conversion of the Humans, and they need Humans to operate the Gravitron.

• Why make only one hole in the dome?

Maybe there's only enough power for one shot.

• In Episode 4, why have the Moonbase crew left the Cybermen's control headgear right next to the patients in the infirmary?

• Approximately five minutes into Episode 4, Evans is in the infirmary when the Cybermen reassert control. He gets up off of his bed and sneaks behind Sam, who's watching the door, not the beds. Sam is at the foot of an empty bed, and when the mind-controlled Evans reaches the left side of the foot of the bed (about one inch behind Sam) he then walks all the way around the bed (via the head of the bed) to get to the right side foot of the bed and hit Sam from behind. Not only is he no closer than he was on the left side of the foot of the bed, he could've just stepped one step forward to move to the right side.

• When Evans sneaks into the Gravitron control room, he puts the cloth helmet on back to front (in the next scene it's the right way round).

• Stars are visible from the moon during lunar day when the lunar surface would be far too bright.

• Why did the moonbase crew not recognise the Cybermen from the events of DW: The Next Doctor, DW: The Invasion, DW: The Tenth Planet or DW: Army of Ghosts / Doomsday.

These are different variant of Cybermen, The Next Doctor and Army of Ghost / Doomsday feature the Cybus Cybermen again different. And it has been said that the Human race has a self deception as said by the Seventh Doctor in DW: Remembrance of the Daleks. Torchwood and/or UNIT most likely covered up these events. Plus, Hobson does actually say that everyone knows about the Cybermen but they believed them to have been wiped out so it's not as though they're completely ignorant as to their existence.

Also, at least in the case of The Next Doctor, it's strongly implied in Flesh and Stone that those events have been removed from history.