Fun Moonbase 3

michaellevenson

Member: Rank 8
This is an interesting six part series written by Dr Who respected figures Terrace Dicks and Barry Letts. Set on the moon, it concerns the lives of the scientific community working in the European moonbase. It's very realistic looking and is a serious attempt to show life of an early lunar community. It's got a good cast starring Donald Houston and Ralph Bates.

 

ant-mac

Member: Rank 9
An excellent TV series. I was recently fortunate enough to be able to watch it from start to finish on YouTube. Very enjoyable.

It definitely went out on a high, because I feel that the last episode was the strongest of the lot...
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
it was a great show. I like Star Cops too, but felt that Moonbase 3 had, overall, better performances from all of the regulars. Yes, I agree that the last episode was the best one.

It was a shame that both Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts were dismissive of their creation of and work on this show. It was a solid show that stands up to repeated viewing. Amazing to think that it was totally missing for a few years, until all of the episodes were found in Canada, but their different line system makes the picture quality less than brilliant at the moment. I would love to see a remastered re-release on dvd, with some extras too.
 
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Cloister56

Member: Rank 3
Yes what a series. The first episode really resonated with me.
The scene where Caulder just dissects their obfuscation of blame. They all had concerns but they kept quiet each expecting the next to act.
I'd never heard the term "Not my pigeon" before but it fits for how some things go wrong, and everyone saw it coming but didn't act.
I work in healthcare and there was this story (you've probably heard it before it's quite common) that kept being repeated during my training:

This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it.

Everybody was sure Somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job.

Everybody thought Anybody could do it but Nobody realised that Everybody wouldn't do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.
 

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Transmission and audience reaction

Moonbase 3 was promoted by the Radio Times on the week of broadcast with a two-page article by Mike Bygrave, titled "The Facts of Life on the Moon", that interviewed James Burke about his ideas of life on the moon and also spoke to star Donald Houston, dresser Leslie Hallam and costume designer Dee Kelly about their experiences making the show.[20] Broadcast on Sunday nights at 7:25pm on BBC One, audience reaction to the series was disappointing with the debut episode garnering under 6 million viewers and ratings slipping as low as 2 million in subsequent weeks before stabilising at 4 million.[2] A BBC Audience Research report slated the series as "banal, predictable and slow". Reviewing "Departure and Arrival" in The Observer, Clive James described the plot as "the Yangtze Incident plus liquid oxygen".

Archive status

As was normal procedure at the BBC at the time, the original PAL master tapes of the series were wiped some time after broadcast and, for many years, Moonbase 3 was believed to be lost forever. However, in 1993, NTSC copies of all six episodes were found in co-producer Fox's archives and returned to the BBC. The series was subsequently released on VHS videotape over three volumes in 1994 by BBC Video and on DVD in 2002 by Second Sight.

Legacy

Terrance Dicks has felt that Moonbase 3 was ultimately a failure: "The trouble was we built a too restrictive format for ourselves" and that the series "lacked a sense of wonder and outrageousness". Academic Peter Wright has said about Moonbase 3 that its "appeal to realism resulted in a disquieting sense of claustrophobia and isolation that undermined the optimism of its premise and captured the general mood of insularity felt (and often desired) in Britain in the early 1970s" Moonbase 3, although not directly influential, can be seen as an antecedent of similar realistic, near-future, British space series such as Star Cops and Space Island One.
 
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