440 – Moonbase 3 – Departure and Arrival

This week, we start looking at a new series:  The 1973 BBC science fiction series Moonbase 3 by Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks. John and Eugene discuss. Since this program is not readily available on DVD or streaming, at time of publication you can watch the episodes on this YouTube Playlist – Moonbase 3 Episode Synopsis:  On the moon, the director of Moonbase 3, the European moonbase, is not having a good day. He’s got to go to Earth to defend his budget, which is already inadequate, and his second in command, Michel Lebrun, and base doctor, Helen Smith, want him to make a decision grounding his personal shuttle pilot. The doctor cannot cite any evidence that he is unfit to fly and neither wants to ruin the man’s career on a gut feeling, so the director signs off on his fitness. That was a mistake. The pilot is suffering from a bit of paranoia and delusions of grandeur, and when a minor malfunction happens on the flight, he insists on fixing it himself in flight via spacewalk. That, too, was a mistake, as he comes detached from his tether and hurtles to his death. Alone aboard the craft and unqualified as a pilot, the Director panics and attempts to fly the ship. Mistakes just keep happening and his inexperience leads to the destruction of the shuttle. On Earth, the European Space Commission votes to appoint a new Director. The French want to appoint the base’s second in command, a Frenchman, as Director, but the British have a better idea: Let’s appoint a British person, and as the British are the chair of the commission, the British David Caulder, lecturer at Oxford, is appointed. On the moonbase, Michel is upset he didn’t get the promotion, and, as he prepares for Caulder’s arrival, prepares his resignation. Both Dr. Smith and director of operations Tom Hill try to convince him that he must not resign. A resignation will be interpreted as an admission of guilt for his part in the accident and his career will be ended. He relents, at least until the anticipated inquiry into the accident occurs. Caulder arrives and announces that there will be an investigation and he’ll be conducting it. No outsiders. Caulder rushes the inquiry very quickly, interviewing all of the involved staff in short order. The interviews reveal that the three major command staff had reasons to doubt the pilot’s suitability to fly, yet none was willing to act upon it. His report calls all of them on the carpet, suspending them. They, along with Caulder, leave to face a tribunal on Earth the very same day. On the way to Earth, the shuttle is violently rocked, the pilot announces that they’ve been hit by a meteoroid, and they must make an emergency landing on the moon. Their radio is non-functional, damaged in the accident. The pilot has a full air supply, but the others only have a 30 minute transit supply. While the pilot remains to repair the radio, the command staff must work together and try to walk to a nearby seismologist’s station. When their air runs out, the American Moonbase commander comes along in a moon buggy and rescues them. It was all a ruse on Caulder’s part. His criticisms remain: All three needed to step up and make the trough call to ground the pilot, and his fake emergency landing demonstration was to reinforce upon them that, on the moon, they must absolutely rely on one another to survive. His real report to the Commission says no one but the pilot was to blame.