Moonbase 3 is a British science fiction television series that ran for six episodes in 1973. It was a co-production between the BBC, 20th Century Fox and the American ABC network. Created by Doctor Who producer Barry Letts and script editor Terrance Dicks as a realistic alternative strand of TV science-fiction,
It starred Donald Houston as Director David Caulder, who is appointed to the position after the previous director was killed while returning to Earth. Ralph Bates was Michel Lebrun, the deputy director, who was concerned about keeping to the rules. Fiona Gaunt played Doctor Helen Smith, the base's psychiatrist, and Barry Lowe played Tom Hill, the head of the base technical section.) and Brazil (Moonbase 5). The European Moonbase 3 has been in existence for 8 years at the time the series starts. explosive decompressions the inhabitants of the moonbase must also deal with psychological problems arising from the cramped, dangerous environment they live in.
Principal characters
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;Dr David Caulder (Donald Houston)
:Appointed Director of Moonbase 3 following the death of his predecessor, David Caulder is a scientist, academic and administrator. Former actor Barry Letts had changed career into television direction in 1967 and had worked on series such as Z-Cars and The Newcomers before being asked to take over as producer of Doctor Who in 1970, where he first met Dicks. In 1972, looking to move on from Doctor Who, the pair started considering a number of ideas for other shows they could collaborate on. Their first idea arose from the successful collaboration they had with the Royal Navy on the Doctor Who serial The Sea Devils which led to them considering pitching a serial set on a frigate only to find they were too late – the BBC had just commissioned a series, Warship, with that very premise. In late 1972, they developed the concept of Moonbase 3, as an anthology series set on a lunar colony that would "provide intelligent, realistic drama rather than Science Fantasy", and submitted a pilot script, titled "Departure and Arrival", to Shaun Sutton, the Head of Drama at the BBC. The series was formally commissioned in December 1972 and would be made, as a co-production between the BBC and 20th Century Fox and the ABC network in America, during the break in production between Seasons 10 and 11 of Doctor Who. The final two scripts, "The Dark Side of the Moon" and "The Gentle Rain" (later renamed "Castor and Pollux" and "Achilles Heel" respectively), were commissioned from John Lucarotti, a prolific writer whose credits included The Avengers, Doctor Who and The Troubleshooters. Lastly, Letts and Dicks retrospectively commissioned themselves in late May 1973 for their pilot script "Departure and Arrival". Burke decided that 2003 would be a realistic date for bases to have been established on the Moon, telling the Radio Times that "Men won't go back to the Moon until the 1990s. Neither the Russians nor the Americans have any plans at present and no-one else can afford it. [...] As for the base itself – it should look exactly as it would if they built one tomorrow. [...] They'd be small, supporting 30 or 40 men and running on a shoestring. [...] It'll be like life on a nuclear submarine".
Cast as David Caulder was Donald Houston, an experienced character actor, who had appeared in 633 Squadron and The Longest Day, and was known for playing authority figures. Ralph Bates, who was cast as Michel Lebrun, had first made a name for himself playing the Emperor Caligula in the Granada Television series The Caesars but was best known as a regular actor in the Hammer horror stable. Fiona Gaunt, playing Helen Smith, had been in a television adaptation of War and Peace while Barry Lowe, playing Tom Hill, had been a regular on the police drama Z-Cars.
Two directors were assigned to the series – Ken Hannam and Christopher Barry. Hannam had previously directed such series as Colditz and Paul Temple while Barry had worked extensively on Doctor Who, having directed some 31 episodes at the time, including the stories The Dæmons and The Mutants for Letts and Dicks, as well as episodes of Out of the Unknown, Paul Temple and The Onedin Line. Hannam and Barry alternated directing the episodes between them with filming on Moonbase 3 beginning on 24 April 1973 at the BBC film studios in Ealing. The Ealing filming mainly centred around the scenes set on the lunar surface which proved a difficult experience for the actors. Star Donald Houston told the Radio Times that the spacesuits got "hot and claustrophobic. In the end they had to have oxygen standing by. [...] the dust rose in clouds and the cameramen all wore surgical masks. The actors just choked". Filming continued at Ealing until 30 May 1973 Simpson composed the main title theme that accompanied the opening and closing credits as well as approximately 60 minutes of incidental music.
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. In 1993, NTSC copies of all six episodes were found in co-producer Fox's archives and returned to the BBC. 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 Space: 1999, Star Cops and Space Island One.
Episode guide
Six episodes of Moonbase 3 were made and broadcast on BBC One on Sunday nights at 7:25pm beginning on 9 September 1973.