Moonbase 3

This is the first of a series of short articles which will complement each fortnightly release of the new World of Telly podcast. Neil and I will be covering every TV series ever made, in no particular order, and discussing what we think is interesting and enjoyable about them, and hopefully persuading listeners to seek them out if they haven’t already. On rare occasions we’ll also be letting people know if they should avoid a series like the plague. So, if you’re either paralysed by the current choice of new TV available through streaming channels, or feeling lost because there’s a two-year wait for the next eight episodes of your favourite series, then hopefully the podcast will remind you to take a chance on some old stuff.

Each podcast will last roughly 45 minutes to an hour, and we try and cram in as much detail as possible, but inevitably there will be things we have to omit, or can’t expand upon as much as we’d like, so these articles will try and redress that as much as possible. We’ll also include a brief list of the most interesting sources we read while preparing the podcast. Additionally, if we say anything on the podcast that you think is wildly inaccurate or misleading, then let us know via our BlueSky account, or a YouTube comment, and we’ll address those in this blog.

One of the many interesting things about Moonbase 3 is that the production team worked out quite a detailed picture of what they expected the socioeconomic and political background to be 30 years in the future in 2003. However, in the series itself, this context is only sparingly referenced, often quite elliptically, and some of the detail – such as that Brazil now leads a fascist South America – is lost. Fortunately, as part of our research, we found a syndicated local newspaper article - ‘The dust up that cost £2,000’ by Al Flett - about the series, which includes an interview with Barry Letts, and explains the thinking behind the portrayal of society in 2003.

It’s worth quoting the article at length. Letts explains the production teams approach:

“We asked ourselves what our earth would be like 30 years on. We came up with the theory that the ecological situation will have forced the nations to accept a far higher level of co-operation than ever before, but world government – or anything approaching it - would still be a long way off.”

So, in Moonbase 3, there is less confrontation between Communism and the Free World, China's influence has spread through South East Asia, there is an unlikely alliance in Japan between the old aristocrats and the new left, while South America has become loose federation of semi fascist states, dominated by an industrialised and aggresively competitive Brazil.

Africa has become an essentially Negro continent, and Europe has become a tightly knit economic community and there is a strong movement towards a European Parliament.

Against this background, the world powers have established five bases on the moon: the USA, the USSR, China, Europe and South America.

It’s probably no surprise given his longstanding interest in ecological issues – as demonstrated in Doctor Who stories like The Green Death - that Letts focused on environmental concerns as being the driver for international cooperation. The fact that relations between the USA, the USSR, and Europe are portrayed as cordial, whereas the main “threat” is South America, is an intriguing idea even if this isn’t really addressed on screen.

What is a bit more obvious during the series is that there is still a space race between the various power blocs, and this is expanded upon in the article:

The five domed camps huddle closely together for mutual help and protection. Each is concerned with a variety of scientific disciplines. Earth is benefiting from the experiments being carried out, but there is also much competition.

The bases of all the national groups are working on ion-drive research to power the starships that will take man to Mars and the other planets. Each wants to set up the first Mars base for obvious reasons of prestige.

Though Moonbase 3 wasn't intended to be a fable full of morality, Barry Letts has designed his production to show a measure of co-operation between the national groups in the five bases.

“As we saw it, the characters had to work in harmony. It was, and is, the only way man will survive in a hostile environment.”

I’m not sure it’s particularly clear in the series that all the bases are supposed to be working on ion-drive research, but the expedition to Mars is referred to in the fifth episode Castor and Pollux.

Intriguingly, the article ends with Letts discussing possible plans for a second series of Moonbase 3:

After the present series of six programmes, will there be more Moonbase 3 series?

"I don’t know,” Barry Letts confessed. “I'd like to think there will be another series next year. But we’ll have to wait and see. And if it does come up that we'll make more, we'll be ready for it. We have enough ideas lined up to set the thing in motion very quickly." So it seems the viewers will have the last word on Moonbase3 . . .

Well unfortunately for Letts, the lack of viewers did have the last word on Moonbase 3, and so we’ll never know what ideas he had for a second series which was planned to have a longer run of 13 episodes. It seems likely that the other moonbases would have featured more heavily, and the political subtext would have been made more explicit, but sadly we’ll never get to see inside Moonbase 5, and will have to just imagine what an English character actor would have done to a Brazilian accent.

Sources in chronological order:

Al Flett, The dust-up that cost £2,000, Kent Evening Post, 13th September 1973

Andrew Pixley, Archive: The Time Warrior, Doctor Who Magazine 246 (Dec 1996)

Andrew Pixley, Archive: The Green Death, Doctor Who Magazine 320 (Aug 2002)

Dave Rolinson, Moonbase 3 and the limitations of reality in Apollo-era television sf, Science Fiction Film & Television, Volume 3, Number1 

Oliver Wake, Moonbase 3, Doctor Who Chronicles 1973 (Oct 2022)

Many thanks also to Tom May and Ian Graves for their help with audience research.