From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho.moderated
From Address: solar.penguin@gmail.com
Subject: Pathfinders in Space -- 3. Lunar Bridgehead

"Lunar Bridgehead" is a rather weak title for a rather weak episode.
It's mostly concerned with the practical technicalities of lunar
exploration. And, with hindsight, gets most of them completely wrong.

The cliffhanger reprise is re-enacted, with the unidentified spaceship
being seen on the periscope once again. Yes, periscope. The rockets
each have a big submarine-style periscope for seeing out! (I can't
help thinking of that scene with Shatner in Airplane II.)

The actual shot of the spaceship from nowhere is different this time.
Not necessarily bettter or worse, just different. It's now a model
shot, rather than a painting. This means there's some parallax as the
camera pans past, but it's a lot less detailed. The original painting re-appears soon after as a background for when the rocket shoots past
with a near-miss.

The mysterious ship difts on, apparently in a fixed orbit.

There's some discussion over the radio about what just happened. I
should've said something about the two-way radios before now. They
have 'futuristic' handheld microphones with three rings/discs around
the end you speak into, making them look like something you'd find in
George Jetson's house!

Anyway, the upshot of the discussion is the Henderson is told to land
the supply rocket to avoid another collision with the mysterious
spaceship. Landing is done with the same mix of model shots and cut-
out animation as before, except the shot of the rocket passing behind
the stars in the background has been trimmed to be a bit shorter.

The rocket lands is a deep crater, 150 miles away from the main
rocket. Dr O'Connell is upset when he hears how far away the supplies
are. He's supposed to be Irish but his accent might as well be
Scottish, and it's easy to imaging him doing a Private Frazer, "We're
all doooomed!"

Back in the supply rocket, Geoffrey carries out the show's educational
remit as he lectures the other children about radio waves not
travelling past the moon's horizon because there's no atmosphere for
them to bounce off. At mission control, a technician called Jean has
to act as telephone operator relaying messages from one rocket to the
other.

The educational stuff continues on the other rocket, as Professor
Meadows lectures her colleagues on the height of the Lunar Apennines
and the hot temperature of the moon's surface. (It's 215 Fahrenheit
in case you were wondering.) They're need to know this because
they're setting out to walk the 160 miles to the supply rocket. Well,
all except Ian, who's too bland to come.

The supply rocket's crew have been told to wait for them, which annoys
little Jimmy who's impatient to get out onto the moon's surface. (You
can just imagine him going "Are we nearly there yet? Are we nearly
there yet?" all the way from the earth to the moon!)

But even though they're waiting in the supply rocket, they've all
changed into spacesuits anyway. (This is because they'll need to go
out later and the "recorded-as-if-live" format won't give the actors
enough time to change costumes then.) The suits' helmets don't have
visors, in order to avoid reflecting the studio lights. Instead they
have thin metal crosses to symbolise where the visors would be. These
are made from straightened wire coathangers. But not very well
straightened, as the close-ups show!

More educational talk about radio waves leads to Henderson deciding to
take the portable radio up to the top of the crater's rim to get
better reception. He decides to take Jimmy and Valerie with him,
leaving Geoffrey to monitor the rocket's radio. No-one thinks of
contacting Earth to explain what they're doing, but luckily Jean
radios in as they're preparing to leave, and they explain it to here.

The rocket doesn't have an airlock. Everyone (including Geoffrey who
isn't going out) will have to be suited up when the door opens. Good
job they were already wearing them then! Hamlet the guinea pig
(remember him?) will have to be put in a spare helmet so he can
breathe, even though it doesn't seem to be connected to an air tank.

Jimmy's also having problems with his suit's air supply. This seems
to be scripted ("Why don't they make spacesuits in my size?" he
complains) but in the end the actors don't manage to get connected
properly and he steps out onto the lunar surface with a lose airhose.

He also forgets to turn on his suit radio. The strange thing is, he
can still talk and hear normally standing in the open doorway of the
airless rocket, but not once he's stepped outside! I'm not sure how
that works.

Talking of bad science, apparently Sting and Sir Isaac Newton were
wrong. Giant steps aren't what you take walking on the moon. This is lampshaded by a throwaway line explain that the idea is pure "science
fiction." Even though you only have one sixth your normal weight, the
extra weight of your spacesuit cancels that out.

So that means a spacesuit weighs as much as five people. And it still
doesn't explain how you can just stroll around normally, since the
suit would still give you six times your normal mass, therefore six
times your normal momentum, despite the lower gravity,

If the show goes out of its way to lecture us about science, it might
at least try to get these things right.

(OTOH maybe I shouldn't complain too much. Lunar gravity was still
causing trouble for the BBC over twenty years later in Star Cops,
where people would bounce around realistically in spacesuits on the
moons surface, but walked normally inside the moonbase building!)

The ad-break cliffhanger is actually quite effective as Jimmy
discovers a small triangle carved into the rocky ground. If he'd
discovered something big and melodramatic, like an abandoned alien
spaceship, then it would've been too boring, too much of a cliche.
But a small triangle is just enough to make us curious.

We return to mission control, where once again there's an establishing
model shot showing both rockets still on the launch-pads. You'd think
that whoever was responsible for that mistake last week would've been
given a right good bollocking and told not to let it happen again.
Obviously not.

There's a press conference going on, hosted by Jean who seems to have
taken time off from radio operator duties to avoid the need for hiring
another speaking actor. The journalists ask questions like, "Was
there ever any water in the lunar Seas? That's what our readers will
want to know," allowing her to do her share of the educational
lecturing stuff.

The journalists don't believe the claims about the spaceship orbiting
the moon or the symbol on it, especially since the main witness is
Conway Henderson. Apparently he's not a very trustworthy or reliable
science journalist, with a reputation for inventing stories, which
makes it odd that he was the only one invited to watch the launch in
episode one. (Combine that with the rockets on the launch-pads and
you've got the makings of a great conspiracy theory!)

Meanwhile, back on the moon, Professor Wedgwood's team have found
another triangle carved into a rock. Professor Meadows describes them
as "hieroglyphics." Well, they may be glyphs, but the word "hieroglyphics"ought to refer to a specific system of Egyptian glyphs,
and there's no evidence that these triangular wedges were carved by
Egyptians! (Yes I am nitpicking now, but considering how didactic and educational this show tries to be, it really ought to make the effort
to avoid mistakes like that.)

And Geoffrey has been passing the time by making a spacesuit for
Hamlet the guinea pig. It looks like something the Blue Peter team
might make, complete with a couple of mini-oxygen cylinders made out
of pen lids. But he hasn't been able to make a cooling unit for it.
Instead there's two layers of glass-fibre insulation. (Well, it makes
a change from sticky-back plastic.) But it only gives two-hours
protection. As Geoffrey explains, this means that if you keep Hamlet
out on the lunar surface for longer, you'll have to open up your
spacesuit and slip him inside to let him cool down. (Geoffrey's
clearly inherited his father's grasp of practical strategic planning!)

Then, job completed, Geoffrey chats with Ian in the other rocket over
the radio. There's a rather embarrassing moment when the picture cuts
from Geoffrey's rocket to Ian's, but the sound effects don't switch
from Ian's distorted over-the-radio voice until ten seconds later.
Oops.

They discuss the possibility of life on the moon, and Geoffrey
suddenly becomes all scared and does some some very bad acting: "Do
you (*pause while he glances nervously over his shoulders*) think
(*pause while he glances over his shoulders again*) they're still here
(*pause glancing over shoulders once more*) whoever they are?" Even
after the conversation's over, he continues to act like a poor man's
Willie Best for a minute or so, until he suddenly snaps out of it, and
becomes his usual patronising self again.

We cut back to Professor Wedgwood's team walking across the moon. Or
at least standing still waiting for the floor manager to cue them to
start walking. Once the scene begins for real, the Professor says,
"Well, there are the lunar Apennines." This is followed by the same
model shot that represents the crater and every other part of the
lunar surface. That just might be a deliberate in-joke, since they
soon realise they're lost, and they've only got five hours of oxygen
left. Given that it will take them days to walk 150 miles over steep mountains, and they can only have been walking a few hours at most,
they should've thought about the oxygen issue before setting off!
Anyway, it gives O'Connell another chance to anticipate John Laurie's
acting style, which is fun.

It's approaching cliffhanger time. Back at the supply rocket, Jimmy
takes Hamlet to the crater's edge to show him the view. And falls
down a very, very obvious hole that he should've seen even while
holding a guinea pig. But that's not the cliffhanger.

Everyone rushes over to the deep hole, which turns out to to be an air-
shaft lined with metal. "This must be man-made... or made by some
creature like man," they helpfully explain for the benefit of any
viewers who might think that metal air-shafts are a natural part of
the lunar landscape. But that's not the cliffhanger.

At the bottom of the shaft, Jimmy and Hamlet are unharmed (pity!) and
in a dark cave. Luckily he's brought along an electric torch, even
though it was daylight on the surface. The movement of the studio
spotlight representing the torchlight isn't quite in synch with the
actor's movements. At one point it illuminates the back of his head
even though he's holding the torch in front of him. Anyway, as you've
probably guessed, he finds an abandoned alien spaceship. And, yes,
that's the cliffhanger. Oh well...

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