From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho.moderated
From Address: solar.penguin@gmail.com
Subject: Pathfinders in Space -- 4. The Man in the Moon

The picture quality is much worse on this episode, with many dropouts especially in the first half. In fact, none of the episodes have been restored, or at least not to the standard that the RT do for the DW
DVDs. But this one is worse than most.

Anyway, the cliffhanger reprise is different from the ending last
week. We don't get to see Jimmy discovering the derelict spaceship.
Instead, we stay at the top of the shaft, and he shouts up that he's
found it.

Henderson climbs down the shaft to investigate, telling Geoffrey and
Valerie to stay behind. But they insist on following him because, "We
should stick together, Mr Henderson." Naturally no-one thinks of
radioing in to tell the other party what's going on!

In the cave, they find a lever at the bottom of the shaft. Henderson
tells Geoffrey not to touch it, and right away, Geoffrey does. The
hatch closes, sealing the shaft, trapping them. And only then do they
start to worry how the others will ever find them.

Not that the others are doing much better. Professor Wedgwood and his
team are lost and walking round in circles. "I recognise that rock,"
complains O'Connell, beating DW's "All these corridors look the same,"
by a good many years!

Despite this, Wedgwood announces they've past the point of no return,
and are now closer to the supply rocket than the first rocket. Even
though has no way of knowing this, since they're totally lost!
(Perhaps it's just empty morale raising rhetoric?) Anyway, they find
more little triangles, and decide they must be arrows marking the way
through the mountains.

There are more symbols being discovered by the kids in the cave.
Jimmy asks Hamlet the guinea pig if they're guinea pig language. But
he doesn't get an answer.

Ian, who was left behind in the first rocket, is talking to Jean at
mission control over the radio. He mentions that the suits can only
hold four hours of oxygen. Dialogue later in the episode confirms
this is four hours maximum. Which is odd because last week the suits
were down to five hours oxygen remaining after being in use for
several hours!

However, it doesn't matter, since the Professor's party have reached
the supply rocket, where they can rest and refill their oxygen tanks.

But down in the cave, Henderson and the kids are running out of
oxygen. Apparently one of the main symptoms of oxygen starvation is
wild, melodramatic overacting before passing out. When everyone's
unconscious, the cave's main double doors swing open flooding it with
light...

We're treated to a pointless sequence of Ian playing chess against
himself back in the rocket. It's not even necessary for technical
reasons, (e.g. giving other actors time to get into position for the
next scene) since there's an ad break here!

Back in the cave, it turns out the doors were opened by Wedgwood and
his party, who'd found the entrance, and have now revived their
unconscious colleagues with spare oxygen. Including Hamlet somehow,
even though his suit should be too small to connect to their air
pipes.

Once all the reunions are over, they decide to make the cave their
base. It's doors are airtight, and there's an airlock, which is more
than there is on their rockets. They can flood it with oxygen and
have a breathable atmosphere. (I'm not sure how much oxygen it
would take to fill the large cavern and all its side tunnels, but
probably more than the couple of cylinders we eventually see being
used.)

Back on earth, there's once again an establishing shot of the base
with the rockets on the launch pads. This is the third week in a row,
so it must be deliberate. But why? Are these a couple of extra
rockets that the technicians built from scratch immediately after the
first ones took off?

Or are the astronauts still on earth, being brainwashed with
hallucinogenic drugs to make them think they're on the moon, as part
of some sinister experiment? That's the only thing which would
explain the momentum-defying spacesuits, the inconsistent timings, and
the general stupidity. And I think I know who's behind it... When
the radio technicians are sceptical about the Professor's report about
the abandoned spaceship, Jean suddenly gets very, very strict and
orders them to release it to the press anyway. It's as if she's up to something.

Meanwhile on the "moon" (yeah, right!) they've set up their base in
the cave, and are now examining the derelict spaceship. (In case
you're wondering, it's roughly the same size and shape as the one in "Quatermass and the Pit", what a coincidence!) Despite not being able
to get into it, Prof Wedgwood is certain that it must've run on
"atomic power, it couldn't have been anything else." Ahh, that early
sixties optimism about all things nuclear!

Conversation is cut short by the discovery of water droplets dripping
from the roof. Dr O'Connell looks at the water under a microscope,
and everyone (except Jimmy who's too small to see over them) eagerly
gathers round to watch him, as though looking at a man looking into a microscope is the most exciting thing ever. As a result of his
inspection, he announces that the water was originally vapour that
condensed and froze onto the ceiling and has now been melted by their
body heat. (He can tell that just by looking at it?)

While all this was going on, Hamlet wandered off into the tunnels, and
Jimmy ran off after him him, calling "I told you to stay where you
were." None of the human characters have stayed where they were when
told (apart from Ian, the living personification of blandness) so why
should the guinea pig be any different?

Valerie notices that Jimmy is missing, and wanders off to look for
him. At the end of a tunnel she finds a statue of a man. And she
screams because it's the cliffhanger.

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