The Moonbase ( TV story ) The Moonbase was the sixth story of season 4 of " Doctor Who " . It saw the reappearance and first redesign of the Cybermen , solidifying their place as one of the series ' key villains . This story was the first in " Doctor Who " history with sequences taking place on Earth ' s Moon . Jamie is incapacitated for most of the story , and as a result his appearance in the story is limited . Currently , episodes one and three are missing from the BBC film archive . However , they were animated for the DVD release in 2014 . Synopsis . The TARDIS arrives in 2070 on the Moon , where a weather control station under the command of a man named Hobson is in the grip of a plague epidemic — in reality the result of an alien poison planted by the Cybermen . Jamie is knocked unconscious and lapses into a delirium , leaving the Second Doctor , Ben , and Polly to fight off a massive Cyberman attack . Plot . Episode one . The TARDIS makes a bumpy landing after the Doctor manages to control its descent . The travellers observe the scanner , and Polly says that they have landed on Mars after all . Ben disagrees and says it must be the Moon . The Doctor agrees . Annoyed that he failed to control the ship , he wants to move on straight away but is overruled by Ben and Polly , who want to explore . The Doctor reluctantly agrees and decks them out in space suit s . The travellers explore the surface of the Moon . They begin to lark about in the lower gravity , but Jamie over stretches himself and knocks himself out . As the others go to save him they discover his unconscious body being carried away into a Moonbase . They follow and the door opens , welcoming them . Inside the Moonbase a staff of workers are operating a series of consoles . One of the workers collapses , leaving marks on his face . Hobson , the controller , sends the man to sick bay to join the others who have come down with this virus — who include the base ' s doctor . Ben , Polly and the Doctor are led in . Hobson allows Polly to look after Jamie in the sick bay but keeps the Doctor and Ben with him . Hobson explains that the Moonbase is a weather control station that keeps Earth ' s weather in check . They are using a gravity machine called the gravitron to control the weather . As this is being explained , another worker falls ill . The Doctor offers his services . The Moonbase contacts Space Control to inform them ; Space Control reacts by quarantining the Moonbase . One of the crew informs Hobson that their latest communication with Space Control was listened in on by someone close to the base . Down in the sick bay Polly is looking after Jamie , who is hallucinating about the Phantom Piper , his clan ' s variant of the Grim Reaper . The Doctor sends Ben back up to the control room as he needs someone to be keeping an eye on the goings on up there . He does so and is allocated to work with Ralph in the storeroom . Once he gets there , he discovers that someone has been stealing food . He is sent to do a job and while he is away Ralph is attacked by a metal hand . By the time Ben returns Ralph ' s body is gone . Back in the sick bay , Polly discovers the Doctor investigating some silver paper . They are interrupted by Dr Evans , the base ' s previous doctor , who wakes up and screams something about the silver hand before collapsing dead . The Doctor wonders what he might have meant and goes to report the death to Hobson . Ben is reporting the disappearance of Ralph to Hobson when the Doctor comes to explain about Dr Evans ' death . Hobson refuses to report it to Space Control just yet as they will close his operation today . He goes down with the Doctor to observe Evans ' body . In the sick bay , Polly is helping Jamie to drink some water . He wakes up to see a figure behind Polly . She turns and sees it disappear through the door . She screams , alerting the Doctor and others . On exploration there is found to be nothing there . Hobson puts this down to Polly ' s nerves . Hobson goes over to Dr Evans ' bed and finds the body gone . He asks the Doctor if he is playing a sick joke , but the Doctor assures he isn ' t . Hobson is informed of another crew member going down with the virus and leaves , telling the Doctor that he will be kicked out if he can ' t find Evans ' body . The Doctor goes to explore whilst Polly leaves to fetch Jamie some water . He awakes to see a Cyberman approaching him — convinced that it is the phantom piper , he collapses . Episode two . The Cyberman goes to take another body , but as he leaves Polly witnesses the Cyberman ' s exit . She screams , which alerts the Doctor and the others . Polly insists it was Cybermen , but Hobson does not believe her due to lack of evidence . He sends guards out to scour the base for any signs . Hobson begins to suspect that the situation might be down to the presence of the Doctor and his friends as the situation has only escalated since their arrival . Ben says they are more than happy to leave , but the Doctor says they have to stay as he feels he should stay and protect the base from the evils of the universe . Hobson gives the Doctor 24 hours to sort out the situation or else he is to leave the Moonbase . Left alone , the Doctor says that he wants to analyse everything in the Moonbase . When asked if he is a medical doctor , he says he took a medical degree in Glasgow in 1888 under Joseph Lister . Back in the control room Hobson notices that the Gravitron is becoming faulty and is stopping them from being able to control the hurricane on Earth . The Commander of the Space Control contacts them and states that it is of the utmost importance they protect mainland America from this hurricane . Hobson sets about testing every part of the centre . The Doctor enters and begins to take samples from the crew as they go about their work . They begin to get frustrated as they find nothing wrong . In the sick bay , Ben leaves Polly to get some more supplies . When he is gone , a Cyberman sneaks up to Jamie and Polly and attacks them both . He goes to take Jamie before deciding to take another body . The Doctor enters and nurses Polly back to health . Unbeknownst to any one on the base , there is a hole in the food bay where at least one Cyberman is stowed away . In the control room , one of the engineers discovers a fault with one of the antenna . Hobson asks when it went awry and is told it tallies with the Doctor ' s arrival . This makes him more convinced about the Doctor and his friends , and he goes to kick them off the Moonbase . As he does he is told by Ben that another person has been taken from the sick bay . Two crew members prepare themselves to go out and check the antenna . In the sick bay , the Doctor explains to Polly that he has tested everything on the base and has found nothing . When Hobson enters , the Doctor acts like he is too busy to talk to him , pushing him out of the laboratory . When he tries to kick the Doctor off the Moonbase , the Doctor pretends to have found something . As soon as Hobson leaves , the Doctor tells Polly it was all a ruse and that he is nowhere . Polly offers to make coffee for everyone . Out on the surface of the Moon , the two engineers are attacked by Cyberman , stripped of their suits and taken away . As the coffee is served to the crew , the Doctor admits that he has no clue as to what is causing the disease . As Hobson and the Doctor talk , one of the crew collapses — another subject of the disease . He is taken to the sick bay . As Hobson is about to drink his coffee , the Doctor knocks it from his hand , suspecting that it is the sugar that is contaminating his crew . He rushes down to the sick bay , and his suspicions are confirmed when he finds a large neurotropic virus that attacks the nerves laced through the sugar . Hobson asks how it has been put there , and the Doctor states it must be the Cybermen — Hobson says that his men have looked everywhere . Conspiratorially the Doctor asks if they have checked in the sick bay where they are now . Hobson says they didn ' t have to as there is always someone in here . They begin to look around when they discover a Cyberman on one of the beds covered by sheets . Polly gasps in horror as it gets off the bed and moves towards them . . . Episode three . Another Cyberman enters . Bob , a crew member , is killed when he tries to attack one of the Cybermen . The new Cyberman links back to the Cybership . The Cybermen explain that the men that have gone missing are not dead , just altered , and that Jamie was left because his head was damaged in the fall , rendering him useless to the Cybermen . The Cybermen order Hobson to take them to the control room and tell Ben and Polly to remain in the sick bay . In the Cybership , the Cybermen are converting the members of the crew to operate under their control . They are placed into capsules for delivery back on the Moonbase . In the control room , the crew attempt to contact the engineers who went out to fix the aerial . There is no response . Their activity is disrupted by Hobson leading in the Cybermen . They explain they are to take over the Gravitron to destroy the Earth so as to eliminate any danger . They also explain that they gained access to the Moonbase under the ground . Back in the sick bay Jamie wakes up , and the trio talk about how to get the Cybermen . Ben speculates about radiation whilst Jamie suggests holy water . Polly takes Jamie ' s idea and thinks about how nail varnish dissolves plastic and that the Cybermen ' s control panel seems to be made of plastic . Ben and Polly mix together a number of solvents and place them in a spray . The trio leave armed with their corrosive liquid . In the control room , the old crew , now under the control of the Cybermen , are led in and take the places of the human crew controlling the Gravitron . The Doctor fiddles with a piece of machinery that renders the controlled crew temporarily useless . The Doctor speculates that they are under sonic control . He speculates that the Cybermen are having the controlled crew work on the Gravitron because they don ' t like gravity . Sensing the change in weather , Earth attempts to contact the Moonbase , but the Cybermen order that there is to be no reply . Earth asks them to deploy a flare if they are under duress . One of the controlled crew collapses under the exposure to the thermo - nuclear power in the Gravitron , but the Cybermen make him come back to life . As the Doctor begins to experiment with the Cybermen ' s sonic control , Ben , Polly and Jamie enter , spraying their solvents which have the desired effects . The Cybermen crumble to the floor . The Doctor quickly removes the headpieces from the controlled crew , who are then rushed to the sick bay . In the Cybership , the waiting Cybermen note the lack of contact from their colleagues . One of the Cybermen tells the other to prepare their weapons for the invasion of the base . On the Moonbase , Benoit , a member of the crew , suggests he go out and look for the engineers that went missing . Hobson agrees but says he needs to be observed by another member of the crew . Benoit finds the suits and contacts the Moonbase . As he does , he hears his crew mate warning him of the Cyberman , but Benoit doesn ' t see a Cyberman until he turns and sees it directly behind him . The Cyberman attempts to shoot at him , but his gun does not work in space vacuum . Benoit rushes off with the Cyberman in pursuit . Benoit is tiring and will be caught before returning to the Moonbase , but Ben emerges from the airlock and throws a flask of the corrosive liquid at the Cyberman . Back on the Moonbase , Hobson prepares for more assaults . They have located the Cybership . Hobson goes to look at it in the telescope and sees an army of Cybermen marching across the surface of the Moon towards them . Episode four . The Cybermen contact the Moonbase to tell them that they have surrounded them and that resistance is useless . Hobson is defiant and replies that they have blocked their point of entry . Hobson attempts to contact Earth and finds the signal has been jammed through the Cybermen interfering with the signal . The crew speculate that all they need to do is wait it out for the relief craft that Earth would send due to the lack of communication with the Moonbase . The Cybership has picked up the imminent arrival of the ship and orders the army of Cybermen to deal with that first before gaining entry to the Moonbase . One of the Cybermen transmits out a control signal which awakens Evans in the Moonbase sick bay . He knocks his guard out and leaves the sick bay . Evans manages to infiltrate the control room . He sneaks into the control centre of the Gravitron , knocking out the crew member and taking his place . The rest of the crew are delighted to see the relief craft approach but become confused when it begins to change course and accelerate . The ship is on a direct path heading for the sun . The Doctor suggests that the only thing that would have caused this would be some sort of deflection from the Gravitron . It is then they discover Evans in control of the Gravitron and guilty of diverting the ship . The Doctor sends Jamie and Ben to go to the sick bay to ensure that the other crew have not been reanimated and to barricade them inside . They guard outside , but soon enough the crew awake and try to make their way through the barricade . In the control room Hobson is using the tannoy to try to reason with Evans , but to no avail . They decide to rush him but are stopped by the Cybermen communicating with them , saying that the Moonbase is now under their control . They fire a laser into the side of the Moonbase , sucking the oxygen out . As the crew begin to suffocate , Hobson and Benoit fix the hole using a coffee tray . Amongst the chaos , the Doctor notices that Evans has collapsed and moves him from the control room . To Hobson and the Doctor ' s shock , another Cybership lands and a weapon is unloaded from it . The crew dive for cover , but the Doctor stoically stands his ground . As they fire , the laser is deflected from the gravitational force of the Gravitron . This success gives the Doctor an idea . He asks if the Gravitron can be dipped so low it could have a bearing on the surface of the Moon . Benoit and Hobson say it has never been tried , but they attempt it . With a few minor adjustments to the machine it is achieved , which sends the Cybermen and their ships floating off into space . Before Hobson has a chance to thank the Doctor , he and his companions have disappeared . Borrowing some space suits to get back to the TARDIS , they see a ship fly overhead . The Doctor speculates that this will not be the last they see of the Cybermen . Once back at the TARDIS , the Doctor is curious to see what becomes of the Moonbase and elects to use his time scanner to see its future . Before he gets a chance to do this , Polly , now stricken with fear , points out that a large claw has emerged onto the scanner .