The Cybermen Return

The Doctor, Polly Wright, Ben Jackson and Jamie McCrimmon find themselves on the Moon in the year 2070. Dressed in spacesuits The Doctor and his three companions venture outside to enjoy the low gravity environment. However, while fooling around Jamie injures himself.

With Jamie rendered unconscious they discover that they are near a domed lunar base. When two men appear, and take Jamie inside, The Doctor, Ben and Polly follow. Inside Jamie is taken to the sickbay while The Doctor and his two remaining companions discover that the Moonbase is a weather tracking and managing station - staffed by an international crew and managed by the bullish Hobson. They also learn that the Moonbase uses a gravity machine called the Gravitron to control the Earth’s weather.

But a suspicious plague has erupted among the base's crew, and the Gravitron has been experiencing mysterious faults. With the arrival of the time travellers Hobson instantly suspects that they are responsible. Then one of the patients in the sickbay dies of the mysterious virus.

The Doctor

In an attempt to clear their names The Doctor volunteers to do some detective work. Hobson is sceptical but allows The Doctor twenty four hours to cure the plague that is affecting more and more of his staff. And so The Doctor sets up a laboratory in the sickbay and uses the base's medical equipment to investigate the plague. With the help of Polly and Ben they start the job of collecting as many samples from around the Moonbase so that they can be tested.

Meanwhile in the control centre Hobson is struggling with more problems caused by the seemingly malfunctioning Gravitron. But to shut the machine down is not an option as it is needed to help deflect a hurricane away from the coast of America. As the scientists make thorough checks of the systems The Doctor bustles around taking samples of various items for testing.

Polly is Attacked

Then things take a turn for the worse, proving something is definitely amiss, when a member of the Moonbase’s crew disappears in the food stores, and a radio operator notices that the Moonbase’s radio transmissions are being monitored from somewhere else on the Moon. Unknown to all those in the Moonbase, a saucer shaped craft lies in a nearby crater.

With more and more of the crew suffering from the plague The Doctor realises, after examining some of the plague sufferers who have died and been bought into the sickbay, that their symptoms do not indicate a virus at all – but he is still none the wiser as to what is causing their symptoms and so find a cure.

Feverish and slipping in and out of consciousness, Jamie, who is still in sickbay, begins mumbling about a ‘Phantom Piper’ he claims to have seen. Then, when no one is in the sickbay, a large silver figure appears and takes away one of the bodies – distressing the delirious Jamie even more. Then Polly returns and catches a glimpse of the body-snatcher. Polly instantly recognises it and is able to tell The Doctor that their old enemies, the Cybermen, are stalking the Moonbase. The Cybermen it seems have been taking the bodies of the dead crewmen.

Jamie in the Sickbay

The Cybermen, are covertly at work in a new attempt to invade the Earth and The Doctor works out that they have planted an alien poison into the sugar, which has been kept in a food store, as a means to destabilise the crew. Now that the Cybermen’s presence within the Moonbase has been detected they emerge from hiding and use their weapons to take control of the Moonbase.

It soon becomes apparent that the Cybermen want to use the Gravitron to destroy all life on Earth by altering the weather. They have reconditioned three of the missing crewmembers, none of whom were really dead, and turned them into zombie-like slaves. They are sent into the heart of the Gravitron so as to take control of the machine.

Polly deduces that as the Cybermen's chest units are made of plastic then they must be vulnerable to attack by solvents. Using fire extinguishers filled with a 'cocktail' of various solvents and other objects that attack plastic, Ben, Polly and a recovered Jamie lead a fightback from their incarceration in the sickbay. All the Cybermen are finally dealt with and the humans manage to regain control of the Moonbase and, more importantly, the Gravitron.

Jamie In Danger

But this only prompts a bigger army of Cybermen to attack. They advance on the Moonbase through the vacuum of the Moon’s surface destroying a relief craft dispatched to help the Moonbase crew. They then use radio controlled beams to reactivate their zombies inside the base so as to regain control of the Gravitron. Luckily the Cybermen’s slaves are detected before any more damage is don on Earth.

Realising they have been thwarted again the Cybermen threaten to use a large cannon, that they have erected on the Moon’s surface, to blow a hole in the Moonbase unless the humans stop their resistance. In response The Doctor has the Gravitron pointed at the surface of the Moon and, using its intense power, the Cybermen army are sent flying off into space.

As Hobson and his team start to return the Gravitron to its proper use, and so bring Earth’s weather back under control, The Doctor and his companions take the opportunity to slip away unnoticed. Back in the TARDIS they dematerialise. But when they activate the scanner they see, to their horror, a huge crustacean's claw waving around...