The Continuity Guide
Moonbase Guide
by Martin Willey

Filming wider shots with actors in front is difficult to set up, so shots like these were used sparingly- either the screen is shown in close up, or it is out of shot.

In Breakaway and some early episodes, certain shots are back projection. Normally they were post-production inserts.

The Big Screen has a border with squares that illuminate randomly. Normally it is shown in close up, which is considerably easier to film. The squares show symbols, blocks and numbers in red, green and yellow (the yellows are green symbols that change into red). Thanks to Scatta.

The "wallpaper" image normally shown on set, a large intricate grid diagram with circles (an on-set backing).

Part of the "wallpaper". It is slightly changed and reused in Year Two.

Red and Yellow Alert in Matter Of Life and Death- with a normal black and white screen. The black and white Red Alert also appears in Black Sun. The small screens are 9 inch (18cm x 14cm), the large screens are 12 inch (24cm x 118cm).

In Last Sunset, we see a mixture of orange and red colours, unusually on all four screens.

Other graphics, text and images are always black and white (this from Voyager's Return).

Computer panels under the Big Screen are frequently used; the four black and white screens are the only ones in Main Mission.

They are often used to display the medical readings for pilots during missions.

Oddly the lower small screen is sticking out at the top in Matter Of Life and Death. Under the screens, the Space Models company name and logo appear ("SM" in a circle). Perhaps because it was so obvious, they put a black label over the text nearest Helena, but the "Space Models DataFix Ltd" is legible to camera on the nearer panel.

Generally the two smaller screens show medical traces or Red Alert status.

Typically, the screens show views of the Moonbase or launch pads, plus video communication. In Voyager's Return we see one of the screens shows a starmap.

The same starmap appears, with a rotating radar effect, in The Last Enemy, The Troubled Spirit, Space Brain and The Infernal Machine.

The constellations depicted are those of the northern hemisphere as seen from our solar system. Presumably, the superimposed star map makes it easier to recognise which part of the sky is being scanned by the radar beam (the radar array scans the entire northern sky and the sweeps seem to be centred on the Pole Star). However, the constellation lines should have changed beyond recognition as the Moon supposedly had travelled millions of light years, so the map may in fact be an obsolete leftover from pre-Breakaway times. (Thanks to Marcus Lindroos)

The clock panel varies in position- normally it is on the left as seen here. The clock is a Metamec (also used on the communications panels). This panel first appears in some scenes in Ring Around The Moon.

In Ring Around The Moon we see it producing a print-out.

It is the only panel not removed from Main Mission in Another Time Another Place, as one of its functions is the Moonbase navigation signal.