The Continuity GuideMoonbase Guide
by Martin Willey
The Continuity GuideThe reception area is around the Travel Tube doors, on a side corridor from the main corridor.
Generally the end door of the Travel Tube opens to the boarding tube and Eagle (or other spaceship). In The Bringers Of Wonder part 2 we see the Koenig travel from the regular "Travel Tube To Launch Pad 4" reception to another identical reception set, with the sign "Launch Pad Four". In Space Warp, the Maya/animal travels to different a Launch Area.
The Year 1 reception area was at the end of the corridor; for Year 2 it is a side corridor from the main corridor
Many of the set elements are the same. Both feature a reception desk (a distinctive curved table called the Jarama), two video screen booths on the walls (which are never used), a wall map of Alpha, and the doors to the Travel Tube. See corridor section for detailed analysis of the year 1 design.
The wall map is on the corner with the main corridor, and can frequently be seen from Command Center (see below). This is a modified version of the map that was in the year 1 corridor.
The two wall video phones appeared in the year 1 corridor by the travel tube. In Year 1, one of them had a red label over the top of the bubble canopy, which is gone in Year 2. The one closest to the travel tube has two red labels by the side; the other has the original long white label. They are never used in the series.
The doors have a sign "Travel Tube" above the door. Unlike year 1 travel tube doors there is no number.
On the right side of the door is often a red and blue sign "Travel Tube To Launch Pad 4". It is always launch pad 4. Sometimes the sign is missing, even if the travel tube is arriving from or going to the launch pad.
Below is the door control panel, a red Emergency Procedure sign, and two small black and white labels (the larger one is also seen on the inside of the Command Center doors).
The sign above the door changed once, in The Bringers Of Wonder part 2. We saw Koenig depart from the regular reception with the sign "Travel Tube To Launch Pad 4". Here he arrives at an identical Reception set, but the sign is now "Launch Pad Four" in blue, and the smaller label to the side has gone.
Like the year 1 corridor and Space Warp Launch Area, there is a Jarama desk. The chair is normally a Gaudi. It normally has a Pio Mazu Kartell desk container, normally white, occasionally orange.
It is normally positioned facing the travel tube doors, but occasionally gets moved elsewhere (Catacombs Of The Moon, some scenes in The Beta Cloud, and it gets blown over in A B Chrysalis and The Lambda Factor)
The Jarama desk is only used once, in The Metamorph by Jenny Cresswell. She also has a Decimo Time-machine calculator and an unidentified table lamp, which reappears in Seed of Destruction.
Usually there are two Selene chairs against the wall.
Concave corners are very rare in Moonbase Alpha; we only saw them before in the Solarium in Force of Life. The side lights adjacent to the Travel Tube doors are never illuminated.
This red label appears opposite the wall map for earlier episodes- it is last seen in Seed of Destruction and is gone by The Beta Cloud
The same sort of coffee machine appears in Command Center. It is rarely seen in Reception; it is only in The Metamorph. Space Warp, The Bringers Of Wonder part 1 and Dorzak. Usually it is by the video phones, but in Dorzak it moves up to the travel tube door.
Oddly there is sometimes a communications post in the middle of the reception area (there is another where it joins the corridor, 2 metres away). Seen in The Metamorph and A Matter of Balance.
The wall to the right of the travel tube door is the normal camera position and thus rarely seen (or existing).
The side door is only used in The Bringers Of Wonder part 2, but is also featured behind Maya in Dorzak when she is stunned.
There is another concave lighted wall behind the Sorella desk, with a blue "4" label seen in The Metamorph and The Beta Cloud. There is then a right angled corner to widen the room, although at least one shot in Seed of Destruction has an additional blank wall panel.
The reception set was part of an interconnecting group of sets. This is rarely used, but a few sequences do take advantage of it. There are a few long tracking shots from the Travel Tube to the Medical Center, in Catacombs Of The Moon during the episode titles when we track Osgood, later in the same episode Tony makes the same journey, and in The Bringers Of Wonder part 1 we track of Helena, Vincent and Koenig on a trolley. The connection between the travel tube and Command Center is implied, but without a continuous track, in The A B Chrysalis when Alan and the rescue astronauts arrive, and when the Superswift crew meet in The Bringers Of Wonder part 1
The Command Center rear doors face the reception area, and the wall map can often be seen through the open doors ( the cpostation post will usually shift to block the view of the travel tube doors). Despite this, in some episodes they don't use this travel tube door (for instance, in The Seance Spectre Koenig and Alan land their Eagle, but go to the Command Center doors along the main corridor from the direction of Medical).
In A Matter Of Balance it is the "Equipment Room". The signage by the door control panel is intact.
There's a single door opening to the main corridor intersection; the alignment seems out, with the left wall having been moved back a little. The two striped panels are illuminated in blue; the concave corner by the travel tube door is completely hidden by stacked boxes. The video phones have been replaced by Bisterfeld + Weiss wall shelves. The blue "4" label is still on the concave panel normally behind the Sorella desk.
It was slightly modified as a private dining room in The Taybor. The Travel Tube doors are behind Maya (the "Travel Tube" signs are gone, but the labels by the control panel are intact).
Behind Taybor, the wall video phones have gone. Instead there is a Bisterfeld + Weiss wall shelf, and the main corridor has been closed off with lighted wall panels.
Copyright Martin Willey