Terminus

Turlough's attempts to sabotage the TARDIS at the behest of the Black Guardian result in an emergency landing on a leper ship. The Doctor and Nyssa encounter a pair of pirates on board who have mistaken it for something else, and the ship docks at Terminus, a vast space station at the centre of the known universe. Nyssa contracts the Lazar disease and is sent for treatment by the sinsiter Vanir, the slave labourers who operate the station, and the Doctor realizes that Terminus is at the centre of the universe because in a way, it created it. And it could also destroy it too.

The first time I watched this one I actually had the flu, so the delerium of a high fever I was suffering at the time seemed to go quite well with the sickly atmosphere of Terminus itself. The moaning of the diseased lepers was more akin to a zombie film, as was their ragged shuffling through the corridors of their ships. And for the love of god why those awful skulls everywhere? When you go to a hospital you might hope to see more cheerful motifs, not a death's head grinning at you everywhere you look. Still, if anyone has ever been to the nuclear medicine wing of Sunnybrook hospital they would tell you that big signs that say THE JOY OF LIFE are not the most comforting either. The sets of Terminus are drab and a half, with the inner works of the station being nothing more than scaffold with plastic stretched across it, and not a lot of light. "I think they ran out of money," Jay opined from his end of the couch when we watched it together on Sunday night. Still, the show has some atmosphere to it, even though it is probably by accident. Or imagined by viewers with a fever.

We made some technical comments this time, noting how there were some interesting angles used in the shooting, but none of them for any real reason. There was a low angle shot that looked quite promising until someones boots walked right up to it and stood there. Nyssa sits amongst the dying Lazars in one scene and rather than cut to a different shot the sequences dissolve into each other, but the effect is might be trying for, to show Nyssa alone and afraid, is lost as the directing style is not sustained. The best has to be, though, a hasty attempt towards the end of part two when a Vanir walks under a stairway that Peter Davison is standing on; we can see his shoes but then a small square of stairway is superimposed over it to cover it up. It took me something like 18 years to notice this, and when I showed it to Jay we just has to laugh. Cause crying isn't allowed in Doctor Who.

Costumes have long been an issue on the show when it comes to practicality and design. In this case the fishbowl helmets worn by Kari and Olvir are neither practical or stylish. I suppose they needed big helmets to hold in their hairstyles. As pirates they are pretty sad; they are routinely overpowered, they wear bad clothes and one shot drains the powerpack of one of their guns. The Vanir are really no better with their fibreglass body armour which I suppose is designed to make them look more muscular, but it really draws more attention to the fact that it is just held on with elastics. And then there's the Garm, a massive St Bernard-ish creature wearing what looks like a leftover Kraag outfit from Shada (well, the original realization of Shada at any rate; I'll explain later). I am not going to comment on the Garm. Words fail me. They don't fail Jay, though. "Sean what is that?" he asked, gesturing with a Timbit.

Turlough's role as an agent of evil is not exactly played up much as he spends the bulk of the show crawling around inside air ducting with Tegan. Air ducting that is all shot on film, I might add. Jay figures they didn't have a small enough studio video camera to shoot it properly. I will assume he is right; I am not technical minded usually. But their forced confinement together softens Tegan a bit, although her distrust of Turlough is by no means unjustified - he's working for the BLACK GUARDIAN for goddess' sake. It also helps make a bit more of a bond between them because soon the TARDIS family is gonna be one short.

It's the end of the road for Nyssa. Some might have figured/hoped she was going to die of Lazar disease, but when she herself is cured of it and realizes there is a better way she decides to use her bioengineering skills (which we are reminded of in the first part of the adventure) to help the Lazars and the Vanir. The incidental music folks at the radiophonic workshop recreate her theme from Keeper of Traken for her departure scene (outdoing themselves this time since they evoked Adric's theme from Full Circle in part one when Turlough is given the dead boy's room) and it is here where we see Nyssa at her most emotional, hugging Tegan as she says goodbye. At least she got a new outfit this episode, even if it was a burlap sack to cover up the lingerie she was running around in the rest of the adventure. Nothing like going out with a bang.

NEXT EPISODE : ENLIGHTENMENT