Day 593: Terminus Part 2

Given that the first episode of this story was spent mainly exploring the surrounds of where the TARDIS has landed, it seems to imply that this episode is where the plot shall begin. It does do this, but only to a certain extent. We meet more characters in this episode, and observe the fact that there is more going on on this ship than we thought. Aside from the plague victims that formed the cliffhanger to the first episode, there is also a society that is possibly dedicated to treating the plague victims, or possibly dedicated to keeping the plague victims away from the rest of society. The story's a bit vague on that point. And that's the problem with this episode of the story.

Stephen Gallagher, the writer, isn't really advancing the plot in this episode. We observe things happening, but we don't get an explanation of why they are important, or why we should care for the myriad of characters that are being introduced. Instead, we are expected to be intrigued by what is going on, and to continue watching to discover the inner mysteries of Terminus. But we don't care enough about the story to want to continue watching this story. There's an easy explanation for why this occurs, by the way. Tegan and Turlough have been confined to a ventilation shaft for the entire episode. The Doctor, along with a character that we met in Part 1, is still busy exploring the ship and trying to find the TARDIS. Only Nyssa engages with the story of Terminus with the space plague, and even then her involvement isn't large enough for us to truly invest in the story.

But here's the thing about it. If this were Part 1, I honestly wouldn't care about all of this. Part 1 is generally used to learn about the surroundings and to become invested in the plot, or to provide scant details about the plot to intrigue viewers into a new story. This isn't really expected for Part 2, where we want to get a little bit more invested in the plot, and get a strong idea of what the story is all about. This is the sort of structuring issue that should have been fixed in the script editing stage, meaning that blame falls to Eric Saward for this issue that hampers what does actually have some small potential as a story.