Day 595: Terminus Part 4

Terminus is an odd beast of a story. There are parts of it that are actually rather good, such as, for instance, the fact that we discover that the Big Bang was caused by accident due to a load of unstable fuel being released, and that another accident that may end up occurring will cause the destruction of the Universe, which the Doctor must try and prevent. Other parts of the story aren't so good, such as the general structure, which gives almost two parts before half of the regular cast meet somebody relevant to the overall plot, which causes for some unwelcome structuring issues. Each good decision made in the making of the story can be given a counterexample of how bad a decision it is and vice versa. Roger Limb's music is rather poor throughout, but then gets quite touching at the end, for example. The design of the ship is well crafted, but overlit, removing all of its atmosphere. The Garm is a good character on the page, but a weak character on screen. Tegan and Turlough have good character moments at the beginning of the story, but are left essentially pointless by the end. All of these things leave me confused as to the quality of Terminus. Because, on the one hand, I really don't like it, but on the other, I can appreciate what they're trying to do, and I have to give the story at least some credit for that.

These are sentiments that can also be applied to the character of Nyssa, who leaves at the end of this story to go on and fight the space plague by developing a workable cure. She's a character that's more of a traditional Doctor Who companion, being technically minded, trusting of the Doctor, and a rather nice person. But she's constantly written badly, such as in Terminus, where for three episodes she constantly screams and worries about her predicament, or for Earthshock, where all she does is stay in the TARDIS for almost all of the story. But when she's written well, the character does actually work. Snakedance sees her as a loyal assistant to the Doctor, and a kind and caring friend for Tegan. The Visitation has her destroy the robot with a machine she built in the TARDIS, whilst acting as a calmer counterpoint to Tegan's complaining and Adric's whining. All in all, she's a good character, and I will miss her, but mainly because they managed to miss an opportunity with the character, and they could have had something really interesting.